Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Still no Kata to Kill Cancer

At the hospital, watching over my mom's recovery......

Saturday, March 08, 2008

The Evolution of a Nidan

In TKA Nidan/Eedan is the last true test and Sandan/Samdan tests are the equivalent of being made in the mob. Third for us is probably the equivalent of 4th in other schools.. One of the markers of approaching this track is being able to teach other black belts. Also, the informal hieararchy sort of clues you into who is approaching the level. I'm sometimes hesitant to take the role of teacher at our workouts, but other times this comic shows how I feel about what people are doing or teaching. It's also very interesting when I have ideas that are at odds with some of the upper ranks in the school.

I think the interesting aspect of this process is when your martial knowledge outgrows your martial skill. Just knowing how good you want to be and knowing that you understand HOW to get there, but not yet being there... Man.

Must.
Train.
Harder.

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

The Benefits of Increased Fitness

Monday night was an intersting night for training. Some good things, some bad things. They relate, so I'll start with the good things.

Even with a cold I was feeling pretty fit throughout the whole class. I'm still having trouble maintaining structure in some of the Kihon, especially hugal jaseh soo do mahkee, but overall I was able to push my techniques pretty hard. My leg strength has let me introduce some more dynamic kicks to my reproitoire. Namely, I've got my jump side and jump spin side kicks back with some decent accuracy.

Decent accuracy, but not much control on the jump spin kick. I ended up blasting one at just the right range to have a technically perfect kick but a pretty damaging kick at that range. I'm not very proud of that contact I made, so I'll have some drills I need to hit for the control. It also makes the problems we've been having with some of the brown belts, especially because some of the issues are dealing with posturing, contact, and overall attitude... So I just lost some credibility.

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Watching Underbelts and the Unruly Brown Belt

Tonight was the county adult test for underbelts. Small group, plethora of white belts, paucity of higher belts... and some really bad jujutsu.

Watching the white belts and some of the yellow belts, I was striken by how varied basic skill levels were. Some people just start [i]better[/i] than others. Age, genetics, and lifestyle all impact your ability to acquire, develop, and execute physical skills. It is true. Life really isn't fair. Thank god I am tall and semi-athletic. And we can only control certain things.