upnorthkyosa's reflective training journal

[Makalakumu]

10-9-2007 - Practice Entry

I worked weights this morning. Am thinking of getting my makiwara set back up. I pretty much destroyed my set up a couple of months ago. I need to find a good place to put it so it doesn't mess up the wall. Maybe some concrete screws in the basement.

 

[Makalakumu]

10-9-2007 - Teaching Entry

Very good class tonight. Only a couple of students showed, but that was enough to really get through a lot of material and really get a good workout going. We pretty much reviewed old material the entire class as one of my students hasn't crossed the doorframe of my dojang for two months. I'm happy to say he mostly remembered everything. Now, its time to build that up a little.

 

[Makalakumu]

10-10-2007 - Practice Entry

I skipped working out in the morning. I was way too sore and needed to let my body recover. Thus, I did my workout in the evening. Its pretty easy for me to put the kids to bed and then hit the weights before I wind down and I think this is just going to be my new reality. It's just too hard to get right back at it after a hard class the night before. My body just seems to be needing more recovery time.

 

[Makalakumu]

10-11-2007 - Practice Entry
I worked Martial Arts Workout B this morning. Good overall workout. Broke a good sweat, but was very tired starting out.

 

[Makalakumu]

10-11-2007 - Teaching Entry

Well, it was my first kids class where the entire crew showed up and I think it went great. From the reports from parents, I think they thought so too. Mainly we are just playing games and getting the kids used to making good fists and punching and kicking with the proper parts of the anatomy. Hopefully, as time goes on, I'll be able to do more with them. My plan is to bring them up through the system together as a cohort. I'm not going to take any more students for that class until I make another class just for this group.

My other classes were great too. In my red belt class, we covered forms, kicking sequences and jump spinning side kick. This was the first class where I didn't really demo the technique. My one student doesn't really like practicing these techniques because he finds them ineffective. My guess is that he also finds them hard to perform and doesn't want to waste time to get good at something that really isn't useful. I can't say that I disagree, however, I do feel that sometimes it is good to push yourself.

The last class consisted of me and two of my adult students. We spent part of it fixing our mats and the rest of it breaking in the new and improved mats. All grappling. Very fun and good workout.

 

[Makalakumu]

10-13-2007 - Practice Entry

Ick. I cleaned out the litter boxes downstairs before I worked out. That was gross. I had to wash up before I hit the weights because there was no way I was going to spread that around.

 

[Makalakumu]

10-15-2007 - Practice Entry

Wow, this really got away from me. I skipped working out this morning. A few to many glasses of wine on the aniversery. After work, I hit the weights hard. That was a good workout.

 

[Makalakumu]

10-16-2007 - Practice Entry

I worked Martial Arts Workout A this morning. Very good workout. I felt pretty good.

 

[Makalakumu]

10-16-2007 - Teaching Entry

I'm going to stop giving bland descriptions of the classes. Anybody who wants to know that stuff can go back and read my journal. From now on, for a while at least I'm just going to go into various principles I covered in class. Suffice to say, I take time to practice and refine this or that technique, but there is always some underlying princple that I'm working on that goes right back to the kata.

Tonight, I covered difference between pyung ahn sa dan and o dan at the point of the first kihap. I showed how the stance was indicating hip throw and how the hand position was indicating which kind. Futher, we talked about how the moves immediately before the throw set the throw up.

 

[Makalakumu]

10-17-2007 - Practice Entry

I actually got up this morning after the night before's very physically hard class. I got in a good workout with weights and broke a sweat with some calisthetics.

 

[Makalakumu]

10-18-2007 - Practice Entry

I got up and worked Martial Arts Workout B this morning. My weapons work really inspired me to bring a little of it to class tonight.

 

[Makalakumu]

10-18-2007 - Teaching Entry

I worked my young students through how to punch and kick properly as well as more ettiquette for class. We also worked on open hand striking and using the hips to move. I just introduced front stance with these guys. My hope is that I can bring in the very technical slowly so that they stay interested.

During my adult classes, I worked breathing from the hara while doing forms. That seemed to really challenge one of my students. It's like he couldn't focus on doing the form and breathing at the same time. My guess is that he just doesn't practice enough to actually start working on principles like that. The other thing that kind of pisses me off is that this same person seems to think that whenever I start talking about someting esoteric, he's way ahead of me. Well maybe he is, but here's my thoughts on this. You can think that breathing one way does this or that for your energy and "think" you have the right of it, or you can actually go out and try and find out what people actually intended the breathing to do.

All of this touches on a martial arts pet peeve of mine. People, instead of really taking the time to look for the answers, just do a little bit of symetrical research and make **** up and assume that THIS has got to be the answer. Think about how much ******** gets started that way. How about just saying I don't ****ing have a clue and move on with your life...perhaps try and get a clue, a real clue.

Sigh, I'm going to have to bring this up again. I don't want my students to fall into the trap of lazy ego.

During the anything class, we pretty much worked on passing weapons with double handed blocks and then following up with some sort of strike like they do in the pyung ahn sa and o.

Lastly we worked on some grappling basics. More shrimping and shrimping and shrimping from position to position.

 

[Makalakumu]

10-19-2007 - Practice Entry

I didn't have to work today, so I took the kids to school and worked out when I got home. Weights. My arms have some pretty cool bruises from last night's class.

 

[Makalakumu]

10-22-2007 - Practice Entry

I got up early and worked Martial Arts Workout A. Even though I didn't sleep well last night, I still got out of bed and banged it out. It was worth it.

 

[Makalakumu]

10-23-2007 - Practice Entry

Went to bed early and woke up pretty rested. I worked my weight lifting program this morning. At some point, I got into "the zone" and completely blanked on what I was doing. I suddenly snapped out of it and I was like, did I do curls? So I went back and did curls just to make sure. So I may or may not have done an extra set of curls.

 

[Makalakumu]

10-23-2007 - Teaching entry

I taught rules and ettiquette for forms and sparring tonight in order to prepare my students for the tournament.

 

[Makalakumu]

10-24-2007 - Practice Entry

I skipped waking up this morning and worked weights right after I got home from work. It was a good workout, interspersed with checking on the kids while they played outside. Nice day 60 degrees. I wish I had time for a run...

 

[Makalakumu]

10-25-2007 - Practice Entry

I worked Martial Arts Workout B this morning. It was nice because the kids and the wife didn't have school today so I didn't have to get up so early or worry about doing anything with them when I was done because they were still sleeping. Nice.

 

[Makalakumu]

10-26-2007 - Practice Entry

I was pretty ill this morning, so I didn't work out and didn't even go to work. However, as the day wore on, I felt better and decided to give it a go. I hit the weights this evening and I took the dog for a long walk. All that really felt good.

 

[Makalakumu]

10-27-2007 - Practice Entry

I felt better this morning and worked Martial Arts Workout C. This is the easiest of my morning workouts so it didn't tax me too badly. Anyway, I worked through chinto applications and I'm to the point where hopefully next week I'll be able to get them on tape.