Time to mix things up a little bit at the dojang.
Last night, we had Grandmaster Lee for our instructor. I always like having him because he brings a sincere level of enthusiasm that is pretty contagious. We ran through our curriculum that we're going to be tested on this coming Saturday in fairly short order with some final pointers from him on technique. After that, he started us in on some self defense training.
One of the 1st to 2nd degree black belt requirements is to learn 12 self defense techniques. He explained to us that he wanted us to get started on them now so he wouldn't have to teach us from scratch when we got to that level. The two that he showed us last night are to defend against someone grabbing our collar and throwing a fist at our face. On my turns as the attacker, I ended up on my back quite quickly, even when I was facing a kid half my size. Mentally, you know that if someone can use your balance against you, that you can easily be taken down. However, it's one thing to think about and quite another to be the victim of such an imbalance. I never thought I could fall to the floor so quickly.
We were told that they are going to have a set schedule at the dojang for doing "other things" besides straight taekwondo. The 1st week of each month will be self defense. 1 week is out of each month is going to be nunchuku. We've done nunchaku once or twice before but they are going to make it a regular scheduled program.
I'm really looking forward to the variety but I hope that the basic taekwondo doesn't suffer. There is only so much time in class after all.
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Once, when studying Aikido, I was thrown across the mat by an old woman less than 1/2 my weight. I was trying REALLY hard to not let her do it. I stopped thinking that it was all an act at that moment.
Sure there is some acting when doing demos but the thing that happens when someone really understands balance and using someone's force against them is so very real ... and so very painful.
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