the way of the feet and fist

And now.....I'm employed.

2012-01-09T22:48:00.002-07:00

Apparently, if you hang around teaching at the dojang long enough, Kwonjanim starts to feel a little guilty and puts you on the payroll.

Well, that's not exactly true. However, my contract was up at the dojang and I really couldn't afford to pay full retail price for training anymore. I went in and negotiated. I'm now on the payroll with a set schedule for teaching to help offset the cost of training. The part time job was his idea of course. I was just hoping for a cheaper rate.

I keep getting the white belts to teach on a regular basis. The most difficult thing to deal with is the wide age range of the students. The littlest kids need the most help and most attention. They consume a lot of time in class. However, I must counter my attention to them with enough information and training for the adults that they don't get bored. It's a tricky balancing act.

The reward is seeing the progress your white belts are making. It's baby steps for the moment but I like to think that although I'm teaching the most basic of skills, I'm teaching them a good foundation to build on and avoid mistakes later. The devil is in the details.

all by myself

2011-11-21T22:24:00.001-07:00

I led an introductory class all by myself tonight. When Grandmaster asked me to do it, I thought I could handle it. Walking into the classroom with 18 people staring at me....well....a bit of stage fright set in.

Stupid things I messed up:

Counting to 10 in Korean. I got 2 of the numbers mixed up (7 and 8). This is literally something I can do backwards and forwards in my sleep. Yeah....I dream in a little Korean.
The bow-out procedure.
Correcting the kid standing right next to me when he was doing back leg round houses instead of a front leg round house.
Doing a cross punch incorrectly with my left hand (it was rotated the wrong way). I had a parent point it out to me afterwards.
Showing the protocol for returning to ready stance after an exercise.
A little too much explaining of korean terms.

The few things I did right:

Enthusiasm: I made myself hoarse, lots of high fives, lots of energy.
Cheesey: I laid on the enthusiasm a bit thick and made sure I was a little goofy at times to get the kids attention.
Lots of pointing out to kids giving them praise for doing technique correctly.

I have to say that that I wasn't completely alone. Another black belt was in the room reminding me how to do things right when I had my momentary lapse of reason. She was a life saver.

What you lack in experience, make up in enthusiasm.

The best way to know...

2011-10-28T22:38:00.001-06:00

Our class structure starts out with meditation and warm ups. After that, the class usually breaks up into smaller groups with a pair of assistant instructors at each group. The lead instructor has one assistant instructor lead the group while the other pays attention to individual students who are needing that extra bit of help. I've usually been that "other" instructor. A couple weeks ago, I was put in charge of a group to teach them the first 8 moves of a form (Palgwe Yook Jong) that I had only recently learned myself (I did Taegeuk forms during my black belt training). It's a fairly straightforward form that is deceptively simple to do but if you make a mistake it's very obvious. It has to be darn near perfect to look right.

So....my brain went blank. I couldn't remember how it started. Part of it was panic attack in the "OMG, I'm leading a whole group, what am I going to do" vein of attacks. The tune stagefright popped into my head.

I improvised.

I asked the students who had done it before. Several of the students raised their hand. I called on one of them to demonstrate for the rest of us. I suddenly remembered what to do. All was well. I led them through the form step by step giving instruction each step of the way. I realized I knew the form better than I thought and came away from the evening with one thought in my head......The best way to know that you know something is when you can teach it to others.

I'll be forever grateful for that student demonstrating though.

Bonus points for today: without googling it up, name the arena the music video is from. I'm proud to say I was at that concert. Mullet, ripped jeans, bandanas and all. There was a camera rolling on a track right in front of me the whole time.

Teaching How To Teach

2011-08-20T23:06:00.003-06:00

Is this going to be my thoughts on recursion? Some weird take on Inception? No, this is what I actually did today.

We had leadership class at TKD. At my dojang, once you reach 4th Geup (start at 10 as a white belt, count down to 1 which is just before 1st Dan black), you are eligible to join leadership class. Join leadership is a requirement to reach to reach 2nd degree black belt. In leadership class, we learn how to teach lower level belts their curriculum. Up until today, I had only participated in this class really as a student.

Today, as a junior instructor, I had to teach the other students how to teach the curriculum. This was one part of becoming an instructor that hadn't crossed my mind. It's one thing to be able to teach the core curriculum that you've been practicing yourself for so long. However, it's quite another to teach a topic that you aren't so sure you've got handled right yourself.

I think I did ok. The number 1 fear that most people have is the fear of public speaking. Getting people, especially kids, to overcome that fear and at least attempt to teach others is a bit of a reward. I'm happy to say that all of my group was able to at least go through this exercise once, even if none of them did a perfect job. (I know I didn't).

F.E.A.R.

2011-08-14T19:51:00.002-06:00

Grandmaster Lee is in China the next couple of weeks helping the US National Team in a competition (I think the 26th Summer Universiade). While he is there, Grandmaster Seo and a few of his teenage instructors came to our school and took over a day of classes. It's always good to get a fresh perspective on something you have been studying for quite some time. Grandmaster Seo and his students were very impressive in their discipline and technique. One of my fellow students even commented "They are like little ninjas."

On top of technique, Master Seo shared a bit of his philosophy. Yeah, I think cheesy bumper sticker acronyms are a bit cliche but this one struck a chord with me: F.E.A.R - False Evidence Appearing Real. Maybe you've heard this one before but it was new to me. As a martial artist attempting to do new things as I advance (for example, combination kicks that involve spinning), I occasionally get to a point where I say to myself "Oh...I can't do that. I'm going to hurt myself." I somehow build up in my mind that I'm not going to be able to do something without even attempting it. If I look at the real evidence though, I will probably make a mistake. I will probably actually fall to the ground. However, the chances of me actually injuring myself is pretty small. This is especially true when I look at the environment I train in. I practice on pads, I have plenty of room, I've been trained how to fall. It's not like I'm dropping from 1 story up. I'm already on the ground.

The other big reason I believe this is because I generally don't understand the individual steps that it takes to execute the maneuver. The end result can be very impressive but each individual component is doable. With that in mind, Master Seo had my classmates and executing a combination kick of a step-behind-hook/spin-hook/tornado kick. My initial reaction when he asked us to do this was "I'm going to get so dizzy and fall." However, I can do each kick individually. Putting them in a sequence that looks fluid is a bit of a trick but is also doable with practice.

Stating the obvious, but this is true for the rest of my life. If something is scaring you inaction because of "F.E.A.R", break what you need to do down into individual steps. Look at each step individually and it won't be so daunting. Yet another instance of "I don't do martial arts. Martial arts is who I am."

Zen and The Art of Software Development

2011-06-28T23:38:00.000-06:00

At my dojang, to become a Jr. Kyosa (instructor), you have to be at least 14 years of age, at least a 1st degree black belt, have assisted in at least 25 classes within a testing cycle, pass a written test, and finally pass a performance test. The Friday night before the big black testing weekend is when Master Lee conducts the performance test for any black belt students who want to become Jr. Kyosa. Even before I had received my black belt, Master Lee was talking with me about becoming an instructor in the future. This was going to be the moment I could demonstrate if I could or not.

That's also the day the proverbial "you-know-what" hit the fan at my work. I'm a software developer. Technically, I'm not considered operational support. However, in small company land, everyone has that title especially when your company is a 24/7 operation. As a result of this, I can get called into operational issues at almost any time, day or night.

We were having issues all day on Friday. Something just wasn't quite right. We had rolled out a software release earlier that week. We also rolled out a bunch of new cloud servers (geek speak...think of it as virtual hardware out there on the internet). We turned on the systems on Friday and the data just wasn't right so we were rolling back different components of the system to figure out where the problem was. When you are dealing with a very large volume of data (I can't say how much data we have running through our system but we rank way up there on the charts), finding the problem is a literal needle in a massive haystack. Nothing was getting us back to where we knew the data was supposed to be at.

I left work with my cell phone glued to my ear because I had to go take that instructor test. I was giving as much info as I could about what changes we had made in the software to support the new functionality. We were trying various rollbacks of software pieces trying to isolate the problem. Nothing was working. I was literally in my dobak (uniform) outside the testing room with the cell phone to my ear. Master Lee had to call me in to the room. I literally dropped out of the phone call mid-discussion.

One thing that my martial arts training has developed in me is the ability to focus on the task at hand. This is especially true in forms. Memorizing the forms and performing them to the degree expected by Master Lee really teaches you to focus on what you are doing right now. I believe this learned focus is the only way I was able to mentally switch gears to my instructor test so quickly. I was told I did well with just a minor adjustment to how I personally interact with the students (more walking among and interacting with the students rather than instructing from the front). My work mates also told me later that they felt really bad about everything and were hoping I would be able to focus on the test.

After the test, I left the room and remembered I had to dial back in to the phone call. Within about 2 minutes of being on the call, the light bulb went off in the back of my head. I headed back to the office, sat down, and investigated the illumination in the code base. Bingo! Found it. Problem solved. The talk at that point was to just roll everything back while I tried to diagnose it, reconvene in the morning and essentially blow our Saturday and quite possibly our whole weekend. Luckily, the code change was trivial. I did a quick before and after test on sample production data and knew we had it licked. A quick roll out followed by a verification of real data in our production systems and we were all able to get a solid night's sleep. More importantly the weekend was free*.

I wish I could say I learned something new that night but honestly I can't. Everyone knows you need to step away from a problem sometimes to solve it. That stepping away place for me right now is Taekwondo. Focus on something else for a bit and it's amazing what your brain will do when you come back to it.

* We ended up rolling out other functionality that weekend and I ended up calling in during my lunch breaks during the test. No issues though. It was at least stress-free!

Evaluation Follow Up

2011-04-22T21:28:00.000-06:00

I got all my curriculum stripes but not the recommended stripe. Master Lee didn't hand any of them out. He's holding them back as "carrots" to entice us to do our best during class for the next three weeks.

Evaluation Weekend

2011-04-22T10:35:00.000-06:00

It's a few weeks before our biannual testing for black belts and tip testing which means it's also evaluation weekend. What this boils down to is that we get tested on all of our curriculum again to make sure we know it and can actually perform it well. We get a stripe on our belt for each curriculum area. Once we have all of our stripes, Master Lee makes a final judgement on whether or not we are ready for testing. You can have all of your curriculum stripes and still not get that recommendation stripe. This results when you know the actual curriculum but you aren't performing it well.

I essentially have two chances at this, tonight and tomorrow. If I mess up on something, I can try again on that item in the same evening but I will only get one second chance per day. I know all the curriculum. It's all about execution.

Side note: Regarding my MRI results, it boils down to 4 weeks of physical therapy along with some changes in how I sit and sleep. If that doesn't do the trick, then I'm off to the neurosurgeon.

Happy Easter everyone! We're getting together with family after church like we usually do.

PCP - not the drug

2011-04-17T11:25:00.003-06:00

I spent the day yesterday in Taekwondo mode where I had one hour of normal class followed by two hours of leadership class. Saturdays are what are called "B" days at the dojang where we concentrate mostly on sparring. On "A" days, we concentrate mostly on forms and weapons. We ended up doing a multi-contestant sparring drill where we had 3 vs. 3. It was quite chaotic as you aren't limited to sparring against just one of the other opponents. Sparring days definitely take a lot more out of me and I try to go to at least one of these days each week to get a good workout.

The leadership class focused on how to teach color belts various techniques. It was more centered on the actual teaching aspects than the mechanics of the actual technique. They broke us up into teams of 4-5 with a lead instructor heading each group (16 teams!!!). We then had to use the various teaching methodologies that they actually want us to use to teach the rest of our group how to do a taekwondo basic technique. For example, I was given the chore of teaching a Fast Kick to a group of students that were pretending to be yellow belts (in our dojang, that is geup 9 just above white belt).

One of the "methodologies" we are supposed to use is the acronym PCP which stands for Praise, Correct, Praise. In simplest terms, you have the students show you the technique. You then find something good about the technique and praise them on it. You also find something they need to improve on the technique and correct them. You finally have them try it again and praise them on how they have improved on that particular aspect you asked them to work on. This can't be empty praise if they haven't actually improved. When that occurs, you encourage them to work on it instead and praise them for their effort. In most cases though, you will see at least some improvement if the student is really trying to do better.

At the end of the class, the lead instructor of each group was supposed to tell Master Lee which of his students was the best instructor in his group. There is a part of me that hopes it was me as I'm the only one in my group that is going to be testing for instructor in a month and I have the most experience in class assisting. I'll never know though because they didn't share that information with the rest of us. I'm the type of personality where not knowing something just kills me.

And no, I haven't heard any information on my MRI yet either. Arrggh.

Back Leg Double Kick

2011-04-16T11:30:00.001-06:00

I was assisting in class the other night when the lead instructor setup for kicking drills. One of the kicks the students were supposed to do was the back leg double kick. Several of the students were having a hard time performing the kick and despite my best efforts, they weren't getting what I was trying to tell them. The lead instructor stopped the drill and gave them different instructions which helped them a lot. I tried googling for a video of the kick to embed here but had little success so I'll do my best to describe it.

In typical double kicks (an ahp bar double kick), the first kick is performed with the lead leg as a front leg round house (ahp bar). It is then followed very quickly with a back leg round house (dol yo cha gi). The second kick starts so quickly that it begins during the recoil of the first kick. From a closed stance position, the first kick is targeted toward your opponents front side right around belt level and the second kick will be targeted higher and at the back of the opponent.

The "back leg double kick" is sort of a reverse of the two kicks above. The back leg round house starts first and is generally a little lower than your normal back leg round house at around belt level. After the first kick, the leg that was the lead leg is no longer in front but is also not in a completely switched position. The second round house from this leg STILL starts during the recoil. From a closed stance position, the first kick is targeted toward your opponents back side right around belt level and the second kick will be targeted higher and at the front of the opponent. The second kick is the one that the kicker is trying to apply with the most torque.

What makes the back leg double kick so hard? With the back leg round house starting first, the hips are rotating in one direction. You start the second kick with rotational momentum still traveling in that direction. It is difficult to reverse that rotational momentum in the other direction while you are in the air because your feet have nothing to push against. The only muscles you are using are your core muscles. It is more difficult than the normal double kick because the amount of mass that you are trying to reverse is larger. In the normal double kick, the mass that you are trying to reverse direction on is all in your lower leg. In the back leg double kick, the mass that you are trying to reverse direction for is your entire leg.

So why do it? If you ever watch a sparring match, there are many attempts on points by doing a normal back leg round house. It's a powerful kick and if you can make contact, you will get a point. However, the "if you make contact" is the key. A lot of times, the opponent can just do a cover punch and guard against that leg making contact. So, what you are try to do is get him to commit to the cover punch while not leaving yourself exposed to it. This will leave his front side exposed for the second kick to the front side. The second kick needs to be powerful enough to score the point which is why it's important to use those core muscles to get the kick turned over. Another reason is that the front side has much more scoring area. The opponent's back has a non-scoring area right down the spine.

What did the instructor tell the students that I didn't? I was making a statement that they needed to reverse the hips and get that second kick turned over. The lead instructor stopped the drill and told them to focus on just one part of the kick, the actual second kick and to do a very small front kick at the beginning if they needed to. It was basically more important for them to get the power behind that second kick than to get the first kick done correctly. That would come later.

So what lesson did I learn as a teacher? I learned that I need to break down the kicks into relevant parts and figure out what was most important or difficult for the students to learn. I then need have them concentrate on that part of the drill first before trying to tie it all together. This would seem obvious as it's relevant to many lessons in life. It wasn't something that was occurring to me as I was trying to teach though.

Fits Part Deux

2011-04-15T14:22:00.000-06:00

So in my black and blue post, I made a statement about my right shoulder giving me fits. I brought it up with the doc, he took X-rays and then muttered something about bone spurs and my neck being straight instead of curved. He then sent me in for an MRI. I'm still waiting on on a trained diagnosis but my own google-fu driven diagnosis isn't pretty. I found images online of what a cervical MRI is supposed to look like and I've got some obvious differences.

That little bell rang in my head and I realized I had heard of a similar story before from my own father no less. I sent him an email and lo and behold, he had similar symptoms that got much worse than a burning and tingling in his arm. He lost use of his right arm completely and had some pretty serious pain. He ended up getting a vertebrate replaced with a hog bone and some bone spurs surgically removed from his vertebrate.

I'm saying prayers and waiting for that call from the doc.

At any rate, I'm less than 1 month from my tip and instructor tests. I won't be doing anything drastic before then. I think I need to spend this weekend distracting myself with lots of forms repetitions. I should get my take home instructor test tomorrow as well.

Rise from the ashes

2011-04-02T23:20:00.001-06:00

We had a forms and sparring competition today. I was a forms judge most of the day for the 10-12 year old color belt group and the 13-17 black belt and black belt candidates group.

When it finally came time for me to do my form, I did very, very poorly. I brain locked once during my form (palgwe oh jang, go to about 2:45 of this video) and also struggled with my balance on my side kick. It was pretty depressing. I only decided to do this form last night because I was having trouble with another one getting it confused with this one. I took it as a sign that I needed to switch. Next time I need to make more effort and try to perform better. I keep thinking there may not be a next time though. By next competition, I'm going to be an instructor and I won't have the time to participate in the actual forms competition.

Within about 20 minutes of finishing the forms competition, I had my sparring competition. I had to put the agony of defeat behind me and move on. I've done light contact sparring in class and it's always been physically exhausting. This was a level beyond that. Our matches consisted of 3 1 minute rounds with only 30 seconds of rest in between. In comparison, Olympic rounds are currently 3 2 minute rounds with 1 minute rest between each round. For my age group, I ended up having 4 different matches in the span of about 30 minutes. I went undefeated and took first place among all the adult males competing. It was thrilling and uplifting.

