Successful form!

After all the whining and moaning about how I had "forgotten" my forms, I wound up showing Master F my version of Bassai on Tuesday. I had an ear to ear grin on my face when I finished. I need to put myself into my own little world and just focus on me and not anyone else. If I don't, I will continue to mess up the forms. Another thing I need to remember is to relax. That will do wonders for my forms.

I feel like I've been re-earning my belts, if that makes sense. Being a Dan is not an isolated experience at BTK. You're part of a greater whole. If you need help, all you have to do is to ask and someone will help you. There is always room for improvement in anything you do. I've been trying to get my forms "fixed". I wasn't doing them wrong, just differently. Different schools have different styles. It's not "my school is right, yours is wrong."

One thing to work on is my push up requirement and my crunch requirement. We did pushups in class on Thursday. I HURT! My arms are so sore, it's not even funny! I gave myself two days off, but am going to attempt to do pushups today. I have to get my requirement in. I have to run too. I don't mind putting my running requirement on my blog...it's a mile in 10:30. My son, who is 9, has the same time requirement as me. Now if I could just get him to actually RUN around the track and not just goof off and try to roll around on the infield.

I've been doing some exercise with my Wii in an effort to work on muscle strength and toning. It's the EA Sports Active...there's a 30 Day Challenge on it. I hit 14 out of 20 workouts today. 6 more to go. There are a lot of lunges in it, which I think helps some. I hate the running part of it. If I was in a bottom floor apartment, I wouldn't have as many issues with it, but...oh well, I'm still doing it. Real life running is next on my list.

Weight class

During class last night, we did techniques and forms with weights. Master M had us pick a weight we thought we'd be able to handle comfortably. She led us through drills with the weights doing Sah Dan Mahkee (low block) and Ha Dan Mahkee (High blocks), along with side kicks, front kicks (sorry for not using the Korean on this). Then she had us move from the rubber room (called that for the floor, which is made of hard rubber) into the Wooden room (wood floor) and we got another set of weights. She gave us the option of going down to a lower weight or even up if we wanted to. (I stuck with 5 lbs) We started into forms, which was a bit more challenging.

Doing Keecho Hyung Il Bu with weights was not as difficult as it could have been. It wasn't too bad. It was harder to do than it normally is, but it wasn't horrible.
What was hard was when I was told to do Bassai and I lost it completely. It seemed that once the weights got into my hands, my brain leaked the form. As a result, I had to do 10 crunches. I had no problem with that. I didn't like the fact that I forgot my form. Oh well. I'll review it and fix it.

Master M had us do a form of our own chosing and do it with the weights. That was fun. Several of us picked out Pyung Ahn Sam Dan to do. THAT was challenging at the end because of the jump/simultaneous elbow strike, back punch.

After class, I got Ms. S and Master M to help me refine Pyung Ahn Ee Dan. I now know what I was doing wrong, so I need to practice it and improve it.

A reminder...

I need to refresh my memory on the goals I set myself. This is one from January, 2008. I just copied and pasted it here to make sure I have it documented. I have several more blogs I can post...I'll be keeping the martial arts posts. Those are important to me.

January, 2008:

I am going to set myself some goals. I have issues with keeping myself on track with water, so one of my goals is to drink no less than 48 ounces of water in a normal day. Yesterday, I've made that goal and have had 50 ounces of water. Not too bad. Not great though. I'll work on it. That's one goal.

Another goal is to practice my forms daily. I need to make sure that I am doing everything correctly. Monday I actually ran through Nahainchi Cho Dan and Sip Soo. Tuesday I only worked on technique, but it WAS a practice. I practiced high knife hands, cat stance and moving forward in a cat stance. That's a new "game" I've created for the kids called "Ninja walk". You get into a cat stance, where you've created an 'L' with your feet--you put all of your weight on your back foot and have just the toes of your front foot or the ball of your front foot on the floor. The point of it is to be able to spring forward to pursue an attack if needed. If you turn your front foot, almost into a ballet stance, then ROLL as you shift your weight from the back foot to the front foot. This puts you into the correct position to perform a middle chop or something along those lines.
It's another technique that requires exact form. I *finally* have the "ninja walk" down!!

So, Tuesday I only worked on technique, but today, to escape the frustration of the people I work with (very stressful, that group!), I'm going to work on Bassai and then work my way back. I need to practice Oh Dan, Sam Dan, Sa Dan (and do Sam Dan correctly!), then Ee Dan and go backwards to Pyung Ahn Cho Dan, etc. I also need to practice Bong Hyung Il Bu at some point. I'll work on that away from work, but it will get practiced.

"Mirror Mode"

I was talking to a friend today about practicing. He's going to run me through my paces on Friday and reminded me that there are more ways to practice forms than the 'normal' way. He reminded me that it can be performed forwards, backwards, blindfolded and "mirror mode".
When I think "Mirror mode", I either think of performing a form "backwards" (which is totally different than this!) or I start thinking off topic to one of the games my son plays, Mario Kart. The mirror mode in this case is not what I was thinking of.

Mirror mode is where, instead of starting to the left, where we're usually taught, you start off to the right. I had to think about that for a few minutes. On the way home from work, I started trying to run through Kee Cho Hyung Il Bu in my head, in mirror mode. It is NOT as easy as I thought it would be!! I started out going over it in my mind "correctly", then visualizing it in 'mirror mode'. I haven't finished the form, but I have started thinking about it.

Another thing I need to work on is doing the form "backwards", where I start at the end and work to the beginning. I read about someone doing Bassai backwards on a blog a few months ago. I was impressed. I haven't been practicing, so I think that starting at the end of a form and working my way to the beginning would confuse me. Heck, I'm confused by the mirror mode, only because I have let myself be intimidated. That won't be happening long. I am approaching the "mirror mode" as a challenge. I can do it.

On a side note...I know that I've learned *something* in Korean!! I was out shopping with my son yesterday and heard a father tell his small child, "Ahn jo". I had to smile as I knew exactly what it meant!!

Assignment

I now have an assignment. I need to learn the Bunkai (sp?) for all of the forms I know. It's a challenge that I believe I will be up to. Master G explained some of the bunkai for Bassai and for Nahainchi Cho Dan last night. He also explained that Bassai was a windy, twisty sort of form because it emulates a snake. I think that's what he said. I'm going to have to work on that.