Testing and being pleasantly surprised

I took my test for 2^nd degree brown belt last Saturday.  Unsurprisingly, I passed.  Honestly, I should have tested a year ago, but I was feeling so sick that I didn't do much.  Testing was out of the question.  One more brown-belt level to go and then it is on to black belt testing.  I expect to test in either February or April of next year, so long as my health holds up.  I could probably justify testing earlier than that, but I think I will feel more confident with a little bit more time to prepare.  With all of the running around I have to do for the boys and work responsibilities as well as my health issues that still aren't quite fully resolved, I just don't practice nearly as much as I ought.

In the build up to this test, I've been working on my forms: memorization and technique.  Even while I was sick, I've been spending a lot of time on a more relaxed body posture throughout my shoulders, back, and hips.  I still have a long way to go, but I have made significant improvements, which showed during my test.  For the next test, I plan to work on my kicks.  I intend to leave focusing on my sparring technique until after I pass to 1^st degree brown belt leading up to my black-belt testing.

Ironically, while I didn't work a lot on my kicks and I did spend significant effort on my forms leading into this last test, it was in my forms that I made a most annoying error and in my kicks that I shined.  The error is of no moment, other than in improving how I handle such an event in the future and in building the muscle memory to avoid such an error in the future.  I also held my own on my free-sparring and even enjoyed it.  Since I always face it with dread, this was gratifying.  It gives me hope that eventually it will come more naturally.

The kicks were unexpectedly good.  I had to do two jump wheel-kicks each leg.  After my first trial, I got a positive reaction from the crowd.  I was pleasantly surprised but I noticed that I needed to make a correction:  I had neglected to keep my eyes back, and I landed a little two far forward (or something).  I made the correction and successfully accomplished four jump-wheel kicks, hitting the target each time.  I never imagined that I would do so well, particularly on this kick.  Mr. Mark even complimented me on how nice they were.  He credited it to being relaxed. 

It is encouraging to see how much progress I have made even though I haven't been able to practice much.  Heck, I haven't even been able to make it to class much over the last 15 months.  By all rights, I should have made a complete fool of myself.  The fact that I didn't is a credit to the mental effort I have put forward as well as a consequence of the effort I have put toward working on my flexibility, posture, and relaxation.  None of that has been easy, but the evidence of this last test shows that it has been working out.

Learned a little

So, my teacher is taking a look at some of the material I've posted so far.  Hopefully, he'll point out any gross errors I've made so that I can correct them, and my thinking on the topic.  This portion of my blog essentially acts as my "black belt plan" and TKD journal.  I can keep things more or less organized with the hyperlinks, and the process of transcribing everything forces me to really think through it better than just reading my notebook over would allow.

The other day in class, I learned a bit more about how to use my shoulders when doing reinforced strike.  That will necessitate a few updates to the strikes and punches page.  It's actually a lot like I think of using my shoulders in high-rising block but out rather than up.

Thinking about that and all of the punching drills we've been doing in class, led me to wonder and reconsider how I was doing the punching moves in Pyong Ahn II.  Those always felt strange and uncomfortable to me.  I just never could pinpoint what, why, or how.  When I asked, my teacher mentioned, for probably the thousandth time,  about using our bodies and thinking about moving our shoulders, fast and forget about our hands.  For whatever reason, that point finally made sense to me.

He also went over white belt kicks since he saw his wayward students backsliding.  Since kicks are one area I am painfully aware of how much help, practice, and improvement I need, I was quite thankful for the remedial help.  I've often thought about going to lower level classes for just that help, but mom-priorities have prohibited it.  Anyway, the work we did helped me with my pivoting problem – I am always too late.  Even better, despite his better judgment, he also went over front kicks in our forms.  Well, those poor kicks are another thing that I haven't understood and just couldn't figure out.  I've even asked questions about it a few times, but I couldn't quite pull it together in a way that didn't feel completely wrong.  This time, my teacher broke it down, in an almost exaggerated manner and it finally clicked and felt right:  kick, fast and strong; hold it; bend the knee; put it down to the floor; and slide into your stance.  I never could figure out how to land and slide in a controlled way or how to kick without my leg all floppy.  My leg is still a bit floppy but I understand it better.  The exaggerated over-correction will help build the controlled power, and then I call pull back from the over-correction.  AWESOME!

A few good taekwondo days.