A few lessons I learned (or in some cases re-learned) from the day:

Practice and repetition are essential in forms competitions. I get on autopilot when competing while doing the form and I'm not really thinking about what I'm doing. I need to program my autopilot better.
Shin guards are essential equipment. I had the foresight to buy some yesterday. All the people who did not were suffering today. The most damage doesn't come from attacks on you but instead come from the blocks other people are doing to your kicks.
Male protective equipment is also a must. Saved my family jewels more than once today. Never intentional. It just happens.
Don't get predictable when you spar. Your opponent will remember what you do and make you pay. I used this to my advantage today relying on my opponent's tendencies to score points at the right time. I had the help of friends coaching me to point this out to me.
I never knew judging could be so mentally draining.

Black and Blue

2011-04-01T12:02:00.000-06:00

The past week has been painful. Every extremity of mine is hurting in some form or another.

My right arm is black and blue from about mid-forearm to my wrist about two inches wide. This is because I was playing the attacker in a self-defense drill and the blocks were against my forearm. Repeatedly.

My left palm is black and blue around the base of my thumb (about the size of a peach). I was holding a practice board with perhaps a little two much give in my hand. When the kicker broke the board, he hit pretty solidly. Instant pain.

My right shoulder is giving me fits. I think I have a pinched nerve. I get this weird tingling, burning sensation across my shoulder along with a pain in that muscle where your neck attaches to your shoulder.

My shins are both bruised up because I went to sparring class last night. Several of the other students have a tendency to block kicks with their forearms. Not a bright idea. They are risking getting their arm broken. It is a reflex though to protect themselves. It does cause pain and bruising to the kicking shin.

I have both a forms and a sparring competition tomorrow. I'm trying to find shin guards at the last moment. I'm also trying to figure out how to improve quickly. I had a few tendencies pointed out to me last night that I need to correct if I'm going to last at all in the tournament.

Now what?

2011-02-06T13:32:00.000-07:00

When I play "catch up" with people and they ask me how my Taekwondo is going, I tell them about how my daughter and I got our black belts last November. They inevitably always ask the question "So, are you still doing it?"

Very valid question. The stats I've heard in class are that only 1 in 100 people who start a martial art eventually get their black belt. Only 1 in 1000 attain a sec degree black belt.

For my daughter, she is currently not continuing. Part of being a kid is trying all kinds of activities to see what you love. She's currently on a basketball kick. That doesn't mean she won't come back to it. She might eventually but for now she needs something different.

As for me, the answer is yes, I'm continuing. My first step on this path is in May when I do my first "Tip Test". The tip test is part of the normal black belt test weekend and we do the same tests with the sparring, meditation, running, kicking techniques and curriculum. There are four areas of the curriculum that I'll be tested on: kicking combinations, forms, weapons, and one-step sparring. The only difference is that the curriculum is a combination of new stuff and review of curriculum we've already learned. I've already learned all the new curriculum. I'm just perfecting my technique until then. I have to do a "Tip Test" every 6 months as I progress toward my second degree.

I'm also training to become an instructor. On that same black belt test weekend, there is a test on Friday night where I can test to become a "junior instructor" (aka "junior kyosa"). Before that time, I have to assist the instructors in 25 different classes and also be well versed in the curriculum for every belt level. I have to show an aptitude for teaching as well. I can't become a full certified instructor until I am a certified second degree black belt in 2 and 1/2 years.

live 3D sports verdict: lame but there's potential

2011-01-02T14:36:00.000-07:00

About two months ago, my DLP HDTV set bit the dust. I thought it was just a bad bulb but replacing it didn't help. The color wheel was still in good shape. Basically, it was just bad mojo all around. Time to replace the TV.

I've got one of those built-in cubby holes for a TV. I had exactly 34 inches of vertical clearance for the biggest screen I could find that would fit that space. I could only find 2 models of 55" HDTVs that were 34" or less in height with the stand, both from Sony. One was last year's model and the other was this year's model of their Bravia line with 3D capability. I didn't want 3D. More specifically, I didn't want the 3D premium. However, dimensions were the trump card and I ended up picking up last year's 3D capable model along with a "3D bundle" that included the 3D blu-ray player and 2 pair of the 3D glasses.

My family has watched a couple of 3D blu-ray movies and the technology is pretty good and we didn't have any problems. However, this weekend, I finally got around to watching some live 3D sports coverage: specifically the NHL Winter Classic and the Fiesta Bowl. Both were on at the same time. Both had normal 2D coverage going on as well. This was the ideal time to weigh the pros and cons while doing comparisons between broadcasts.

The Pros:

Less commercials! During both broadcasts, when the 2D feed cut to commercial, sometimes the 3D feed had some kind of side coverage and no actual commercial. Admittedly, no actual sports action but still better than a commercial. This is due to a lack of 3D commercials and a much smaller viewing audience. This will go away with time.
The 3D is pretty cool at times. The depth perception on certain camera angles really did add a bit of realism and appreciation for what's happening on the field.

The Cons:

The biggest issue in both cases were 3D ghosts on real people (both the athletes and talking heads on the sidelines). This is not a problem we have seen in any of the movies we've watched on the set. Only in the real-time live 3D coverage. I understand that movies have plenty of time in post-production to make sure none of that shows up. However, there seems to be something fundamental to the live coverage & cameras used that caused it to be much more prevalent than I would expect. This seems like it could be related to looking at a part of the screen where the focus of the camera was not but it was inconsistent. It's not like there was a part of the screen that was perfectly clear and the rest was ghosty (that's not a real word but I have no better term for it). The whole screen would get messed up.
3D ghosts on the "graphics". Of all the things that I think would actually look perfectly normal were the graphic overlays for the score, player bios, etc. These are the most glaring. Seeing a background slightly offset image of the text being displayed was the most obvious. I want to repeat: 3D blu-ray movies and other canned 3D broadcasts (concerts mostly) look perfectly normal. I don't believe this is an issue with my TV set.
Sometimes the 3D effect on the real people looked liked 2D cutouts of people at different 3D depths rather than a sense of being able to see some depth to individuals. This was more apparent in the hockey game than the football game but did happen in both. It was more obvious when looking at people who were further back in the screen than those from a near to a mid-depth.
The Fiesta Bowl had a different set of cameras used than the normal 2D broadcast. The cameras were actually on the opposite side of the field. This was not true with the hockey telecast. Flipping back and forth between the 2D and 3D presentations showed no differences in the cameras in hockey vs. the cameras in the football game were completely different all the time.
With respect to the football game, I noticed a distinct lack of camera angles. 75+% of the time, the camera angle was a side view of the play pulled pretty far back. Almost like you were in a moving seat along the sideline about 20 rows up that was a little bit ahead of the line of scrimmage. This would be cool if you were actually at the stadium but not on my home couch where I expect to see cool replays from many different angles.
The telecasters were unique to each broadcast for the football game while identical in the hockey game. And yes, it was the "B" team on the 3D football broadcast.
3D glasses for 3D TVs are "active shutter". Meaning they have actual electronics in them that control what image you are seeing in each eye and flip back and forth really, really fast. While watching a movie, the glasses are perfectly fine because I camp out and focus exclusively on the movie. When watching a sporting event, the glasses are a pain in the butt. During sports telecasts, I have a tendency to move around a lot and not be totally focused on the game like I would a movie. The glasses have a "timeout" feature that cause them to turn off after a bit of time (60 seconds?) without having the 3D transmitter signal. This happens when the glasses get out of range (going to the kitchen for food where I can still see the TV), there are obstructions between the glasses and the 3D transmitter (my laptop screen!), or if you turn your head away at more than a 90 degree angle from the set (viewing said laptop in a new position while paying attention to the game out of the corner of my eye). I also got a bit of "glasses fatigue" while watching so much sports which were way longer than the average 3D movie.

So, would I invest in such technology? I did but not for the 3D, only for the screen size with my aforementioned space limitations. I don't think I'll be buying any more glasses (expensive at $100 each!) unless the family demands it for some reason.

Time To Feel Stupid Again

2010-11-22T13:25:00.000-07:00

So I took a week and a half off after the test before I went back to class. It seems like I shouldn't have done that.

The big difference so far: speed. Not the speed of how fast everyone is like there is a dramatic increase in their skill. It's how quickly the new curriculum is being introduced to us. My head is about to explode trying to keep up with it.

My first day back we went through 2 new forms in their entirety multiple times, 3 new one step sparring routines, and a minor change to 5 of our old one step sparring routines. The second day back was the two new forms again, then a new "self defense" drill (for lack of a better term) that involved a lot of strikes and parries using just our hands, and then the formal sword ceremony and patterns that we are going to have to learn for our next test.

As one of my classmates so eloquently said, "I like to feel stupid again. Keeps me on my toes."

Denouement

2010-11-10T20:05:00.000-07:00

It was a tough weekend but we made it!

First and foremost, I can't say how proud I am of my daughter. She spent the entire week before the test with a case of nausea. If it was from nerves or from a virus, I honestly don't know. We played it safe and kept her home from school most of the week to make sure she was going to be ready. She did have nausea every day so it's not like we were going completely overboard. The consequences of not being able to test were too severe for us to make any other decision. She would have had to do the 16 week physical program all over again and wait 6 months for the next test. When it came time for the actual test, she still wasn't completely up to snuff but put out her best effort. I have to admit that I shed a few tears when she got her belt.

It's hard to describe the magnitude of the test without actually being there. Here's a youtube playlist with samples of different parts of the test:

If it's not obvious, my daughter is the blond haired girl in the blue uniform and I'm the tall guy in the black uniform. The actual test curriculum that the potential black belts performed consisted of:

4 Taeguek forms, each one performed twice
16 Kicking combinations
15 escrima patterns
5 one step sparring
3 sparring rounds
12 timed kicking techniques (1 minute each)
1/2 hour workout
5 board breaks
45 minutes of running
1 hour of meditation
Having a great attitude ;)

That was topped off with the demonstrations we did during the belt ceremony.

Overall, I feel that both of us did pretty well. I obviously wasn't watching her while I was performing but we have a lot of video footage that I've looked at of her performing her curriculum and it looks pretty clean.

The part of the test that I was stressing about the most was the afternoon kicking techniques. They ran it differently this year where we got a break between each kicking technique that we were supposed to perform. I had gassed up on gatorade g1 and had a bottle of g2 sitting on the sidelines. It turned out to be a lot easier than six months ago in our cho dan bo test. The kicking techniques were also a bit chaotic as everyone was going at their own speed and direction but otherwise were pretty straightforward.

The most difficult part of the test was the running on the second day. Normally, my daughter and I run for two miles and then stop. This takes us on the order of 20 minutes. The running portion of the test was actually a timed run for 45 minutes. We both slowed down from our normal pace. My daughter had a hard time keeping going about half way through with a wave of nausea coming over her again. She persevered and was able to maintain at least a slow jog the rest of the way.

It's been a long time coming. It still feels surreal as I write this several days after the event. We've had several people tell us congratulations. Everyone is sincere but every once in a while, one of the congratulatory remarks seems to come with a bit more meaning like the person really understands the level of effort it took to get here. I appreciate everyone's kind words but it is those comments that I appreciate the most.

Are you ready?

2010-11-03T08:54:00.000-06:00

Are you ready? We all get asked that question whenever some big moment is coming up in our life. Be it graduation, heading off to college, marriage, baptism, etc. Maybe it's a signal to us that yes indeed, this is a big deal that is about to happen. The more often you hear it about an event, the bigger the event is to be.

I've heard it a lot over the past two weeks with respect to the black belt test (OMG! 4 Days away!). I usually try to say something witty like "Well, I haven't bought my energy drinks yet so no, not ready quite yet." The truth is, I don't know how to answer that. I think I'm ready. I'm pretty confident I'll pass the test (my daughter as well). But I'm also a little worried.

The biggest issue I think I'll face is not being in the moment. In other words: lack of focus. When I practice the same thing over and over and over again, it ends up in muscle memory. I've crammed so much into muscle memory that sometimes my muscles get confused about where I'm exactly at. I then get either a step ahead of where I'm supposed to be or on a different part of the curriculum altogether. I end up thinking about what I'm supposed to be doing next vs. where I'm actually at and then the synapses start firing the wrong signals.

The second biggest issue I think I'll face is lack of stamina. I'm in pretty good shape but definitely not the best I could be. I'm in better shape than I was at the last belt test six months ago. The Saturday afternoon curriculum looks easy on paper. However, as I found out last time, it will be the most physically taxing part of it. I'm doing research into how to get my energy level up before that afternoon. Here's hoping it helps.

So am I ready? I think so. Just anxious.

The Calm Before The Storm

2010-11-01T21:26:00.000-06:00

My daughter and I finished up all of our curriculum last week and turned in our books. We got our recommendation stripes the week before. The test is this upcoming weekend. This week seems a bit surreal. We're both ready to test but also anxious. I'm going over items in my head doing some "visualization" of doing the curriculum. I'm also trying to practice a sword form that I have to demo at the test to make sure I can do it without thinking.

Three and a half years is a long time to finally have it coming to a conclusion this weekend. Except it's not a conclusion.

We had a pep talk from a friend of Master Lee's last weekend. He runs his own school and is a 6th degree black belt. He made a statement that got me pondering: "As we approach one goal, the person who strives for greatness sets another goal." We set our goal of becoming black belts 3 years ago. My next goal is to actually get all the way to 4th degree (official "Master" status). My daughter's goal is to go try playing basketball for a season. Because of her black belt training, I believe that she'll make her best effort in her new endeavor. Whether or not she is actually good at the sport is left to be seen but it's also not important. I only pray that she puts as much effort into each thing she tries to do as she has done for her black belt. That's the best I could ever hope for.

It will be a bit strange going to taekwondo without her. I know that at times I went to class because I had to take her. There were also times that she went because I was her parent and made her. I pray I have the discipline to keep this up by myself but that I also have the discipline to take her to her practices where I'm not participating.

A chapter of my life is soon going to be over. The next one will begin. Except I think that my chapters are all interleaved with each other but that's not quite so deep now is it?

Black Belt Test Itinerary

2010-10-20T21:37:00.000-06:00

The itinerary for our upcoming black belt test:

Once again, the hardest part looks like it's going to be that Saturday afternoon. Need to stock up on energy food for lunch!

If anyone wants to attend, drop me a line and I'll give you more info. It is NOT at the address you see above. Those are the dojang locations.

8 of 16 (not to be confused with 7 of 9)

2010-09-06T20:36:00.000-06:00

We just finished 8 weeks out of our 16 weeks of physical fitness training for our black belt. That means we're 9 weeks out from our actual belt test weekend. It's been a bit of a struggle but we are actually all caught up in our repetitions except for our board breaking.

A few highlights since last I posted:

Another evaluation: Katy got her color stripe for weapons which means she has them all except the recommended stripe.
I did not get the recommended stripe. Nobody did. Not sure if that's because nobody deserved it or that he just wasn't handing them out. 2 more evaluation weekends ahead though.
I bought a re-breakable board for home use. Unfortunately, only my daughter can use it. I really need an adult trained in board-holding to hold the board for me.
I need to figure out how to get some real board breaking in for me. Time to enlist the help of another student after class.
We did a 5 day stint of no junk food. I was craving ice cream every night. I have managed to avoid eating a dessert every single night since then though.
I've lost 4 pounds in the last couple of weeks. Yeah, cutting out every night dessert helps. Catching up on all the repetitions increased the amount of time I spend exercising though. I'm hoping to lose at least another 8 before the test.
My spin hook kick (I'm doing a 1000 of these before the test) has improved. However, I still need to work on getting that fast motion at the beginning. I have a tendency to twist backwards, pause while I spot my target and then do the kick. I need it to be more fluid.
My side kick is actually doing better as well. My biggest issue maintaining that balance so that I don't "fall forward" with the kick. This basically means I usually don't lean back enough with the kick to counter-balance the momentum of my kick. I can do it on occasion but not consistently.
The kick I struggle the most with is the double-ahp-bar after a fast kick (part of our kicking combinations). I keep forgetting to just bounce my foot off the ground as I'm starting the first ahp-bar. I usually plant it then kick.
We've completed our mentoring requirement. During the last class, Kwanjanim told me that once I have my black belt, I'll be instructing the white belts and I need to learn their curriculum. It's fairly easy to do but at our level, we don't do most of their basic techniques on a regular basis. They are incorporated into the much more detailed forms/techniques/combinations that we perform at our advanced classes.
We only have 1 more required sparring class to attend. It's been educational and I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to start attending regularly.
I still hate running. People tell me that once you do it for a while, you actually enjoy it. Yeah...right.
My daughter has an official goal of becoming a ninja when she grows up.

3 weeks in....stripe time

2010-07-31T20:28:00.000-06:00

We are three weeks into our sixteen week physical requirements cycle. Four times through this period, we're going to be tested for "stripes". I've written about stripes before, and the concept is still the same for black belt. You test for a stripe in each area of the curriculum and then once you have them all, you test again over everything for the black recommended stripe. If you don't have the black recommended stripe, you do not get to test for your black belt. The decision maker on stripes is Kwan-ja-nim. He takes input from his instructors but he's the man. The buck starts and stops with him.

For black belt, we're tested for four different stripes: forms, kicking combinations, weapons, and one step sparring. During each testing weekend, we have two chances to get each stripe because our black belt training classes are held on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons with stripe testing each class. We have to perform four forms, 16 kicking combinations, 15 different escrima patterns (weapons), and 5 different one step sparring routines.

Last night, I only got one stripe for my forms. I hadn't practiced the weapons or kicking combinations in over a week and I just wasn't prepared. We ran out of time before we could be tested on the one step sparring. To be completely honest, I was a little surprised on how well I did on my forms. I even got a compliment from one of the instructors afterward on my "power". Note that is an area I've been working on improving. All I could do was utter a "Thank you sir".

My daughter didn't get any of her stripes last night. She had little mistakes throughout. Additionally, I noticed as she was performing, that she looked like she was following other people. She was not showing that self-confidence that she would exhibit by performing on her own. That translates to looking like she doesn't know what she is doing. Additionally, when she follows, if other people made mistakes, she would make the same mistake. In short, she was doubting herself. When we left, I could tell she was lacking a bit of self-confidence in general despite the fact that there were many students who didn't get any stripes. I had to give her a pep-talk on the way home.

As a result of our "performance" last night, we decided we would go over our curriculum this morning before class. My daughter specifically went over the areas where she got confused. I also had a discussion with my daughter on being a leader rather than a follower. To not pay attention to other people and focus on what she knows. To have confidence in herself because she knows what to do. I've seen her practice all the curriculum at home with much fewer mistakes than when she is in a group of people and I told her as much.

The whole practice time and discussion this morning paid off. I received my three other stripes but really messed up on the forms because I didn't pay attention to what I was doing! My daughter got three of her four stripes. She had an issue with the most difficult of the escrima patterns but other than that, she really had her A game on. I really, really poured on the praise on the way home. She worked very hard and exhibited that black belt attitude. I pray this is a lesson she learns from and carries this attitude on to other aspects of her life.

As we were leaving, Kwan-ja-nim made the comment that even though we have our stripes, that doesn't mean we are ready. There is ALWAYS room for improvement. I think my mess up on the forms this morning demonstrates that! We also have to test through everything again. I'm really going to buckle down before the next stripe test to make sure I have it all down pat. I would love to get that black recommendation stripe next time.

King of the Hill

2010-07-24T22:34:00.000-06:00

My daughter and I played a real life version of King of the Hill today. And no, we did NOT put on full Mjolnir armor and go blasting away at each other with Battle Rifles. I'm talking about a game we played in our first sparring only class today. We're required to attend 3 of them within the next 16 weeks. We've done light contact sparring in our normal classes but this is different where we wear ALL the gear vs. just shin and arm guards.

For the TKD uneducated, a WTF style TKD sparring round (this is what you see at the Olympics) is 2 minutes long. Scoring is done with contact made by the hand or foot to a section of the torso above the waist but below the neck. Some rules I've seen also refer to hitting the colored circles on the outfit. My dojang scores on hits to the torso except for the spine. Kicks to the head are also allowed and those score 2 points instead of 1. Generally only the black belts and above do full gear with hits allowed to the head. I've seen some rules online that prevent shots to the head if you're over the age of 30 or 35. The actual contact to the person must be hard enough to displace the person or make a very loud sound (some big dudes just can't be moved!).

The King of the Hill game we played involved someone being King and defending their place in the ring. One opponent at a time would face them. Whoever scored the first point was declared the new King. The instructor picked the first King and he just happened to be the black belt I faced in my sparring during my last belt test. I wasn't as intimidated this time. One, we didn't have the entire belt level of students watching us and two, I realized he was going to help me learn. Why else take the sparring class?

I lost my first match against him in very short order. By the time my second match came around, another younger black belt had defeated him. I lost to this guy as well. My 3rd round came around and here I was facing the original opponent. I lasted a lot longer being able to avoid direct hits from him and taking my time. After a bit of time, I think he thought he had scored against me and let his guard down. That's when I gave him a quick fast kick to the chest and got him.

Which brings up the theme for the day. "Never quit! Give all your effort until the end." I'm not talking about going all Cobra Kai. I'm talking about giving your best effort until you are done. We were doing physical fitness testing in our normal class today. Talk about exhausting! Part of the testing was "cone races" which were actually the least physically demanding exercise we did today. There were several people in the class where were letting up as they crossed the finish line. The instructors specifically called out the whole class about finishing with our best effort. That's what makes the difference between "Gold" and "Silver" - Think Michael Phelps.

Note, this was just a class. Not a real competition. The guy is really good at sparring. In a normal situation, I don't think he would have let his guard down. I still felt good about it anyway. He gave me some good advice on committing to my round house kick while we were doing a warm up exercise. He even caught me not committing during my first rounds of sparring. Something I need to work on in the future for sure.

Every day discipline

2010-07-13T23:28:00.000-06:00

Maybe you've picked up on the fact that I don't really have a practical knowledge of exercise and staying in shape. In short, I'm your every day lazy nerd who spends a lot of time sitting at a computer either writing software or playing video games. Aging has changed me where I grow wider a lot faster than I used to. Back in the day I was skinny as a rail and could down a 6 pack of coke a day along with a couple of ding dongs and not even gain a single ounce. Now if I look at a ding dong even cross-wise it goes right to my belly putting on more weight than the actual dessert actually weighs. I don't drink any form of sweetened beverage and all my coffee drinks are non-fat.

Even though I've learned the basic premise of eating less junk food, I'm still in the learning process on how my body reacts to different types of physical activities or the lack thereof.

Case in point: after the hamstring pull, I tried to keep going but realized I really needed to give it a rest. I volunteered to be a helper at our Vacation Bible School and then the dojang was closed for about a week for the holidays. I ended up NOT doing any TKD in that entire period. Our first time back was this last weekend where we started on the physical activities right away. In the first 2 days I did over 150 core muscle exercises. In the past, this wouldn't have been so bad. However, after ONLY 2 weeks off, my stomach muscles were sore to the point that when my daughter gave me a surprise hug from behind (think heimlich maneuver), I about doubled over in pain. My wife just looked at me like I was a big wimp. ;)

Second case in point: we went running on Sunday for the first time in over a month. 2 miles is nothing. At the test , I ran more than 2 miles and was ready to go do some more testing shortly thereafter. This first time back and I was only halfway around the 2 mile loop thinking "Can't this be over yet? Why am I breathing so hard?" And it wasn't because of our altitude of 6700 feet either. I live here. This altitude is a non-issue.

After the weekend's activity, I had a hard time getting up this morning (the 2nd day after the run, the next morning after a long TKD session where I was part instructor, part student). I was basically sore all over. Especially in my calves.

So, my lesson learned? Keep it up, even during the breaks. Admittedly, I did need to ease up on the actual leg that was injured. However, I could have at least figured out some other exercises to stay in shape. And my hamstring had nothing to do with my stomach muscles.

Ahead of the game

2010-07-11T23:33:00.000-06:00

We started the 16 week physical requirements this weekend. Each week, we have to do the following:

125 Push ups
300 Repetitions of a core muscle exercise (sit ups, crunches, russian twists, etc)
6 each of the forms Tae Guek Oh Jang, Yuk Jang, Chil Jang, and Pahl Jang.
10 each of 15 different escrima patterns.
3 each of our 16 kicking combinations
5 each of our 5 different one step sparring patterns.
20 minutes of flex training
2 miles of running
3 each of our 5 different board breaks (Back Kick, Step-Behind Side Kick, Palm Strike, Axe Kick, Elbow Strike)
3 Rounds of Sparring
20 minutes of meditation

On top of this, we have to practice 1 kick of our choice 1000 times over the time period (averages to 62.5 kicks per week). I've chosen to do the spin hook kick because it's the one I have the most difficulty on.

We're only 2 days into it and we're ahead on some items and behind on others. The instructors have been telling us that if we come to class 3 times a week, that we should get all the physical requirements no problem (well...except for the running). I don't believe them. We've attended class twice already and I only have 1/2 the sit ups needed for the week.

We were allowed to start our self development items and we both need to figure out how to document "acts of kindness" better so we track them each day as we do them. We've both finished our 2 books of reading and an associated book report. My daughter has to do 100 chores in this time period and she's already behind. I need to figure out some things for her to do outside while I work in the yard. I also knocked out all my community service hours in one week by volunteering for our church's Vacation Bible School. My daughter has 2.5 hours already and a way to get some community service knocked out at a 1.5 - 2 hour clip each week when she has the time. We only need 10 hours of community service so she should be golden there.

My biggest concern with starting the physical requirements time frame is how am I going to do it if my hamstring wasn't 100% healed. It still has moments of pain. I've found that if I keep my activity with that leg to about 75-80% of what I would normally do and combine that with wearing that heat wrap that I'm able to not aggravate it. In the meantime, I'm still trying to stretch it every single day and give it little mini massages. In the first couple of days, things are going well but I know I have to be careful and NOT over confident with it.

hamstring part trois

2010-06-25T22:31:00.000-06:00

Someone told me today that they hated when someone shared all the details about their disease/injury online essentially bringing them through it emotionally just like it was happening to them.

Hey....you....yeah....you know who I'm talking about. Don't read this. Move along. Nothing to see here.

For the rest of you (Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?), I noticed as I was putting on the Chinese cream the other night that I now have a bruise right above the back of my knee about the size of and shape of a squashed racquetball. I've also figured out that I've got swelling at the bottom of that muscle. My calf below the knee is also starting to get some weird sensations at times like there is something in there stretching it. I suspect that this is the blood from the muscle tear making it way down my leg. It's been 2 weeks since the actual injury and I just noticed the bruise. I'm pretty positive it wasn't there last weekend. The weird sensations in the calf just started today.

I've had a friend recommend I go see a doc. I'll probably do that this coming week. I'm also going to lay off the actual Taekwondo over the next week. I was already planning on taking the next week off from Taekwondo to volunteer at our church's vacation bible school. Might as well take it easy all around.

hamstring part deux

2010-06-22T22:22:00.000-06:00

So, it's been a few days of intense self treatment. I spent many a waking moment in the last couple of days putting a heating pad on my leg (no more than 20 minutes at a time mind you). I also spend a few minutes every hour stretching out the muscles using the stretches we have learned in class. At the end of the day, my leg hurts worse than when the day started. I also have been using some of this oil to relieve the pain:

I'm trying to figure out how much to use to make sure I'm not using too much (just a few drops is what I've been told) yet enough to make a difference. It gives me a warm tingling sensation when I have just enough on. It also smells WAY better than Bengay.

During class tonight, I also tried one of these:

I didn't know this before but the intent of the wrap is to keep the leg warm so it's loose and doesn't stiffen up while you are exercising. It does NOT provide support. It seemed to help this evening at least. I was given a warning by a co-student that using these wraps can actually cause your knee to be weaker and you risk injuring your knee. He said that is what happened to him and I do remember him injuring his knee during the last cycle. I haven't found corroborating evidence though. I haven't found the magic answer on the intertubes (yeah...old joke!) though.

And now for the positive side. I've discovered that I'm not that in-tune with what is going on with my body. I didn't really understand what muscles I was using until I tried to do some kicks that I thought were going to be safe. Specifically, only my right leg is injured. I thought for sure I could do a side-kick with my left leg no problem. I was so wrong. It's actually way less painful to do the side kick with my right leg. Same thing with my back kick. The supporting leg is the one getting more use of those muscles on the back of my leg than the one I was kicking with. This is NOT the case for the jump front kick (obviously), some round houses, the ahp bar, axe kick, etc.

Another side effect is that while doing my forms, I'm being very cognizant of the move that I'm about to do to make sure I don't do anything stupid with that leg. This injury has helped me to focus on the form more than I would have normally. Albeit, I'm being a lot slower with it as well. I have a tendency to finish a step or two behind the other students now.

Anyway, I wouldn't wish this on anyone. Next time I hear/see some pro sports player with a hamstring injury, I'll have a little more compassion.

Know your limitations but still push

2010-06-19T13:02:00.000-06:00

There was a poomse competition last weekend that my daughter and I were unable to attend because we were out of town. The competition also included a board break-a-thon for charity and a highest jump front kick competition. Subsequently, the week before, the instructors were having us practice our forms, our presentation, and our jump front kicks. I've done jump front kicks many times (they are in some of the forms) but never to see how high I could actually kick.

The actual "how high test" was the instructor holding a paddle horizontally and then we would perform the kick seeing if we could hit it. As long as we touched the paddle with even just our toes, he would then raise the paddle a little bit more and we would repeat until we no longer hit the paddle. Since I'm tall, I was able to get pretty high. Since I'm also more than 40, I hurt myself. I pulled my hamstring pretty bad when I was kicking the paddle when it was more than a foot over my head. The instructor was standing on a chair holding it and said I cleared it by a good 3 inches still but I was unable to continue. It still hurts. I'm doing daily stretches and I'm REALLY restraining myself when I go to class. I've tweaked it a few times in class but not enough to cause any real pain.

I can only recall having pulled a hamstring once before while playing softball. I was horribly out of shape and didn't really warm up. It didn't feel as bad as this one. I was back at it after a couple weeks.

I've received a lot of good advice from one of my co-students. I need to look for a wrap to keep my leg warm during class. I iced it quite a bit that first night and weekend when I wasn't hiking around Mesa Verde. We didn't do anything strenuous on the hike and the leg felt pretty good afterwards. I'm hoping that it heals pretty quickly because one we start our physical curriculum in two weeks, I'm going to have to be doing things a bit more "real" than I'm doing now.

Hindsight being 20/20, I should have realized I was going a bit too far. I can't blame a lack of warming up because I'm the one who actually led warm ups that night and I know I covered the bases. I do need to realize I'm not like the young kid instructor whose got rubber bands for legs.

brain exploding

2010-05-18T09:12:00.000-06:00

Going back to class after testing usually results in starting to learn new things. This is my favorite time at Taekwondo but also the most difficult for me. The difference between conditional black belt and certified black belt is basically a lot of hard work and the addition of the following items we have to learn:

Taegeuk Chil Jang
Taeguek Pal Jang
Kicking Combinations 9 - 16
Escrima Sinawali 7-9
5 board breaks

We'll be tested on everything we learned for conditional black belt PLUS the above items.

We've already started on the forms. Some people already learned Pal Jang in the quarter that we took off at the beginning of last year so we're at a little bit of a disadvantage there. My daughter and I have never learned 2 forms at once before. We started on the second one last night and my brain is starting to hurt trying to keep them straight.

The kicking combinations are easy to learn in the head (list below recited from memory), but not necessarily easy to learn in practice.

Ilbo-hu-jin, back leg round house, fast kick, step behind side kick
Ilbo-hu-jin, back leg round house, fast kick, double ahp bar
Ilbo-hu-jin, back leg round house, fast kick, double ahp bar, back kick
Ilbo-hu-jin, back leg round house, fast kick, double ahp bar, spin hook kick
Ilbo-chun-jin, back leg round house, fast kick, step behind side kick
Ilbo-chun-jin, back leg round house, fast kick, back leg axe kick
Ilbo-chun-jin, back leg round house, fast kick, back leg axe kick, back kick
Ilbo-chun-jin, back leg round house, fast kick, back leg axe kick, spin hook kick

I don't have the info on the escrima yet. I know I've practiced #7 at least once before though. Escrima is also generally hard to describe. Maybe I should make a youtube video of them all?

For the board breaks, we are going to have do an axe kick, back kick, palm strike, elbow strike, and side kick. We've actually done all these breaks except for the palm strike before but never all 5 at once. During the test, they give you the kicks in random order and random placement with the holder yelling out what kick you are supposed to do. On top of that, they time you to see who has the fastest time. The fastest at the last belt test was 10 seconds shared by about 3 people. I believe it's possible to go faster even with the random nature if you work on being able to do the breaks with either leg or palm instead of just your strong side. I'm going to see if I can work on that myself as added incentive.

Test post-mortem part deux: sparring

2010-05-14T07:00:00.000-06:00

After the kicking techniques were done, we had a bit of time to catch our breath while the black belt candidates were doing their testing. I was able to down the rest of my gatorade in fairly short order and then we had to go into sparring.

The only sparring that my daughter and I have done so far is the light contact sparring. Nothing with head gear or pads on. (Tangent: we now have to go to required sparring classes). I have had sparring partners who have done the sparring classes and they've taught me a thing or two. I can hold my own with classmates who are in the same boat as I am but anyone who has attended the sparring classes usually has their way with me.

The sparring is set up where we had circles of people forming 6 different sparring rings. The groups were divided by age. In each ring, an instructor would choose 2 people randomly at a time and then going through the formality of the sparring introductions. The rest of us formed the edge of the ring. The first go around, they had us spar with someone at our belt level. My partner was basically in the same boat as me without any sparring classes. We're both a little on the competitive side. The round went fairly quickly with each of us getting a couple of "hits" in against the other.

My first sparring round at the test

(Note to self: teach daughter about "sport" mode on camera)

The second chance I had to spar was against a black belt who had been to sparring classes. I talked about this round already here under the self control heading.

While standing on the side of the ring, I talked with a few of the guys who had been to the sparring classes. One guy summed it up quite well: "It wasn't until I went to the sparring class that it all ended up tying together. Everything makes a lot more sense once you do that."

I'm planning on going to the sparring class soon. As I mentioned, it's required as part of our belt level. Need to figure out the best time for it.

mazda 3 mini-review

2010-05-13T19:00:00.002-06:00

Way back in August of 09, I traded in my "clunker" 4Runner for a new Mazda 3. So, first off, all you US taxpayers, thanks for helping me buy my car.

Overall, the car has been pretty good. It gets pretty good mileage. I used to own a Toyota Paseo way back when. The best one-liner I saw on that car is "A sheep in wolf's clothing." This car is not that. It has more zip and acceleration. However, it isn't an RX8 either (yes, I have a slight infatuation with that vehicle).

The tires it comes with suck. I've got about 16K miles on them already because I drive to Boulder once or twice a week. The tires are out of tread already. They have been horrible in the snow all winter which is an issue considering we just got snow last night! Note, it's the middle of May.

I've had a continuing issue with a check engine light that only comes on in the morning when I first start it and its 30 degrees or less out. Yes, the car is kept in the garage where the temp is about 10 degrees higher. It's been worked on at 2 different dealers. I suspect it's the actual sensor that's an issue. I haven't had the opportunity to actually take it in while the light is on so I'm making it a bit difficult for the dealers to pinpoint the problem.

The car has one of those "automatic/manual shifting" mechanisms. It's not paddles on the wheel but an up/down shift on the stick. Seems like they should call it "assisted manual shifting" since you don't get to do any clutch. My only complaint with it is that it is easy to bump the stick out of full automatic over to the manual shift. It's happened more than once with my kids in the passenger seat. It really is useful when accelerating on to the highway though.

As I drive down the road and see other mazda 3's, 9 times out of 10 it's a female driving. Yes, I inadvertently bought a "chick car". I was talking with a guy who owned one about the car before I purchased it. He was telling me how great it was. I then saw him afterwards and told him I got it but I wasn't likely to drag him at the stop light. He looked at me and says "Oh....I don't drive it. That's my wife's car. I've got my truck." My excuse is that this is going to eventually be the car my daughter drives.

Test post-mortem

2010-05-05T19:00:00.001-06:00

And yes, there was one point over the weekend where I actually thought I was going to die.

First things first, my daughter and I both passed the test and are now officially "conditional black belts". That does NOT mean we are 1st Dan. We are still 1st Gup. Our next test is in November where we test to become "certified black belts" and get the official rank of 1st Dan.

The bulk of the test occurred before and after lunch on Saturday. We only had an hour scheduled for testing before lunch (lots of ceremonial stuff that also occurred in the morning) but we ended up ahead of schedule and got more testing done. Before lunch we had gone over our forms, our weapons, and our one-step sparring. After lunch, we got right back into our curriculum with a little announcement from Kwanjanim (paraphrased).

"We are now going to test you on kicking combinations and your kicking technique. This is a warning. This is the hardest part of the test. Time for you to earn your belt. I told you this wasn't going to be easy."

The actual kicking combinations weren't that difficult. I made 1 small mistake of a hoo-jin (backwards) step instead of a chun-jin (forwards) step but was able to repeat it in front of the class without issues. We then got into our kicking techniques. They first started out by calling out kicks to do and then having us do the kicks 10 times with each leg. I think we went through every kick we had been taught. So far, so good. I was getting a little tired and the room was getting a little warm but it wasn't anything out of the ordinary.

They then had instructors come out and hold kicking paddles for us to kick, continuously, for 1 minute. Break for about 20-30 seconds. Repeat. The first 2 rounds of this were back leg double kicks leading with a different leg each round. The next 3 rounds of this were the sequence "back leg round house, hoo-jin step, back leg round house (this is the other leg) repeat". The next 2 rounds were "fast kick, hoo-jin step, repeat".

I must emphasize that I did not know what we were going to be doing next nor when we were going to stop.

For the very first two rounds, I had a kid holding my paddles. I suspect because I was so much taller than him that they switched out my holder with one of the lead (and one of the best) instructors in the class for the rest of my kicking techniques. It was a dramatic difference between the two. I felt like I was in boot camp with the sergeant yelling at me non stop to just keep going.

By the time we got to the last 2 rounds, I was literally spent and out of gas. Hands on my knees, taking big deep breaths trying to oxygenate myself as much as I could. Then came the "take a knee" as they told us what we were going to do next. My mind was literally going "how are you going to do this?" I told myself that I have to. I also offered up a very quick, brief prayer asking God for help.

I stood up, faced my instructor and then went into this fog. I heard the instructor encouraging me but not really hearing everything he was saying. I caught every other word of "faster, don't slow down, keep it up"). Literally, I could tell he was yelling at me and know that he was doing it positively. I had in my head though this guy carries weight in the voting for who passes or not. I HAVE to be able to do this.

I was in an open stance toward the student to my left (the person I was actually partnered with all weekend) and told myself to use him to pace myself. I just kept kicking. We then switched directions and I was looking at the guy to my right. He was kicking faster. I just kept going. And going.

Somewhere in the middle of the minute drills, I had glanced down to where my daughter was. She had disappeared from the test. I had all kinds of scenarios racing through my head (from her passing out, to throwing up, to crying in a corner somewhere). I had to clear them out and focus on what I was doing. She ended up back in the test as the first round of the fast kicks started. Found out later that she was in the restroom. Yes it really was necessary for her to stop without me going into TMI mode but no, she was NOT throwing up.

When they called time and dismissed us, I walked backwards and ended up against the post holding the ceiling up. I collapsed right there. Grabbed my water bottle and downed the whole thing. I honestly don't recall ever doing anything so strenuous. Yes I've exercised strenuously in the past but never to the point of being in "a fog". Four days after this event and my calves are still screaming at me.

Do I feel my brief prayer was answered? In a single word, yes. God provides answers many ways. Being able to look at my partner and pace myself off of him was not something I had ever done before or even thought of. I don't know why it occurred to me then. Having the much more vocal instructor encouraging me to keep going. I was the only student out of 47 who had their instructor switched. Seeing my daughter come back right at the start of the last 2 rounds helped me clear my mind of any worries.

God doesn't have to slap you in the face to be working in my opinion. Personal experience is that he's a lot more subtle. Guess that's why it's called "faith".

Tenets at Testing

2010-05-03T19:36:00.000-06:00

The 5 tenets of Taekwondo are Courtesy, Integrity, Perseverance, Self Control, and Indomitable Spirit. Over the testing weekend, I saw several examples of each.

Courtesy:
Two weeks ago, an adult red belt student who was a member of the leadership program passed away from a heart attack. At the end of the belt demonstration on Sunday (just prior to the belt ceremony), Master Lee presented the family (a wife and a son who also takes Taekwondo) with a lifetime membership and also the promise of starting a scholarship fund in his name with our upcoming kick-a-thon fundraiser. This of course brought tears to the eyes of the family and darn near everyone in the room. After the award and subsequent clapping, as the family was leaving the room, darn near every student shook the hand and bowed toward one family member or the other (the took different routes leaving the room). Did I mention that there were 148 total students testing?

Integrity:
Our testing is on the "honor system". If you make a mistake during the curriculum, you are to stop, exit toward the side, and stand on the edge raising your hand. After everyone else has completed the current technique, you then get a chance to perform the curriculum again in front of the whole class as if it were your first time. Depending on how many make a mistake, you may be up there on your own or with a group of about 5 or 6 people. In my belt level alone, we had 47 students testing. I believe it would have been easy to make a small mistake and NOT raise your hand and get away with it. However, I don't believe that happened at all. From the students who are nearly always perfect down to the students who have a tendency to struggle, anyone who appeared to make a mistake, no matter how small, looked like they went up to the front to repeat.

Perseverance:
During sparring, one of my classmates dislocated (or perhaps even broke) one of her toes. The next morning, she was wearing sandals and large amount of tape. She then proceeded to join us on our 40 minutes run. She wasn't running of course. However, she exhibited that black belt attitude and did the best she could under the circumstances God had given her. (other examples: 2 other students in my belt level tested despite one having a shoulder issue and the other having re-constructive ACL surgery about 5 months ago)

Self Control:
I had the "privilege" of sparring against a black belt. Our sparring was without pads of any sort. (Couldn't find a helmet big enough for my fat head!). Our sparring was supposed to be "promise sparring" where we don't hit each other. Light contact is allowed. Right when the match started, I knew I was outclassed. My sparring partner got in a few solid kicks right to my chest. The amazing thing was that there was no pain whatsoever. My partner knew enough to hit me very solidly yet stay in control of his kicks to not cause any pain or damage. It was quite impressive. The kicks were solid "sounding" enough that the "people ring" were chiding him on it being promise sparring. Afterwards, he came up to me and at first apologized thinking he came on a little strong. I had to correct him and tell him that I was actually impressed by his control. He offered to spend some time with me at the next sparring class to teach me some techniques.

Indomitable Spirit:
Saturday afternoon was the most difficult time I ever had performing Taekwondo. It started with kicking combinations and then we went into kicking techniques. Part of the kicking techniques were drills where we kicked for 1 minute straight at a time with only about 30 seconds of downtime between each drill. This was AFTER we had spent most of the afternoon and all morning doing our curriculum. After we had completed our kicking techniques, I was both mentally and physically exhausted. Completely wiped out. However, this story isn't about me. A young middle school aged girl testing for her black belt was doing her kicking techniques. When she finished, she came off the mat unable to catch her breath. She was in tears from the mental and physical effort that she put out. However, what was amazing was that she did them all better than I did. She wouldn't give up. Later that afternoon, I saw her sparring and she was putting out more energy than anyone else on the floor.

last class before test

2010-04-28T08:25:00.000-06:00

Ready or not, Saturday morning is coming.

A bit of encouragement from one of the instructors last night: "I have not seen anyone fail the test because they didn't know the curriculum. I have only seen people fail due to lack of attitude."

By this he means "black belt attitude". They preach it consistently at the dojang. You wouldn't be testing if you didn't know the curriculum. However, you have to perform during the test and have a "can-do" attitude about it. You must also show respect.

If you want to see the test in person, it's in Denver at I-25 and Orchard at the Orchard Christian Center. They apparently have a big gym. It starts this weekend, 8am - 10pm on Saturday and 9am - 3:30 pm on Sunday. There are 148 people testing this weekend from 1st Gup (right before black belt) to 3rd degree black belt tip testing. The bulk of the curriculum testing is Saturday after 1:00.

Curriculum finished!

2010-04-20T08:51:00.000-06:00

My daughter was a trooper. She got all of her physical requirements done except the running on Saturday. A lot of it driven by her own motivation. Then Sunday she finished up with her running and yesterday her meditation and essay. I'm very proud of her.

Our next two weeks before the test won't be easy though. We still have long classes to attend and there is always room for improvement. I still need to work on that narabong (aka tornado kick) and spin hook combination. We also have to make sure we memorize all the kick names in Korean so we don't do the wrong kick when he calls them out during the test ("umm...yeah...that would be bad...very bad").

Side note: I've been talking with Master Lee and he keeps asking me to join the leadership club. You have to do this in order to get your 2nd degree. I'm debating it. It's mostly a cost issue at the moment.

With curriculum being done, maybe I can actually catch a little playoff hockey over the next week or two as well.

It's a TKD Weekend!

2010-04-17T11:29:00.000-06:00

All of our curriculum requirements are due 1 week from today after class. Our test is the following week. We are behind in our curriculum but it's not unsurmountable. The issue we are having and that I think most parents run into is that during the week, it is hard to get time set aside for the kids. Specifically, doing anything extra in addition to school work and the related activities that go along with school. My daughter has been involved in 4 different school related activities over the last couple weeks. They generally are right after school but that throws the whole homework time later into the evening which then leaves little to no time for Taekwondo practice. Each of the little activities don't seem like much on their own but as a parent, you need to take a step back and say enough is enough sometimes. Luckily, one of her activities completed the other night.

I gave my daughter a heads up that this weekend was going to have to be a Taekwondo weekend. She's got two days off of school this coming Monday/Tuesday (yet another teacher-in-service weekend). The number 1 priority is to get all of our curriculum done before she goes back to school on Wednesday. I gave us both Friday night off after our class to have some downtime (she watched a movie, I played video games) before we got started today.

This morning, she came into my room while I was still sleeping and asked if she could watch TV until I got up and then we would get to work. Not even a "good morning". When I got up, I came downstairs and she was ready to go. She's already completed all the repetitions on her forms and she's doing kicking combinations right now as I type this. She even told me she's having fun.

I'm encouraged. I also think she's going to do really well. Now I need to get off this computer and go finish my repetitions myself.

One side note: have you seen that silhouette image for the new Karate Kid movie. I won't go into what I think of the movie idea itself. However, I used to think that image was faked with how high Jaden Smith is kicking. Not anymore. My daughter can do that. She can kick me in the head if she wanted to and she's a full 1 foot, 4 inches shorter than me.

4 weeks!

2010-04-03T17:43:00.002-06:00

We only have 4 weeks left until our black belt candidacy test. My legs are screaming at me from all the curriculum I've been doing. I try to tackle some aspect of our curriculum every single day. We've caught up on most of our curriculum except for the sparring and meditation. We have started doing extended meditation sessions of 20 minutes each and I expect us to be completely caught up with that in a few weeks.

We had our final "evaluation" last night and today. We'll found out next week if they think we're going to be ready to test. More specifically, if you don't get a request for an appointment then they think you're ready for the test.

There were several kids in the class that just didn't look ready in my opinion. However I don't know exactly where the bar has been placed. I think I'll only find out when I don't see the kids in our class anymore or if they don't show up for the test.

The one lesson I've taken away from class lately is to be prepared to do whatever they ask at any moment. You never know exactly what's going to come next. Two examples specifically:

Today I got asked to lead the class in warm ups. I didn't even know that this instructor knew my name! She is a lead instructor at one of the other dojangs and was there today to help with the classes. Yes, I've lead the warm ups a couple of times but my mind wasn't really prepared for it.

We have to do 8 different kicking combinations for this test. They are numbered 1 through 8. We have been doing them all in order so we got into a bit of routine knowing what's next. Today, Master Lee called them out of order and some of the people in class got confused about what to do when. It's a test on if you really know which combination is which but also if you were paying attention. The instructors have been really emphasizing focus during our classes lately and this was the manifestation of it in the evaluation.

In all seriousness though, I really believe my daughter and I are going to be ready. She made a mistake in class today and raised her hand to repeat (this is our standard protocol). After she successfully performed in front of Master Lee and the whole class by herself, Master Lee commented on her great technique. Fatherly pride moment. Moments like these are ones you file away in the back of your head for motivational purposes later.

Halfway to cho dan bo!

2010-03-04T23:06:00.000-07:00

After 8 weeks, this is where we're at:

All in all, we've made good progress on catching up but still not quite there.

On Friday night (tonight by the time most of you read this), we have an evaluation period for our halfway mark. This is really a curriculum test to make sure we know everything we've been taught. They don't expect us to be perfect in our technique but they do expect us to know everything we are supposed to know by now.

I heard a comment from the lead instructor that we're going to be doing more sparring in class now. That should be entertaining as I've been known to be a bit aggressive.

week 8 - the halfway point

2010-02-27T18:15:00.000-07:00

By this coming Friday night, we'll be at the halfway point for this 16 week curriculum cycle. My current status as of this moment with 2 classes under my belt in this week:

Whenever I've shared the chart with people, there are always questions. Our 16 week goal is twice the number in the 8 week column. The number represents the total number of repetitions we have to do in the 16 week period.

If you've been following along, you may notice that I got 2 miles of running done. I did them on the treadmill in our bedroom while watching the Olympics today. Admittedly, it more of a jog than a run.

I had a discussion with one of the black belts about the actual test. He stated that during our actual test, we have a 30 minute run at your own pace followed by an hour of meditation. This occurs on the second day of the test, first thing in the morning. I tried to mimic this by jogging without stopping for 30 minutes and then doing a 10 minute meditation. I'm going to try to repeat this procedure increasing the meditation time each time I do it.

He also stated that the hour of meditation was brutal because of a buildup of lactic acid while you're just sitting there. There seems to be some debate on the topic of lactic acid. All I know is that the meditation time is a bit brutal for some people. The instructors claim that 2 people threw up during meditation in the last test.

While sitting in meditation, I noticed this weird twitching/tingling type feeling in my legs. It felt like my nerves were still firing yet I wasn't moving. I thought it might be my pulse in my legs but it wasn't regular. Not sure what it was but it was definitely odd.

Mid week gut check

2010-02-22T22:06:00.000-07:00

Midway through the 7th week after coming to the big realization that we need to catch up, we've made some pretty good progress.

Still items in the red but we have 3 more nights to go. I need to conquer that hatred of running.

Come To Jesus Time

2010-02-20T23:52:00.000-07:00

As of last Thursday night, we have completed 6 weeks of our 16 week training cycle before our black belt candidacy test. In this time, we are supposed to have completed a bunch of exercises that I've detailed in this table along with our current status.

The cells with a red background indicate the ones that I think we're in trouble with and really need to get taken care of quickly. The cells with a yellow background are ones that I think we need to keep an eye on and with a little bit of effort, we can easily catch up.

For the running portion, we have a treadmill in the house. It's been cold and snowy the last couple of days so running outside is a bit out of the question. Did I mention I hate running? I'm sure that explains why that exercise is in red.

For the meditation portion, I need to figure out a time where my daughter and I can sit still for a period of time without any distractions. That is generally very hard to do. There is so much going on in our lives that there doesn't seem to be much down time. Homework generally hits every single night and our weekends have a tendency to fill up so we have to get going all the time.

When we had our curriculum only class on Friday night, the entire class was given a warning that we needed to catch up in the next couple of weeks or risk not testing come May. That is the last thing my daughter and I need right now.

The last two days have actually been pretty much centered around these exercises. My legs have that been through the ringer feeling you get after you've done a bunch of exercise. Maybe this year isn't the "Push To Black Belt" but instead should be called the "Year of The Burning Legs"?

I know. Still a lame name. I'll come up with something.

Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!

2010-01-23T14:19:00.000-07:00

It's usually the stupid things you do that get you injured, not the actual sport you are doing.

At the end of class today, we were doing a drill where we would get 30 seconds with the "striking bag". The "striking bag" is one of those free-standing punching bags with a water or sand filled base. We were performing whatever combination of kicks and punches we wanted against it. At the end of our 30 seconds, we would run toward the back of the line while the next person went, a distance all of 20-30 feet for my line. Usually, everyone in the line is encouraging the person who just went with high fives as they pass.

Not paying too much attention, I caught my left big toe and hyper-extended it under my foot after my first pass. I swear the spongy interlocking puzzle floor mat jumped up and tripped me. I didn't fall face down or anything but managed to catch myself from stumbling and making a bigger fool of myself than I already am.

There was some pain at first but I managed to finish out the drill with a few more passes. Every time I kicked with that foot or put my weight on that big toe, I felt a slightly more painful twinge than the last. Several hours later though and it hurts, a lot. As in any pressure on it and I make that wide-eyed "O" face like I've been stuck with a hot skewer.    The pain goes from the top of the toe through the arch. I don't see any swelling yet.

I think this goes to show that you should always be focused in what you are doing for a sport.   Even when you are in the midst of relaxing in the middle of it.

Side note: when I got home and my wife asked me why I was limping, I tried to just brush it off with a small explanation of hyper-extending my toe. My oldest daughter just laughed. It really does sound a bit silly that a toe injury can cause so much pain.

2 Down, 46 to go

2010-01-09T20:00:00.001-07:00

The "Push To Black Belt" (still not settled on what to call it), includes 48 required classes before we test to become "black belt candidates". This amounts to attending 3 times a week for the next 16 weeks. Two of the classes each week are curriculum only classes. We had our first 2 curriculum classes last night and this morning.

Right from the start, the increased strictness was readily apparent. It felt like we were back in our white belt class as we went over protocol rules for the first 20 minutes of class. Items we covered were how and when to bow, uniform requirements (i.e. undershirts must match in color), how to tie our belt, walking backwards towards the back of the classroom, how to change lines, etc. It felt kind of awkward because we knew all this already but the instructors obviously felt a need to go over it with everybody reinforcing what we were supposed to do.

We then started going over our curriculum with Master Lee coming around and critiquing us. If you've seen Kung Fu Panda, think of that back story sequence where Po is learning about Tigress's insecurity. Shifu was very proud of Tai Lung until Tai Lung went bad. When Shifu then instructs Tigress, he keeps correcting her by repositioning her in whatever stance she is in and then shaking his head. It felt a lot like that without the shaking of the head bit. "Move your hand forward Mr. Doug. Keep your feet straight. Don't walk like a duck."

Master Lee is actually very encouraging when you do what he asks. However, he has warned us that he demands "perfection". He even made the comment about being worse than a mother-in-law with an example of the mother-in-law coming over and checking for dust on your counter tops.

It's going to be a tough road. However, I have this gut feeling that both my daughter and I will be able to do it.

2010 - The Year of The Black Belt

2010-01-05T21:00:00.001-07:00

Yeah, I waited a few days before doing this "new year" post. I was on vacation and then I had to catch up on work because it never really stops even when you're on vacation.

If all goes according to plan, my daughter and I will each have our black belts by Thanksgiving. It's seems like a long time from now but I know the year will go by very fast. It's going to be a lot more work as I previously mentioned.

I've gotten a lot more clarification on what our "requirements" are for the test. I'm a software developer by trade and I basically revolve my whole work life around getting my daily tasks "defined" to a level of detail that I know exactly what I'm going to be doing.

The requirements are a whole spreadsheet of repetitions of everything we've learned, a lot of class time, and some physical fitness training. The physical fitness requirements are quite daunting including having to run 16 miles (not all at once) before the next test. I hate running more than any other exercise.

Starting this week, my daughter and I have to attend class 3 times a week versus the usual 2. 2 of the classes are going to be pure curriculum for the test. Having to know everything we've learned all at once is going to be the most daunting part of this process to me.

Intensity

2009-12-07T05:00:00.010-07:00

What seems like a long time yet still just yesterday, when I first started TKD, one of my friends commented about how I was more "flowing" than he expected. Especially when he was comparing me to another mutual friend who was a 3rd degree black belt at the time (now a 4th). He described it as being more reminiscent of aikido and tai-chi. It's something that has always stuck with me yet I couldn't quite figure out how to correct on my own.

A few months ago, when we were practicing for our poomse (forms) competition, one of the instructors took me aside and showed me how to perform my moves with power. Specifically, there is a contrast between the chambering action of the move which was more soft and then the actual performance of the block and/or kick that you are about to perform. Kwan-ja-nim Lee also had a whole class where he emphasized the idea of "finishing" each move. In other words, perform the move with power, "stick the landing" (for lack of a better term), pause for a split second, move on to the next.

The effect is a lot more dramatic. It shows you are in control. You look more powerful. From a practical aspect, you are performing the strike/kick/block with power which delivers more force to the action.

Katy and I did our belt tests last night. I applied these very principles to all parts of the test, not just the forms. I can't recall coming out of test feeling like I've expended as much energy. In other words, I was more tired than the norm and I'm pretty tired today. The grader's notes on my test had a repeated theme. "Great Intensity". This was not the same grader that had worked with me nor Kwan-ja-nim Lee.

There's nothing more satisfying than working on a specific aspect of your training and having someone else recognize it.

"For I can do all things through Christ"

2009-12-07T04:45:00.002-07:00

Katy and I had our red sr. (2nd Gup) to red executive (1st Gup) belt last night. The color belt tests take on the order of 1 to 1.5 hours. They include the following items:

Student Creed - The school mantras about being positive, developing self discipline, being responsible with what you are learning.
Kicking Technique (do the technique followed by a called kick). In this case it was "ilbo hu jin" followed the kick.
Form: This time was Tae Guk Oh Jang
4 Kicking Combinations. A kicking combination is a sequence of kicks performed in conjunction in both "directions" such that you are exercising each leg. One example: hu jin step, back leg round house, fast kick, narabong (aka tornado kick), spin hook kick, double punch. Repeat in the opposite direction.
Escrima Sticks - 2 different patterns.
One Step Sparring - 2 different techniques. This is a "mock response" to a punch thrown to the face.
Physical Fitness - timed sit ups and push ups.
Promise Sparring - kick but don't touch
Board Break - This time was an elbow streak
Terminology - how do you say "various phrases here" in Korean

All of our tests have been this structure. They generally cover the topics that we covered that quarter only.

This was the last of the "easy" tests. "Easy" is my term. It's relative. Our next test is a big step up. It lasts a day and a half and covers everything we have learned, not just the last quarter. We have all kinds of pre-requisites for it including essays to write, community service, and varying numbers of repetitions of each technique, form, and kick. Our time commitment is going way up. The whole experience is going to be extreme.

I pray that I can be there for my daughter but also that God gives us the strength to do this. Phillipians 4:13 is going to become my most quoted verse for the next several months: "For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength." (New Living Translation)

Taeguek Oh Jang and The Last Crusade

2009-10-01T06:00:00.000-06:00

So what does this form have to do with the 3rd Indy movie? Not a whole lot unless you reach for it and bring in the Breath of God test from the movie and know that the form has roots in the wind trigram from the book 'I Ching'. That's just silly though.

However, this is now the 3rd quarter we've been instructed on this particular form. The dojang has started a new procedure where for the last year before we go into the black belt training classes we concentrate on Tae Guek Oh Jang and Tae Guek Yook Jang alternating every quarter. Traditionally, I think this conforms to the idea of teaching 1 form per full color belt level. We test every quarter but we don't move up a full color belt, only to the senior level of that belt. Switching it up every quarter actually gives us a bit of variety.

The reason it's my 3rd quarter is because of the quarter off my family and I took at the beginning of the year. We had just finished learning Oh Jang the last quarter of last year, skipped a quarter and then came back to the same form. It was cool in that it helped us ease back into the routine without have a whole lot of new learning to retain in my head. It's also interesting to look toward the back of the class and seeing the new students working at something that feels pretty natural to me now. I remember when I was exactly like that, overwhelmed with having to remember everything. I'm not saying I'm perfect by any means. I constantly monitor my stances and I'm now working on being "powerful" with my actions. It's gratifying to recognize and actually see my own progress however.

We are now in our last quarter before we enter the black belt training classes. That's my term for lack of anything better or official. At the end of this year, we test for our Red Executive belts (a red belt with 2 black stripes). We then enter a more rigorous training program with extra classes. We concentrate on doing everything we've ever learned over our entire color belt existence. We also start doing more physical exercises (mandatory number of pushups done a week) and a lot more repetitions of all our curriculum. We also start learning the next 2 Taeguek forms (Chil Jang and Pal Jang). I'm looking forward to it with a bit of anxiety but also excitement. We have to journal everything we do in this period as well.

In 2 weeks, we'll officially be 1 year out from our black belt. It's a minor milestone. It's a little mind boggling thinking about how fast time is passing.

9 x 8 = 72

2009-09-18T08:51:00.000-06:00

Besides being able to do basic math (I'm sure when I was in 4th grade my mom thought I would never be able to), that's how many people were in class last night. We had 9 rows with 8 in a row. It was the first time I had ever seen the instructor stop people in the middle of the line up and squeeze the lines in a little bit tighter. I'm sure there were more people in my 1 class than there are in whole schools. What's even more amazing is that there are several people at my belt level that weren't there. This number also doesn't include the 1/2 dozen or so instructors that were there also.

The classes at the school are divided by color belt groups with my class (called the advanced class) going from brown to cho-dan-bo (the last belt before black). The red executive and cho-dan-bo class are on a separate test schedule than the rest of us where they test twice a year slightly off cycle in May/October. The end result is that there are certain times of years where the class is biggie-sized until we hit that off cycle test where the cho-dan-bo belts test for their black belts and then move on to the next class for black belts only.

As a result, the main instructor had us doing a lot of basic drills that didn't require a lot of space. They mostly consisted of working on our stances and holding them for a very long time. My legs are feeling it this morning and I know they are going to just keep getting more sore as the day wears on.

My lower back is still sore but I'm able to cope with it and still do everything I need to do with TKD. "Better living through chemicals" as the joke goes. I'm constantly getting up and trying to stretch it out which seems a little odd considering that I'm more limber than most people I know. Not like the instructors in class but definitely more limber than a lot of the people in class.

spin hook kick part deux

2009-09-15T06:00:00.007-06:00

First night back after the test and what do we do besides the belt ceremony? Back kicks and spin hook kicks. The instructor claimed these are the 2 hardest kicks they teach for the colored belts.

Part of my instruction tonight was actually figuring out I was doing it wrong. I was starting out the spin hook kick exactly like a back kick. In a back kick, you essentially turn around 180 degrees and peek over the shoulder that is on the same side as the leg you are kicking with. You are picking your target with your peripheral vision. Your shoulders should be square to your opponent as you start the kick. Your kicking knee should brush your plant knee as you perform the kick and then strike with the heel of your foot.

The first big difference in the spin hook kick is how far that initial rotation is. Instead of a 180 with your shoulders square, you do a 270 with your shoulders lined up toward your target. Note that your feet have not changed location yet but they have rotated to allow the rotation of the upper body. Your non-kicking foot is generally pointed in the 270 or more direction. This initial rotation amount is where I was really wrong. I had been starting my kick at the 180 degree point.

At this point in time, you pick up your kicking foot to your side like you are starting a side kick. You then use the momentum and tension you've built up with the rotation in your body to perform the kick striking with either the back of the foot in a break or the bottom of your foot in a normal kick. Note that the target of this kick is your opponent's face. It is meant as a knock-out strike.

I found that concentrating in how I started the kick really helped with my balance and control of the kick itself. I was getting my kick up to my head level with quite a bit of speed and that essential lateral movement through the target. In other words, it felt awesome. I'm not saying I was perfect nor in any way doing this so that it felt natural. That will come with practice. However, it's nights like these where I feel like I really accomplished something.

The instructor was really good at demonstrating this kick in slow motion to us. Something that I find very hard to do while trying to maintain balance. Some day, I like to think that I would have the ankle strength to maintain my balance and position.

God's Practical Joke (well....1 of them anyways)

2009-09-14T07:00:00.001-06:00

I think God has played a practical joke on His favorite creation. Specifically, to remind us that we are just human beings who don't age all that well and that we are in fact, not Him. That joke is in our lower back. Specifically the "SI joint".

A week ago Thursday, we were doing our warm-up routine at TKD. This specific exercise was after our stretching/pushups/pullups. We would run in place. Whenever our instructor yelled, we were to touch the ground and then jump in the air. I had done it at least a dozen times in the 30 seconds or so had been doing the exercise. Right near the end, I bent over and felt the flash of pain across my back. That flash of pain that makes you stand up straight as you wonder who stabbed you with a cattle prod. I know you've felt it and you must know exactly what I'm talking about. Every time I've repeated this story this week to anyone over the age of 25, I've gotten that "knowing nod" along with the accompanying story about how they were doing just the smallest thing when it happened to them.

I kept the rest of the workout easy on myself constantly stretching out that lower back muscle. In hindsight, I probably should have just stopped then and there. After TKD, I went out to do my Avalanche season ticket exchange. By the time I got home at about midnight, I was in agony. I went to bed and the next morning I was walking around like my wife's mom does after she's "sat a spell". I literally could not get myself straightened out. I looked at myself in the mirror and my right hip was about an inch higher than my left. I've had lower back issues before but this was one was just sheer agony. Never this bad. I decided I better go to the doctor just in case I really did damage something.

You know you're getting old when you hobble in, fill out the forms at the front desk and the lady behind the counter asks if you need a wheelchair. Politely refusing in an effort to deny my age, I eventually made my way back to "the room" and waited patiently for the doc to arrive. When he shows, he has me try to do a few things to rule out specific nerve damage, has me bend over a little bit while he's pressing on my back, and then informs me I have a "locked SI joint". Having never heard the term before and assuming this has nothing to do with an enthusiastic interest in the February Sports Illustrated Issue, the blank look on my face had the doc explaining to me exactly what that meant. Basically, the injury hurt my muscles which in turn cause them to contract which in turn cause the joint to get further out of kilter which in turn cause the muscles to inflame more which continues the cycle over and over.

The doc game a combination of anti-inflammatory (prednisone), muscle relaxer, and painkiller. He also gave me a specific set of stretching exercises to do every hour. My big concern is that we were only 1 week before testing and would I be better by then. He couldn't give me a direct answer but did tell me go at "1/2", meaning 1/2 the effort and 1/2 the frequency. If that didn't work, "1/2 it again". I ended up taking the whole week off of TKD and spending all of Labor Day weekend doing minimal amount of movement as I could. Not to mention the drugs doing a number on my concentration abilities where I had to focus to accomplish some of the most trivial tasks.

I did make it to testing today though. Before we went, I stretched out as much as I could doing every known exercise I could think of that would stretch those muscles in my lower back. I still had pain but now more of a dull ache then anything real. I also went through all the curriculum at home to make sure I could do it all. The worst part were the sit-ups. I mentally told myself during the test to just take it easy during that part and not try to be "manly" and do as many as I could.

It all went well. Both my daughter and I aced the test. We're now Red Senior belts (2nd Gup) with only 1 quarter to go until we get into the Red Executive program. This is the last quarter of "easy stuff" before we get into the big push for Black Belt. It's been about 2 and 1/2 years and I'm really looking forward to finishing this part up.

spin hook kick - otherwise known as how to fall on your .....

2009-08-28T07:00:00.000-06:00

Our board break this quarter is a choice of either a back kick or a spin hook kick.   I've practiced the back kick enough that I can pretty easily break a board doing it.   Admittedly, I take it slow to make sure I have the technique correct but I can still do it. In light of that, I've been trying to focus on my spin hook kick.   Tonight, we got to practice it. Good thing my butt has a bit of padding.

I perform the kick with my right leg usually. My technique is basically to rotate clockwise to face backwards like I was going to do a back kick, pause and take a look over my right shoulder to eye the target, and then shoot my leg out similar to a back kick but to the opponent's right (my left) and rotate to do the kick. The problem I have is getting the rotation as I'm doing it while still maintaining my balance and control.   I have a tendency to be high over the target. When I am high over the target, I get off balance and have my left foot slip out from under me. Because of the rotation, I land on my butt.   This has happened more than once.

During board breaking, we usually have a couple of holders while we line up and take turns.   When I was at the back of the line, I just kept practicing and practicing the kick itself.   I figured out that if I just tried to keep the kick a little lower and not try for the height, I had a lot more control over the kick and my balance.   I believe that if I just keep practicing the technique, the height to the kick will come as I get more comfortable with it.

The question is now whether or not I have the guts to do the spin hook kick during the test in a little over 2 weeks or if I will just fall back to the back kick which I'm very comfortable doing.

We also do a spin hook kick during 1 of our kicking combinations: back leg round house, spin hook kick, punch-punch, repeat in other direction.   I have trouble with doing the kick with my left leg where I know I'm not getting anywhere near enough speed and height on it.   It's something I have to spend extra practice time on before the test.

I did get that black recommended stripe tonight at least.

class is like a box of chocolates

2009-08-26T07:00:00.001-06:00

You should know the rest of that quote. The fact of the matter is, that any time we show up for class, the style of class we're going to have varies with the instructor. Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Kwan-ja-nim - Be prepared to work. Work hard. Work without water breaks. And focus on whatever kicking technique he feels we're lacking in. He's quite the stickler on the back kick. The thing I notice is that when he's teaching the class, the students are a bit louder, the snap to attention a bit quicker, and generally are a bit more focused and energetic.
Ms. Technical - These classes have a tendency to be lighter in the workout. However, there is a LOT of instruction generally centered around our form of the quarter.
Mr. Teenager - Note, this kid....err....young adult....is a 3rd degree black belt. He's very good at TKD and at being an instructor. He has a pretty good balance between keeping us moving and getting us through the instruction for the class. He's the guy that seems to be behind the million ways to be cruel.
Mr. Twin. - Woah. We get this guy occasionally. He's older than me but in way better shape. I keep forgetting whenever we get him that I'm about to work my ass off. We get tired right during the warmup and it just keeps getting harder. Note, this isn't a complaint. I like the hard workout on occassion. When you get to the end of it, you always feel like you've survived ... errr .... accomplished something difficult. At least we get water breaks.
Mr. Second-In-Command - He's been mostly absent this quarter doing a lot of work in one of the other facilities. I've always liked him because he's been encouraging yet demanding at the same time. He also has a way with kids that seems to resonate with them. Something I like when my daughter is around.

There are other instructors we have that are varying degrees of the above. To be completely honest, there isn't a bad one among the whole lot. Did I mention it was a large school? I'm really just trying to illustrate a point that I like the variety we get. Even if it is a bit of a surprise when you walk in the door.

balancing act

2009-07-24T06:00:00.000-06:00

We've been doing a lot of a balancing drills lately in class. Generally in the last 10-15 minutes. Some of these are actually variations of sparring drills. Specifically, get your opponent to commit to an action that you can easily counter for a score. I've made up my own names for some of these for lack of anything better.

Chicken Fight - Think back to when you were a kid. Hold one of your legs up like you would be sitting cross-legged (aka indian style). Bounce around on one foot and try to knock your opponent over without falling over yourself. You lose if you put your foot down, fall down, or your hands leave your ankle that you are holding.
Patty-cake Squats - Squat down. Don't let your butt touch the floor but keep it below your knees. Face your opponent and slap each others hands (both hands at once). Try to knock your opponent off balance or have him over commit and put himself off balance (i.e. let him strike but move your hands out of the way). Feel free to move around but your butt can't go above your knees. If any part of your body touches the ground, you lose. You are only allowed to strike his hands. No other part of the body allowed.
Patty-cake Horse Stance - Same thing as above but in a horse stance. However, you can't move your feet.
Partner Crab Race - Stand back to back with your partner. Squat down so your butt is almost parallel with your knees. Brace your weight against your partners back. Race against other teams in the direction that one of you is facing. This not only helps with your balance (you're reacting against shifting weight), but your quads are getting a great workout and your building a sense of trust with your partner.
Side Kick Statue - Perform a side-kick but hold it extended for 10 seconds or more. Your supporting ankle will be getting quite a workout as you try to maintain your balance.

We spent a lot of time on Tae Guek Yuk Jang tonight as well. I really don't know that form as well as I should by now. Time to start practicing out in the back yard. I'm sure my neighbors (who can all see pretty much directly into my yard) find it at least amusing when I'm out there.

Side note: I've got a bruise on my left foot the circumference of a baseball.

pain and suffering

2009-07-22T06:00:00.000-06:00

It seems to never fail.   Every time we do a bit of "promise sparring" (or light contact sparring), I usually end up in a little pain.   This time it's my foot right near where the top of it meets the ankle.

My opponent was very good at spinning around and getting me to commit to an attack. However, he spun so fast and my reactions were so slow that he would be completely around before my kick would connect to his torso. I usually hit his elbow or forearm instead.   Note to self, the elbow or forearm is a much less forgiving surface than the torso. There's a bit of swelling but we'll really see how it is tomorrow.   I need to put some ice on it here shortly but our ice maker busted last week and we don't get the replacement until tomorrow! Uggh.

Anyway, after class, I was talking with him about what he was doing and he told me it was something he had learned in sparring class along with a few others that he told me about.   I'm convinced I need to make a serious attempt at trying that class out.   I know it's quite the workout but applying some "practice" to the "principles" of TKD will probably give me a whole new perspective on the sport.

What is that crazy contraption?

2009-07-21T06:15:00.007-06:00

Showing up to class last Friday, there was this ominous looking metal contraption in the corner with rubber straps and a pad on it.   It's new to the dojang and generated a "What is that thing?" from a couple of the students. I don't have a picture of it and my google-fu is weak. However, it turned out to be for board breaking. There's a section that slides up and down and can be set with pins to adjust for height. The boards are held in place in this section with the rubber straps against metal braces that are extended away from the core of the machine. There is a pad where your foot and/or hand would eventually hit if you were to go through the board.

Normally, an instructor or fellow student holds a single practice board of varying strength (color coded to your belt level generally) while you attempt to break it. I find that the practice boards are generally more difficult then real boards because the plastic teeth that keep the board together are way more stronger than whatever bonding wood molecules have with each other. However, I can still break through a black board fairly easily.

Our board break this quarter is either a back-kick or the spin-hook kick.   We ended up practicing our back-kick on the machine. The difference with the machine though is that it can be setup to hold multiple practice boards. Our instructor hooked up a single black board and a yellow board (yellow being easiest).   After several attempts, me and the other adult partner kept breaking only the first board and not the second.   I mentioned to the instructor that there seemed to be some kind of intimidation factor going on in my head of "Oh noes....there is more than 1 board here."   He stopped the class and gave us a few pointers.

First, when there are more than 1 board, there is a gap between the practice boards versus if you were holding multiple wood boards which are flush against each other.   The natural reaction to breaking a board is that when your foot and/or hand is hitting that first board and it starts to break, you immediately start your recoil because it's breaking. The result is that you don't actually hit the board behind it with the power needed to break it.   Time and time again, we've been told to break through the board and "aim" for a point behind it.   I was getting lazy and not actually doing that.   He told me to try to hit the pad behind the boards and see what happened.    That mental preparation of thinking about going through the target and hitting the pad behind was all I needed.    I barely even felt the boards as they snapped.

jumping rope

2009-07-20T06:15:00.001-06:00

We ended up going to TKD mid-day on Friday instead of our usual weekday night routine.   What's cool about this is that the class size is significantly smaller and you get a lot more individual attention and the chance to ask questions way more readily.    Not that we don't receive enough attention during a normal class. It's just what comes with the territory with smaller class sizes.

Part of the warm up routine during the mid-day classes is jumping rope for 4-5 minutes.   We don't do this in the evening classes probably due to lack of space. Back when I was a kid, I used to do that Jump Rope For Heart fundraiser and I could jump rope for minutes on end w/o missing a single beat. Apparently it isn't just like riding a bike because I have difficulties and end up catching the rope in my toes. We use those plastic speed jumping ropes in class that don't seem to have much weight to them. I never jumped rope in bare feet when I was a kid either.

We've gone to these mid-day classes several times before. Apparently my frustration with the jump rope was starting to show because the instructor actually stopped us all and gave us a few pointers. The idea is to move ONLY your wrists instead of your whole arm or even just from your elbows. By moving only your wrists, the rope has a tendency to hit the ground about 6-8 inches in front of your feet instead of further out. When it hits the ground further out, it has a tendency to bounce up and catch your feet and/or toes. When I specifically concentrated on this aspect of the rope jumping, I kept way better rhythm and had fewer "toe catches".

Who knew that jumping rope could actually have a technique to it that I would have to concentrate on in order to do better.   Crazy.

push ups...."a million ways to be cruel"

2009-07-17T06:00:00.001-06:00

When I was young, I never had much upper body strength. Well....to be completely honest, I didn't have much strength at all. I was 6'2" and 147 lbs soaking wet when I was 18. I could use a telephone pole for cover in a game of hide and seek and pretty much win the game every time. Since that time so many years ago, I've put on a lot of weight but it hasn't been in the form of muscle. I lead a sedentary lifestyle (who doesn't nowadays) but now that my metabolism is on the downward spiral, I'm trying to be active.

When I was young, my uncle explained to me that I would never have much strength in my arms because my muscles were longer. I've used that as an excuse ever since but I think I need to come to grips with reality and accept that I just need to practice more.

The other night at practice, the instructors decided it was time for us to work on our upper body strength. This is my biggest weakness. My pecs are so sore even after 2 days that I'm a little scared to go back in case they keep up with the theme this week.

We do a variety of different kinds of push ups all designed to exercise different muscles:

normal push ups - hands under shoulders, all the way down and up, feet together, no mountains or valleys
wide push ups - hands more than shoulder width apart
diamond push ups - form a diamond with your thumbs and index finger. To maintain a tripod for balance, it's ok to spread your feet apart on this one
staggered push ups - one hand forward, one back (switch half way through)
seal push ups - normal push ups but clap hands together when raised
punch push ups - normal push ups but alternate punching a focus mitt between push ups
form push ups - this is my own name for this one - put a focus mitt between your shoulder blades - if it slides off that position while doing the push up, it doesn't count
dolphin push ups - start with your butt up in the air, do the push up but touch your chest first then your pelvic region while you are raising your chest. You're body should do a sort of "wave"

In all of these push ups, the instructors are giving us the "down and up" call. Sometimes in the middle of it, they go "down and hold......wait.......and now up". That's the absolute worst. I generally collapse to the ground during the hold portion.

When I first started TKD a little over 2 years ago, I could barely do 7 pushups in a single attempt. They could barely be called push ups because I wouldn't go down very far at all. However, now I can do around 30 or so respectable push ups. That all depends on which kind they are of course. Wide push ups are the easiest where I can do just shy of 40 in about 30 seconds. Diamonds are the worst where I'm lucky to get 20.

I'm really tempted to try the 100 push ups site to see if I could pull it off. I'm holding off until I lose about 15 more pounds. I was actually at that weight at one point but with the break we took I gained 15 pounds. Disheartening.

Tae Geuk Yuk Jang

2009-07-07T08:00:00.003-06:00

or is that Tae Guk Yook Jang? It's all phonetic anyway and there doesn't seem to be a standard.

You can watch the video here if you like.

I've tried to capture all the steps for this form here. It's a published google page that I hope you can access. Leave a comment if you can't. There are differences in the video from my instructions. Specifically, the 4 counts on steps 5 and 12 and the raising up on the heels on step 11. I need to remember to ask the instructor next time I'm in about the difference. However, I have to keep reminding myself that this is an art and not a science.

We started the new form before our last competition. The beginning is similar to Oh Jang so I was hoping I wouldn't get them mixed up when I competed.

Each Taegeuk form represents a "trigram of the unity" (think the unity of yin and yang which is called taichi in Chinese). I seriously don't understand what that really means. Looks like I have a homework assignment. However, you practice these forms to master the techniques of Taekwondo.

Since the competition, we've been doing the next form for the bulk of the class. I never realized how tired you could get just doing the form over and over and over again. Part of my "instruction" has been to execute my forms with more "power". I have a tendency to execute the forms with a bit of "flowing" to them instead of the "snap" that I see in most videos. I'm going to have to concentrate on this aspect as I learn the next form. Maybe that is what I need to get the next level in the competition.

Poomse 09

2009-07-02T19:50:00.002-06:00

We had our first dojang only Poomse competition of the year last weekend. My youngest daughter and I both competed doing Tae Guk Oh Jang (my instructions).

The competition is organized into 6 different rings divided by age range. Within each ring, there are matches (for lack of an official term) of up to 4 people competing against each other. At most, 2 people compete at once with each pair taking a turn simultaneously. The people in the match are all of the same belt level and sex. Within each match, a 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 3rd (yes....I intentionally wrote 3rd twice) is awarded. Once everyone in the ring has competed once, all the 1st place winners then compete against each other to be champion of their respective ring. In this round, the contestants compete 2 at a time. However, the judging is across all the contestants in that ring. All the champions of the 6 rings then compete against each to be named Grand Champion in a similar fashion. To become the Grand Champion, you would have to win 3 matches.

In my ring, I would estimate there were a total of around 40 adults. Note that my school has about 400 students. In all the past poomse competitions, I've always placed second in that first round. Usually as a result of mental error on my part. Because of our "3 month sabbatical", I competed against different contestants this year. I'm not saying that had anything to do with it but I ended up placing first in the first round. I did not win the champion of the ring round. I was however pleased with my improvement and finally getting that 2nd place monkey off my back.

It also helped that I did the same form as I did in my last competition. My dojang rotates every quarter for the students between the Tae Guk Oh Jang and Tae Guk Yuk Jang forms for the belt levels Brown - Red. Sr. These are Gups 4 and 3 in my dojang. It takes a full year to get through these belt levels. Then when we become Red Executive, we start working on the next 2 Tae guk forms.

My daughter got a 3rd place finish. She didn't spend much time practicing that last couple of weeks and wasn't taking it very seriously. Additionally, she won a 1st place in our last competition and she let herself take it a little too easy because of it. In contrast, I'll be working extra hard to make it to the next level at our next competition in November.

Apologies

2009-07-02T19:41:00.004-06:00

Hey ho everyone,

I really think posts like this are kinda sappy and unnecessary. Everyone knows I haven't been posting. It assumes I actually have people reading this that care. By now, they've all gone on. It comes out as just a big excuse really. I'll just say it up front, I suck. This is my renewed attempt to change that.

And now the excuse: Time flies when you're super busy at work. Funny that I work at a place that lives and breathes by the bloggers that use us but I find very little time to blog myself. My responsibilities changed a while back at work and I think it has taken me a little bit to get into the groove of things. Here's hoping for a renewed sense of purpose for this place to lay down my thoughts.

Hall of Fame

2009-04-08T20:03:00.003-06:00

The "Official" Taekwondo Hall of Fame ceremony is this weekend. If I understood Grandmaster Lee tonight, he's either being inducted or he's a nominee. Pretty darn cool either way.

Naked Toe Picture...beware!

2009-03-29T10:16:00.002-06:00

I think I broke my pinky toe at TKD yesterday. Yes....this is TMI.

Click here to see it.

DLP color wheel replacement

2009-03-27T23:12:00.008-06:00

First....long time since I posted. We had to take a break from TKD for about 3 months because of some personal family issues that I may or may not elaborate upon further at a later date. We're back at it as of this week though. It was hard being away. It was even harder after that first night back. So very stiff plus a little bit sore.

We had a little adventure with our DLP HD set. The technology basically works likes this: There is a very bright light that shines through a spinning color wheel. The wheel itself has different colors on it. The wheel spins somewhere in the neighborhood of 9000 RPM. After the light passes through the color wheel, it goes through the cool DLP chip. The chip has millions of tiny rotating mirrors on it that let light pass through or not. Each one basically corresponds to a "pixel" on a the screen. The combination of the mirror flipping along with the color that has been let through is synchronized and happens so quickly that you get pictures on the screen that are composed of the right colors.

A couple of weeks ago, I heard this weird "thunk" sound and then the picture went all "vibraty" for lack of a better term. There was a weird buzzing sound coming out of the TV. I turned the TV off and it wouldn't ever turn completely back on. A couple of quick searches on the internet and I found reports of the color wheel bearing going out and having similar "audio" symptoms of buzzing. I ordered the part and then had to wait because it was back ordered. I finally got it today and started my repair.

A working one looks like this:

When I pulled mine out, it looked like this:

with the shattered remnants looking like this:

Obviously not a bearing problem.

All in all, the repair was pretty quick. I had it done in under an hour. I used this site as a reference but mine was actually much simpler to do then he described. Samsung had rearranged the whole center section of the TV that it slid out on a tray after disconnecting a few connections (easy computer like plug connections). I was then able to unscrew the color wheel from above and swap it out. Of course, I did vacuum out all the little particles in the housing using a can of compressed air to make sure I got them all out into the open where the vacuum could pick them up.

Black Belt Spectacular!

2008-11-10T11:10:00.002-07:00

My dojang hosts a yearly show as a "graduation party" of sorts for the people who got their black belts in that year. We have 2 black belt tests every year with on the order of 20 or so black belts graduating at each test. Yes, my school is big with about 400 students at any one time.

Anyway, it's called the Black Belt Spectacular and it generally involves demonstrations from every belt level and age group in the school. We just had the event this past weekend. It's not required participation. From the turnout, I would suspect about 50% of the students participated in the event.

My youngest daughter's one and only demo was a board break (step behind side kick). She performed it very well. I had the honor of being her board holder.

I was also enlisted to be the board holder for several other belt levels. Of the 4 boards I held, 2 of the people broke their boards. Each board breaker only had 1 shot at it. This is not an attempt to gloss myself but the board holder has almost as important a part in the break as the actual board breaker. It's basic physics that the holder provides an equal and opposite force to the blow in order for the board to break. I pray that the reason the boards did not break on the ones I was holding wasn't my fault, I wouldn't want to have let the board breaker down. Lucky for me, one of the successful board breakers was Kwan-ja-nim Lee's son. I didn't quite realize it at the time but figured it out when he waved back to his dad as we were leaving the floor.

My oldest daughter and I were supposed to do be in the exact same demonstrations, one called "Basic Motions" and the other the Taeguk Oh Jang form. Minutes before the "Basic Motions" demo, my daughter had disappeared and I couldn't find her. After minutes of panic, I eventually discovered she was in the bathroom but she wasn't going to come out. She had expressed a reluctance to participate in the event and I immediately thought this was an act of rebellion or else stage fright. Turns out, I was mistaken and she was actually sick. I shouldn't have doubted her. She had to skip the rest of the night and hung out by the front doors to the lobby with her mom while I finished my part in the show.

My youngest daughter has made friends with a young girl on the official "demo team" and she really wanted to see what she did during the show. She's now inspired to want to try out for the demo team. The demo was impressive and I do think my youngest daughter could make the team provided she works on her precision.

All in all, the evening was enjoyable. I was impressed by how much the black belts in the school could do. I just wish that my oldest daughter had been able to participate. Our next major event is a dojang only poomse competition in only 2 weeks where we compete individually. I'm praying for a good health for everybody.

Taeguk Oh Jang

2008-11-04T16:15:00.001-07:00

We've had a few weeks of classes since our belt test and we have covered some of the items for this quarter's curriculum. The biggest of which is the Taeguk Oh Jang form. I've seen videos and pictures of each step but never anything textual. I've attempted to capture it in text form below. Click on the picture for a full size view of it. In the column where I give "ending direction", I use the terms North, East, South, West like the directions of a compass. I'm using "North" to mean the same as the direction you are first facing. It does NOT mean a literal "North".

I was very daunted (see previous post) when I first saw the form thinking I wouldn't be able to remember it all. Well, as with everything else in life, practice makes perfect and I have it down.

My concern now is going to be when we actually have to test for our black belts in the future. Having to remember which form is which and keeping it all straight in my head is going to be a big hurdle for this aging mind.

Stepping it up

2008-09-17T12:00:00.005-06:00

We had that first advanced class last night. The warm up routine was faster paced but that could have been just the instructor. Hard to say exactly. During the sit ups, the main instructor chastised my oldest daughter about taking them easy. She puts her knees down instead of going all the way to her toes. He told her that by Brown Sr, she was going to be doing that and she needed to build up those arm muscles.

I also found out what our first form is going to be: Taeguk Oh Jang.

My brain just exploded. It seems to start fairly easy but then I lost track of everything he's doing.

I think I'll paint the ceiling brown

2008-09-15T14:06:00.003-06:00

The test is over and we all passed with flying colors. One of my daughters asked me afterward if she did well. I responded to her that she got all A+'s so yes she did. She then made the comment "That doesn't mean anything. After all, -- sister's name here -- got all A+'s too".

Suppressing a grin because it really isn't nice to talk about the sibling that way, I responded "She did well too!". The youngest responded "Well....she didn't kihap loudly."

I had to laugh. It's funny cuz it's true. However, the other sibling does have good technique and memory for this stuff. Her grades are deserved.

The testing time starts with announcements about upcoming special dates. Master Lee also made a special announcement to us Blue Sr. belts. He stated that those of us going into the advanced class need to be prepared for the harder curriculum. If any of us parents felt that our kids are at all struggling with the new curriculum, that we should come talk to them right away and we will get the help we need.

I've had this feeling that the advanced class was going to ramp it up a bit. Now it's confirmed through official channels.

I repeated this to my wife. She immediately honed in on the "How much is this extra help gonna cost?" I'm sure she's right.

I'm going to do my best to help instruct my kids in what we learn. I see organized practice sessions at home on a weekly basis in our near future.

The belt ceremony to get our brown belts isn't until our first new advanced class tomorrow night. I expect to feel a little out of place considering most of the people in the class will be people I haven't seen in 3 months.

Belt Test Weekend

2008-09-10T10:24:00.002-06:00

This Saturday is testing day again. For us, it's a Blue Sr to Brown belt transition. This also marks when we move to the "advanced class". That means a few changes:

A time change for all of our classes which adds a bit of chaos to our already chaotic weekly routine. We've got 2 kids each going different directions on some nights.
We start learning the Tae Guk forms. I think 2 a quarter so that we have all 8 of them under our belts (pun intended) by the time we start the last year push to Black Belt.
The classes are actually run more strict. Line up in Joon Bi position. Always "sit like a 10". Make sure you bow correctly. Yada, Yada.
I think we start getting asked to help out with training in the lower level classes but that might not happen for 6 months or so.

To be honest, I'm really looking forward to the change in routine. I'm feeling pretty confident about the upcoming test. I know everything pretty well. We actually went through it all last night and I didn't make more than 1 mistake. I'm a little concerned they'll ask us to throw in a fast-kick/narabong combination which I haven't really practiced that much. I can see myself falling on my face pretty quickly with the spin on that one.

I think my kids will do well as well. My youngest daughter is getting confused with the terminology we have to learn but I think she'll be all right by Saturday. My older daughter knows it all but needs to work on her display of confidence. She just seems to do it so lackadaisical at times.

My kids also get very nervous about the board break. It's a knife hand which is pretty easy if you make sure you break through the board and hit the side of your hand vs. the pinky. I may have them work on it before we go but don't want to get them freaked out about it either.

Olympic Taekwondo Musings

2008-08-21T21:51:00.000-06:00

I've been catching a lot of the TKD coverage on my computer in my home office. We've had other Olympic coverage going on at the same time in the family room. I've been trying to figure out why this isn't being broadcast on a TV channel here in the US considering the rise in popularity of mixed martial arts. I also believe that Taekwondo is the most popular of all the martial arts. Yeah....I have no facts to back my belief up. Personal experience only. In the town I live in, there are 3 separate Taekwondo dojangs out of 6 martial arts studios.

My reasons:

The "scream". Seriously. You can hear it all through the house. That high-pitched whine of a scream is really annoying. Most noticable with the women obviously. My wife thought I was killing kittens (and no....I don't mean that euphemism!) in the office. Everyone should switch to real yells instead. Maybe that isn't in the spirit of old martial arts movies but who screams like that in real life?
Non-obvious scoring. Sports need to be non-subjective and this is obviously a subjective scoring system. They need to fix it somehow.
Korean terms. As Americans, we have the "if isn't English, we don't like it" mentality. Yeah, it's narrow minded but it isn't going to change. It's hard to understand what the referee is saying. I don't want to change the culture of the sport so I think that subtitles on the referee would be ideal. Considering he doesn't say that many different things, it would be easy to just implement a preset of terms on a video screen controlled by the touch of a button.
The warnings. Warnings are given but the audience is left wondering what happened.
More action. Too much defensive bouncing.
Media coverage. Our local news sports does the "don't pay attention to what we're about to say and we'll tell you what happened" in the evening news. Taekwondo wasn't even mentioned even though there were medals won by Americans.

Olympic Taekwondo Starts Tonight

2008-08-19T09:00:00.001-06:00

Coverage starts tonight (the 19th) here in the US at 9:00 pm ET. It will be online at nbcolympics.com. Grandmaster Han Won Lee (my instructor) will be helping out the Chinese team so perhaps I'll get to see him in the coverage. I believe he is doing some scouting. I heard through the dojang rumor mill he's good friends with the Chinese coach. Rumor based on similar last name? I doubt it. It seems to be a very small world up in those ranks. Also highly political.

Stage Fright

2008-08-11T23:19:00.003-06:00

What is it about talking in front of a bunch of people that causes your heart to race, your palms to get sweaty, and your mind to draw a complete blank? Ok, the answer is adrenaline but what causes the adrenaline to kick into overdrive in the first place?

In one word: Fear.

Every class, the first person in the far right corner of the room does the bow-in procedure. I've done this a few times such that I get it right w/o having to think too much about it.

The procedure...spelled phonetically to the best of my ability

Chery-ut : attention
Kuki-day-hi-oh : face the flag
Kyung-yay : this means bow but we put our hand over our hearts
Buh-ro: (Usually spelled barrot) Return to attention
Kuki-day-hi-oh Kyo-sa-nim kay: Face the Instructor
Kyung-yah: bow to the instructor and everyone yells out "Courtesy....Tae Kwon!" with right arm up in an "L" position with a fist, left arm at their side in a "cocked" position.

Note that if the instructor is a Master, Kyo-sa-nim is replaced with Sah-bum-nim. If a Grand Master, Kwan-ja-nim.

Tonight,we had Kwan-ja-nim Lee as our instructor. I made it through the bow-in perfectly fine but then panic struck. He looked at me and asked me to lead the warm-up exercises. It was the first time I've done this. 99.99% of the time, an upper level student leads the class in the warmups. I've only seen one other student of our belt level lead the class in warmups. The look of terror must have been in my eyes because he looked at me and encouraged me to get up there. "There's always a first time. You can do it." It was a bit of a blur. I spent the whole time going over in my head what we had done in the past and what we should be doing next. At one point in time, I forgot how to say the number 2 in Korean. I was thankful when it was over and I think I did actually go over everything we normally do.

The rest of the class, we focused on items for our upcoming test. Kwan-ja-nim Lee is great at working on the details of our technique in both demonstrating proper form and in encouraging us to do it correctly without making us feel bad. I've got a handle on the items for our upcoming test already. I just need to make sure I can perform everything with proper form AND with the correct attitude.

There are days where I wonder about what life will be like after I have my black belt. I have this idea in my head that by that time, I will be up in front of the class instructing without any fear. It's a long step from today though.

"So Impressed...

2008-08-04T06:51:00.002-06:00

...I joined the company".

Today is my first day.

If you can't quite place the quote, it was for a Remington Microscreen Electric Shaver. I'm a child of the media generation. There is some obscure advertising slogan that pops into my head for nearly every situation.

As for being impressed, check out the search widget installed to the right of this page.

Best Laugh I've Had Today

2008-07-25T12:44:00.000-06:00

The Dark Knight

2008-07-24T13:15:00.001-06:00

See this movie. It's incredible. Stop reading this blog and go to the theater now.

I saw it last night at a late showing with a friend. I haven't stopped thinking about it since. I'm debating paying to see the IMAX version.

I'd place it in my top 5 movies (note the term "movie" and not "film") of all time list. In no particular order:

The Incredibles
Alien
The Terminator
The Dark Knight
The Lord of The Rings (yeah...it's 3 movies....so what)

Honorable Mentions: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars: A New Hope, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Blade Runner, A Christmas Vacation

Edit: Forgot one: Pirates of the Carribean Trilogy

Note that I define my top movies as those that if they are on TV and I happen to catch it, I will blow off whatever I'm doing and watch them to completion. I will also make it a priority to own a copy of the movie on whatever the latest medium that I have a player for is because I will watch it over and over again. There are plenty of movies that I think are fantastic that aren't on this list (i.e. "Bueller? Bueller?") but don't fit the criteria.

the pulled halo announcement

2008-07-23T10:27:00.003-06:00

First....I'm not really a fan of Halo. It's cool and all. I have all the games and have played them through a couple times. The first one is by far my favorite of the series. Halo 3 is the only game where I participated in a midnight release event. However, it's not really my cup of tea. I like squad based tactical games instead.

"We didn't feel we needed to show Halo to have a great show, to pay homage to our core audience, to have a lot of news, so it was an embarrassment of riches and we couldn't fit it in. How great is that? I think that's awesome." - Don Mattrick

If this is true and not just PR spin to cover up the real story, it tells me that MS doesn't have the killer instinct. Sony is making up ground this year. If MS truly wanted to win the "console war" (or at least come in 2nd to Nintendo), they should have announced it. There isn't any embarrassment of riches in this space. If the dagger is in the body, twist away to make sure it's really dead.

I believe this is more about appeasing the other developers in the MS space. I'm looking at you Epic and Square Enix. They want their share of the pie and didn't want to be overshadowed by the Halo juggernaut.

Instead, the whole pulled announcement news is using up more cyber-space than the games that were announced. Is this a brilliant PR move following the "there's no such thing as bad press" idea or a giant cluster....(well you know the term)? I tend to think the latter.

more pain....is there gain?

2008-07-23T10:12:00.002-06:00

My shoulder is killing me today. It's a constant ache with twinges of pain if I move my arm into a horizontal position or above. Is this just a pulled muscle of some sort or something more serious I'm not sure. I'm going to give it a day or two to see if it feels better before making any kind of appointment. Going to class last night seemed to make it worse. I'm still going to attend class this week but I'm probably going to skip the push-ups.

It's self-defense week at the dojang. Found out last night that we're actually going to be tested on this material this time. They are going to cover it more frequently as we get closer to the test.

They are also modernizing their administration. Instead of pulling a card each week and filling in the check box for being there, we now have id cards with our pictures on them that they are just going to be scanning. Just find your card in the rack on the wall when you come in (filed alphabetically) and go.

rock band

2008-07-22T10:59:00.002-06:00

I generally despise parody songs. There are exceptions though:

You just can't do this in Colorado

2008-07-18T19:27:00.004-06:00

My family and I spent the 4th of July in Tennessee with my dad. He had been wanting us out for some time over this holiday because of his fireworks show he does in his back yard. Having grown up with him and attending the fireworks shows in the street in the front of my house, I kind of poo-pooed the whole event.

I was wrong.

Here are a couple of videos I took with our point and shoot camera. The sound doesn't capture well. It was REALLY loud. I was about 10-20 feet behind the launch point. He launched them over the lake his property sits on. The whole show lasted 50 minutes.

puny

2008-07-18T09:35:00.003-06:00

My right shoulder hurts. I didn't have any 1 specific injury to it. But obviously, my muscles are screaming at me because they are underutilized and puny.

Puny....that's my word of the day.

We did this drill where we paired off and 1 partner grabbed focus mitts. We would then traipse back and forth across the room following the partner doing a punching and or punching/kick combination. I believe this is a sparring drill they use in the sparring class.

It wasn't the actual punching that caused my arm to be sore. It was the receiving of the punch when I held the mitt. The guy I was paired with had a pretty good sized punch that had me grimacing when he threw it.

Not that I can actually narrow down the soreness to just the punches. We also did more nunchuka last night. Things seemed to go a little better but I was mostly using my right arm since we were doing single nunchuk instead of double. When I was doing the routines with my left hand, it was a feeble attempt at coordination. The back left side of my head has a few lumps on it today I think.

When we got home, my oldest daughter went outside to wait for company to show up. She took her nunchuks with her and was practicing in the driveway. Now, was she doing this to impress the boys across the street, the company that was arriving, or just because she liked it? I'm not sure. But whatever the motivation was, I was very glad to see it.

My oldest daughter and I also got our stripes for our blocking set last night. Needs more practice but it's a fairly easy and short one this time with only 8 moves.

TKD Olympics TV Coverage

2008-07-17T14:28:00.002-06:00

So I went looking for a schedule of Olympic TV coverage of TKD for the US market. According to this press release, there isn't any actual TV coverage scheduled. Only live online streaming at NBCOlympics.com, which I'm sure will be in the middle of the night since Beijing is 14 hours ahead of my timezone. With all the press the "First Family of Taekwondo" has been getting, I'm surprised there isn't any TV coverage. I'm praying that the US team does well and medal in which case there could be at least some coverage of the athlete's specific rounds in the nightly highlights.

In preparation, I watched some of their archived video of matches. Despite knowing some TKD, I found the matches hard to follow. I personally have not done any real sparring yet which accounts for some of it but I at least expected to follow it some. The video I watched didn't have any commentator on it though which is part of the problem. I couldn't understand what the referee was saying either because I don't know that much Korean. All in all, as a broadcast sport to the US population, it's not there yet which is probably why there isn't much TV coverage.

I tried to find statistics on how many people practice Taekwondo in the US but my google-fu is weak. Maybe that means not enough to even bother but I doubt it. The closest data points I found were that 21.7 million adults have practiced martial arts in the US and in 2003 there were over 1.5 million practicing martial artists. One would think that with the in-roads that MMA is making on TV, that some of the olympic coverage of martial arts would pick up.

The "WTF?" from E3

2008-07-17T12:01:00.003-06:00

In contrast to my cool ideas post, I bring a what are they thinking? post.

Prince of Persia's "Save Me" system: Basically, you can't die. Cool idea for Lego games with kids. But for an adult game? This seems to fall into the idea of "let's be fair". If you have the skills, you can play the game. If you don't have the skills, then you need to work at it harder. I know it's all about the dollars but where is the personal satisfaction from completing a game or getting through a difficult section on your own?

Avatars/UI on the 360: Word to MS....it's not a Wii. Don't pretend to be. Told my wife about this. She's not a gamer. Not computer nerdy like me. Her comment: "Why change it?" The average person hates devices changing on them so they have to learn it again.

Lost Planet Movie: Why this and not a Halo movie? I played the game. Really wasn't all that impressive. And why did Capcom spend their entire press conference on it and no games?

Guitar Hero On Tour Decades: Even more DS Guitar Hero? Good grief.

No Real Price Drops: Overdue on the 360 and PS3 systems. Nothing announced. Nada. Zip.

Metallica on Guitar Hero: There was a press release a while back about Metallica releasing their new single on Rock Band and now we hear about Metallica releasing the whole album on the Guitar Hero franchise (not to be confused with the Metallica Guitar Hero edition rumors). What does this mean for the single? Is it exclusive to Guitar Hero?

Bungie announcement pulled: No need to comment. It's all over the net. The theory I like the best was shared to me by the one guy who I know actually reads my blog......Epic needs more love.

Konami Rock Revolution Failure: Google the Konami E3 2008 press conference video and go to the end. The Project Manager (I think that was her title) first plays a song with a Ramone's tribute band and then attempts to play the same song on the game and fails miserably.

Cool Ideas from E3 08

2008-07-16T11:23:00.002-06:00

So....in watching a lot of the press conferences from E3 this year, there are some interesting game ideas that sparked my attention. Some of them in the "Why didn't I think of that?" kinda mode. Some of them in the "It's about time!" mode. And some of them in the "That's a refinement that I'm looking forward to" genre. The ideas might have been out there before but it was the first I had heard of them.

Sports games for girls emphasizing sports that girls play. This is from UBISoft's Ener-G brand that they announced. I have 2 girls myself. This should have been smack upside the head obvious but it wasn't for me.

The Green Screen in your home using what is essentially just a webcam. This is from the You're In The Movies game. The coolness is that it captures you yet you don't have to have the green screen using just a webcam.

The action-adventure without firing a shot. This comes from Mirror's Edge. It was started in Portal but a full-length action adventure type game of this sort would be so hard to do in my mind. Granted, a full length game could have been done before but I'm not aware of it.

The parkour game. Also from Mirror's Edge. This looks to be a different take on the Assassin's Creed control scheme. I'm hoping it doesn't have what has been called "repetitive play" in Assassin's Creed. It could get old but I think that depends on the story. Tangent: I'd really like to see how they do the control scheme for the the martial arts. I'm not into the "Mortal Kombat" type fighting games because they feel like random button mashing.

The "Director" from Valve in Left 4 Dead. To be honest, I think they've used this to some degree in the HL2 episodes. They would get real time feedback from players on where they were having the most difficulty in the game and then subsequently make changes to the game in future patches. They've now pushed this idea into real-time changes in the game and adding a "reward" for the good players. I'm sure I've oversimplified what Gabe Newell was trying to say but that's the meat of it in my mind.

The it's not a sandbox game but honestly it is a sandbox FPS game. This comes from Far Cry 2. They are touting it as a non-linear FPS and the way FPS games will be going forward. We'll see. Far Cry ranks as one of my top games of all time though. I know it's not the same developer but they did do at least a decent job on the sequels. Pre-emptive strike: I have not played S.T.A.L.K.E.R. because of all the reports of system crashes.

Wii Light-sabers: Duh. So excited.

Wii as anything musical from WiiMusic. Music game w/o any additional accessories. Alternate game name: AirMusic. I'm curious how "playing an instrument" w/o the tactile feedback would really work.

Wii-speak: About time. Everyone else has audio chat. The "room-chat" vs. "mic-chat" design decision is interesting though. I guess they don't expect people in the same room to be on different teams.

Voice controlled gaming from Tom Clancy's Endwar. I wondered how they would do an RTS on a console and wrote off following this game because of it. Now I know. I was a big RTS gamer back in the day on a PC. This could be really good or else people will feel really self-conscious talking to their TV. And yes, I know you can do this in Rainbow Six games with limited functionality. I tried it once and felt just that.....self-conscious. It also wasn't all that reliable.

Nunchaku

2008-07-16T10:30:00.000-06:00

My dojang has started a monthly rotation of "extra topics" that they are incorporating into the weekly practices. These generally follow martial arts skills and NOT specifically Taekwondo. Once a month for a week, we are getting nunchuk training. We've briefly tried nunchuks in the past but to have it be part of the monthly curriculum is quite different. We were even given a set when we signed up for the black belt club but hadn't really used them that much.

As with most things, they are harder to use than they look. I have a new found respect for all those martial artists I've seen in the movies using these things. I have more difficulty with my left hand than my right (for obvious reasons) such that I keep hitting myself in the back or even the back of my head with the nunchuk in that hand.

After 1 night of training, my arms are really, really sore. TKD emphasizes using your legs for kicking significantly more than using your arms and hands for any type of strike. Therefore, those muscles are just not developing strength as quickly as my legs and core muscles. Maybe that's part of the reason for including the extra training.

E3 - Shiny Objects

2008-07-15T14:34:00.002-06:00

The Big 3 (MS, Sony, Nintendo) have had their respective press conferences at E3. These always have a tendency to influence or reinforce my wants for the upcoming holiday season.

MS (xbox 360): Rock Band 2, Fallout 3, Gears of War 2. This is no change since before E3. However, for the family, I'm debating about picking up You're In The Movies. My youngest kid would have a blast with it. I shared the RB2 set list with my wife. Duran Duran was the deal sealer for her and I'll be able to get away with pre-ordering it and picking it up in September.

Portal: Still Alive. Day one download from XBLA.

The big game "reveal" from the MS conference was Final Fantasy XIII (a PS3 exclusive up to now) coming to the 360. Not interested.

I was hoping for at least a little bit of Mass Effect 2 info. I've been playing through this recently and it's been fantastic. I finished it and started a second play through role playing as the Jack Bauer of the galaxy.

Mirror's Edge. A friend turned me on to this one last week. The press conference videos have entrenched it on my Christmas Wish List.

Nintendo (the Wii): The Star Wars games: Force Unleashed and The Clone Wars. Lightsaber fighting here I come. A dream come true. How many Star Wars Kid youtube parody videos will we see from these? Wii Music looks interesting but I really don't see getting it because it requires too much "real" talent. The reason the current rhythm games work well is because they DO guide the average joe on what to do next. My kids will want to get Animal Crossing. They spent hours and hours of time playing it on their DS'es and I suspect the next iteration on the wii will do the same.

Sony (PS3): I don't own a PS3. After the press conference, I still don't feel the need to get one.

better living through chemicals

2008-06-21T19:04:00.002-06:00

It's been a bizarro week.

Last weekend we had our poomse competition. None of us finished first in our first pairings so we were all out pretty early. I think I came in a very close 2nd. Note that we don't get to see our own scores. I'll hand it to the guy who took first. I honestly believe he did better than I did. Lesson learned for me: deeper stances. I think I executed with more precision but he was WAY deep in his stances. My personal goal is to beat him next time....about 6 months from now assuming we get paired up again.

I left on a business trip on Monday to Toronto, Canada. I've been with my current employer for 9 years and this was my first trip for them. It was pretty much a last minute deal that I had to get everything in order pretty quickly. Lucky for me, I had received my passport about 4 weeks earlier.

The first day was all meetings. Towards the end of the day, I started feeling a bit achy around the neck. I wasn't sure if it was just the idea of sitting in a chair all day or if I was actually getting sick. I started popping advil every 6 hours and managed to maintain a good demeanor most of the time. Since I was the one with rental car, I had to be the driver for the night time events. I know I was running a mild fever most of the time. The whole sickness finally overcame my defenses on Friday night and I crashed for a good 18 hours not waking up again until 2:00 pm on Saturday afternoon.

The highlight of the trip was dinner atop La Tour CN. Our hosts were very gracious and this easily has to be the best business dinner I've ever had.

game stalking

2008-06-10T14:58:00.002-06:00

Yeah...I do this. This is a problem with online identities sorta. Users can just block all their information out from online prying eyes to avoid it. However, I bet hardly anybody does.

The thing is, I also ask people over chat/email/phone what they've been playing lately even though I know already. Is this just a way of being social? Or am I giving them a false perception of privacy?

the foot fist way

2008-06-10T13:50:00.002-06:00

A friend of mine pointed out this movie that just had a limited release last weekend. Watching the various videos on the restricted site (age check with big brother implications) had me rolling on the floor. I so have to see it if it opens in Denver. It takes all the arguments that I have on why Taekwondo is a good thing and pushes it just over the humor line to make it extremely funny.

blue belt test

2008-06-07T17:05:00.003-06:00

We had our blue belt test today. To clarify as usual, this means we passed our blue belt requirements and are now blue sr. belts. My girls and I all did very well and aced the test in all categories. This test was actually the test where I felt the most confidence since we started. It's becoming somewhat routine and I had no jitters at all today.

The word for this belt level was perseverance. Based on this post, I think I have a fairly good idea of why this word applies at this time. We've been doing the basic routine of the intermediate belt levels for some time learning the same type of actions at each belt level. By this I mean there is a prescribed set of types of things we need to learn at each belt level: terminology, a kicking technique, a blocking set, some kicking combinations, an escrima set, a one-step sparring set, and board break. It's become somewhat routine at each belt level now. I'm not saying that I'm bored but I'm looking forward to a ramp up in difficulty when we get to the advanced class level in 3 months. I believe the advanced class is where the difficulty starts ramping up because we have to start learning multiple tae guk forms per testing period. Additionally, the kicks get harder to do. I was watching the advanced class the other day and their board break was a spinning hook kick. It's very hard to control AND you have to kick with enough force to break the board with less resistance from the instructor because they only hold it with one hand. It's about speed and control to give you the force. Not just pure force from kicking hard.

Coming up next Saturday is our poomse competition. I'm planning on working with the girls this week to really try and perfect our technique for our "form" (the blocking set we just got tested on). I hope my no jitters carries over to the competition because I feel I'll do pretty well if I can just relax.

scam radar

2008-06-03T21:21:00.004-06:00

School's out and this means that my wife has time to work on the yard. Mostly getting all the flower beds in order and using me for the heavy lifting and digging labor. I have a landscaping project (the 1 acre yard) that's going on 4 years now. We seem to tackle one section each summer and it pretty much consumes all the available free time. After I got home the other day, I was helping my wife stake a flowering plant to help it get used to our relentless gale force winds we seem to have around here in the spring and fall. A landscaping truck and trailer pulled up and offered to sell us some trees. Just doing some work for the neighbor around the corner. Super deal. Cash or check only. We'll put them in the ground for you.

My scam radar is going on overdrive. I look at my wife and she looks at me and says "Are you going to get those 2 dead trees replaced this summer?" I honestly had to answer no. She tells me "You better pay the man then." They have to go get the trees we want but at least they don't ask for the check right away. They'll be back with the trees and have them installed this evening. I get a business card before they leave which has a website for them. I go into the house and do a whois lookup to see how long the website has been registered. Been a couple years at least but who knows for sure.

Several hours pass. It's now dark out and the door rings. There they are, unloading the trees into my yard. They'll be back in the morning. Please leave a check under the mat. They'll have them in by noon. Scam radar in overdrive again. I picture them coming back, loading up the trees and the check, and then heading straight to the bank before I have a chance to put a stop on the check.

Next morning, we leave the check under the mat and vacate the premises by 9:30 or so. No sign of the workers before we leave. My wife gets back around 2:00. Check is gone. Trees still in the yard but not installed. There are some tree stakes lying in the grass though. Hmmm.....am I going to be digging this weekend? I really didn't have the time for this.

Call the number on the business card. Get a receptionist but the owner is having cell phone problems and can't be reached. Please leave a message on his voice mail. Lots of stuff going on at work so I don't really have the time for any of this. Call home and my daughter informs me that she doesn't think they are coming back. I eventually do get to leave work and by the time I get home, they are installing trees in my yard and in 2 of my neighbors who just happened to be out this evening when they showed up to do the work at my house.

Those of you who know me know I'm a bit paranoid. Somewhere in the book "The Complete Joy of Homebrewing" is a saying, "Worrying is like paying interest on a debt you may have never owed." It's stuck with me for many years. Why can't I listen to it?

one to many

2008-06-03T20:18:00.002-06:00

Should blogs be restricted to one topic? Can blogs be about many topics that interest the author in general? Is a blog more of a journal or just someone sharing their "vast intelligence" with the world?

Obviously, it's whatever the author wants it to be. In my case, I generally post about taekwondo and video games. I'll probably be branching out just to get my thoughts down on epaper. It seems like I have too many interests in life at the moment.

down on the floor

2008-06-03T19:25:00.005-06:00

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.

I have a new obsession...

2008-05-30T11:00:00.000-06:00

...and it's cherry red with black accents. Vintage 1986. I'll post a picture of it someday.

Not an auto.

For the sake of the trees

2008-05-29T20:34:00.004-06:00

Our board break this go around is the back kick. The technique is to basically get into a kicking position lined up with one edge of the board, rotate toward your back shoulder and kick like donkey. You should strike with the heel like doing a side kick. Your kicking knee should brush past your standing knee, then you rotate your hip and extend into a side kick.

Because of the size of the class, we students take turns holding the boards for each other. When holding for the back kick because of its power, there are two students holding the board shoulder to shoulder on the top edge of the board, smaller person in front with the person in back straddling the person in front's rear leg.

We use practice boards like these. The boards are colored like the belts and correspondingly get harder to break as the color goes "up" the belt rank. If you look at them closely, you'll see how they have plastic teeth holding them together. The teeth are longer the harder the board.

If the holder isn't pulling the boards slightly apart during the kick, the teeth can scrape your feet. And you bleed. A lot. Over the floor. Down the hall. Into the bathroom. Through a couple of band aids. Onto your clean white socks at the end of class.

Not that I would actually know this from first hand experience. Really. Didn't happen to me. It was a "friend."

the blue belt grind

2008-05-22T20:50:00.003-06:00

It's been a while since I last posted. Truth is, I've been fairly busy with a large number of non TKD related items. Taekwondo is progressing along for all of us. Our next belt test is coming up in a few weeks which will be followed a week later with a Poomse competition. We have all of our stripes and are just perfecting our techniques on everything.

The kids were each sick a week out of the quarter so they are short on classes. We're supposed to have 24 classes in and the kids will only have 22 each. The instructors are going to let them test anyway though because they were closed on 2 separate weekends and it was difficult to make up the classes.

One of those weekends is a black belt test getaway weekend up in Keystone. The weekend is for all the black belt candidates ("Cho Dan Bo" belts) and also the "tip" tests for those students who are black belts and progressing toward their next dan (i.e. 2nd degree black belt is 2nd dan). A couple of the people who tested also got their next dan. The weekend is also mandatory for those testing for their Cho Dan Bo. It's good to know what's coming up for us 2 years down the road but I'm a little daunted by the amount of work I saw they were doing. I read the itinerary for the whole test and it was a very packed and full weekend going from 9:00 am - 11:00 pm on Saturday then 7:30 am to 3:00 pm on Sunday.

I still haven't seen the doc about my foot. I need to make that appointment. I did get blood work results back from the 9news health fair. My triglyceride levels have dropped radically with my dietary changes and weight loss. Double reason to see the doc to discuss the results.

We've been doing TKD for over a year now. Come September we'll be 2 years away from our black belts. It's hard to believe actually.

It's the Video Games!

2008-05-15T20:42:00.000-06:00

Not.....

Rainbow Six Vegas

2008-04-04T10:17:00.004-06:00

About 3-4 weeks before Rainbow Six Vegas 2 came out, I started replaying Vegas 1 on "Realistic" setting. In the game, "Realistic" basically means you can survive 1 bullet but not 2. A shot to the head is instantly fatal. However, all the in-game situations are still just a game. Meaning, you are surrounded by enemies at impossible odds and they still spawn in places that you have just covered.

I finally made it through the game about 4 days after Rainbow Six Vegas 2 came out. If you've played the game, my biggest trouble spots were the warehouse at the dam and the theater in Dante's casino. In both places, I gimmicked the game a bit. There is a container at both locations. I would make round trips to the container to get more C4. I would then place the C4 in a strategic place where I knew enemies were going to be and NOT trigger it. Repeat the operation and place the next C4 in close enough proximity to the other C4 such that the detonation of one would detonate the other. A container lets you refill 10 times. I would then trigger the action to continue and pick the appropriate time to light up the C4....usually when I got to the "oh s**t, I'm getting overwhelmed" phase. I would repeat this cycle upon failure because the failure was usually just me being stupid and peaking my head out just a little to long to survive the bullet shots. It is actually quite impressive to see and hear the C4 detonating one right after the other but it does cause a frame rate slow down.

I've only started going through vegas 2. I'm trying to restrain myself from playing it all the time because I'm doing the coop adventure with a friend. I'd like to just once tackle a game cooperatively from the perspective of NOT knowing what's happening next. When he's not available, I'm going through COD4 on veteran, which is so freaking hard that I'm not sure I'm gong to make it through it except with the grace of God.

Of all the 360 games I have....the rainbow six series is at the top of my list. It fits my play style way more than Halo does.

zap!

2008-04-04T10:01:00.002-06:00

So, I'm old. Probably too old to be trying a new athletic endeavor. My body has decided to share this fact with me. Bottom of my right foot on the outside heel. If I twist or do any kind of stretch down to the opposite side, I get a zinger of a electric shock right up the outside of my right leg. It just started happening after I took a little time off from TKD when I was sick for about a week. It's progressed to were I have a constant little tingling sensation in that area that I can intentionally bring up to high levels of pain by stretching just right.

Doing some research online, I think it's something going on with a tendon that wraps around the protruding ankle bone. I'm stalling seeing the doctor until I go to the local TV station health fair and get my blood counts tested. It's way cheaper to do the health fair instead of going to the doc and having him send me to the lab next door. $40 as compared to $150. The lab fee would go toward my deductible so I would be responsible for it out of pocket. Back in the day, this would have been just a $20 total visit. I suspect the doc will just refer me to a specialist. If it is the tendon, I'm not sure what I can do about it except "let it heal". I don't recall do anything specific to it to cause injury.

time to learn

2008-04-04T09:41:00.004-06:00

I always like the time right after testing. It's when we actually start learning the curriculum for the next cycle vs. practicing over and over again the stuff for the last belt test. The DVD we get each round has the usual categories on it: blocking set, kicking techniques, escrima, one step sparring, board break, kicking combinations. At the end of this quarter, we are going to have a dojang poomse competition. We will have to perform our blocking set as our official form. We're already going to be testing for stripes on the blocking set next week! I'm going to be working with my kids over the weekend to make sure we all know it.

With every cycle, we learn some knew things as well as perfecting old technique. This blocking set uses a lot of back stances, something that we didn't have much on last quarter. I've found that I can actually get into a back stance pretty easily vs. when I was first learning it. I used to constantly look at my feet for proper placement. That's the perfecting part of this cycle. The knew item is that we are throwing our middle blocks a little differently. In the past, the middle block was performed by placing your hand at your waist ("cocking it") and then bringing up the arm across the middle with your hand in a fist, palm side at your torso. The arm did not extend past your torso. In our new blocking set, we're actually turning 180 degrees from a front stance into a back stance while throwing the middle block. The palm side is facing away from the torso. It's slightly different but enough to make me pause and think as I'm doing the routine. The old method is still valid. It's just good to have a variance on the block itself. I'm not sure when you would use one technique vs. the other though.

purple belt test results

2008-03-08T20:50:00.003-07:00

We all aced our test today. Doing the run through in the morning definitely helps. When it comes time to actually taking the test, I go into this strange auto-pilot mode. My mind starts drawing blanks and my body is just doing what it's been trained to do without me thinking that much. I really need to work on that and get more focus during the test.

I messed up in a couple of places but caught it soon enough such that nobody seemed to notice. I totally butchered my ilbo jun jin narabong kick three times in a row. Doing the ilbo jun jin followed by the narabong I tend to over rotate and get a bit dizzy. Trying to actually get "air" on it makes it even that much worse. I really need to practice that whole maneuver at home.

The boards we had to break were all the same thickness and my kids were a bit freaked out about it. However, with a steady holder, they both broke their boards with ease.

One of my co-workers came down for the first part of the test. I'm not sure when he left but I'm sure I'll hear about funky narabong if he was still there. He's recently passed his 4th degree test. Hopefully he wasn't so embarrassed that he left.

somebody point me to a 12 step program

2008-03-05T09:59:00.004-07:00

Last week, I was at Best Buy picking up some networking gear for the homestead. Standing in line, the lady in front of me had a Wii in her hands. I quickly quizzed her on the location of the rare, hard to find item and made a beeline. There was one left on the shelf and I picked it up. I debated in my head what I should do for about a minute. I decided it was in my best interest to call a coworker of mine who had been looking for one for about 3 months and offer it to him. He readily agreed and made it over to the store within 10 minutes. After reluctantly handing it over to him, I walked out empty-handed but feeling good about myself.

All well and good so far. I staved off my gaming addiction. This wouldn't be interesting though if that were the end of it.

I went home and told the story to my wife and kids around the dinner table. Was this a conscious decision on my part? I really don't know. The kids chimed in with the "Why didn't you get it for us!?!?!" statements. My wife made a deal with them, if everyone in the family gave up all their birthday presents for the year, we could get a Wii. This included herself. She wanted Cooking Mama of all games and I think her sister's talking about the system has worn on her a little bit.

The next morning, I saw the traffic jam in front of me on the highway and decided to take alternate route number 1 to work. It runs right past a Walmart. I decided to pull in and see if they had any. There were 4 systems on the shelf. They had just arrived that morning. I was the first to pick one up.

Fate? Coincidence? I'll leave that up to the reader. But the system is now setup in our home and my wife is waving that wiimote around in a circle making virtual scrambled eggs.

I've played about an hour of it on Super Mario Galaxy. I had previous exposure to wii sports over at my sister's house. I'd still rather be traipsing through Vegas killing terrorists than jumping on mushrooms though.