upnorthkyosa's reflective training journal

[Makalakumu]

5-29-2007 - Practice Entry

I worked Martial Arts Workout A this morning. I was kind of slow, due to my cold and I think I was also having some balance issues. My sinuses are plugged and my head feels stuffy. Anyway, I'm hoping I can kick this thing soon, I've had enough.

 

[Makalakumu]

5-29-2007 - Teaching Entry

Not much to report here. As it turns out, my balance issues were being caused by a massive sinus infection that got pretty damn bad as the day progressed. It got so bad, that I called some of my senior students to ask them if they would teach class tonight in my stead. I feel terrible. My whole body aches and my head feels like its going to explode.

Anyway, I'm hoping that my students rise to the occasion. I think its good for them to teach a class every once in a while. Nothing generates questions on what they think they know better.

 

[Makalakumu]

5-30-2007 - Practice Entry

I have a sinus infection from hell today and I called in sick from work. That always gets me a little depressed, because I like my job. Anyway, during an upswing, I decided to try and move a bit and it felt pretty good. I did some strength exercises interspersed with forms. It actually was a pretty good thing that I busted those out. The breathing seemed to break lose some of the ick that is trapped in my head and get it flowing.

 

[Makalakumu]

5-31-2007 - Practice Entry

I was really tired when I woke up and at work today. I think my body is just worn our after fighting this illness. I had to try and stay someone on schedule though. It's not like I'm on my deathbed. So when I got home from work, I did my normal weight lifting routine. I skipped the run because I would be teaching class that evening.

 

[Makalakumu]

5-31-2007 - Teaching Entry

Class proceeded normally through my planned lesson, except for the unintended disrespect given to me by my senior student. The problem is that he is also my friend and we are pretty close and that there is a lot of history between us because he was one of my first students when I opened my dojang in Duluth. I don't want to go into all of the gory details, but lets just say that I'm tired of rehashing all of these old debates. In private, I delivered a pretty firm rebuke and I hope that I made the distinction clear between friend and teacher.

This morning my student wrote a pretty long e-mail to me apologizing for some of his behavior and I replied in a fairly no non-sense manner. I think that things are resolved.

Which brings me to the point of this entry. People always criticize the Japanese and Koreans for their "No Question/challenge" the senior stance in class. Up until last night I did not totally agree with that policy. Sometimes you just need to shut up and listen. You need to trust your teacher and his knowledge and you need to put aside what you think you know so you can see something deeper. Further, sometimes you just need to shut up so you don't hurt someone else.

Sigh. Sometimes life is complicated when you where many hats.

 

[Makalakumu]

6-2-2007 - Practice Entry

I worked Martial Arts Workout B this morning. I'm still in the process of trying to catch up from being sick. Everything seemed to go fine and I think the time that I was able to get to it this morning was pretty indicative the times I'll be working out in the summer. I figure if I can start sometime between six and seven am, I'll still have the majority of the day to do other things.

 

[Makalakumu]

6-3-2007 - Practice Entry

I did my normal weight lifting routine this morning. Everything seemed to go fine. It started raining and I did not get to do the run portion. Maybe later.

 

[Makalakumu]

6-5-2007 - Practice Entry

I was up late the night before on Sunday. My wife and I had a late dinner and then the kids were really restless. 4:30 rolled around and I rolled around and totally missed my time. I did get up this morning though. I got to bed a little earlier and was able to get down stairs to do Martial Arts Workout A. Some things were still a little off balance. I think that its still a lingering effect from my illness.

 

[Makalakumu]

6-5-2007 - Teaching Entry

Class must have been great last night because I am really sore this morning. I'm going to try and get home from work a little early so I can do my workout then. Right now, my back hurts a little and I'm worried about over training again.

I gotta laugh. Here I've been sick. I finally get back into it and now this...

Weird.

Anyway, class was great. There's alot of positive energy on Tuesday nights and I really enjoy getting there and banging it out with people. During my beginner class, we worked through the first form and I had the chance to go over the first required Ill Soo Shik with them. This actually is the first time I introduced these to a new student and I'm very proud that my delivery went so well. The concept of how that particular Ill Soo Shik linked to the form came out pretty clear in my opinion. After that, we worked some kicking drills and stuff.

During the 2nd class, I taught another student Pyung Ahn Ee Dan. I love this form. There are so many great techniques in it. I can't wait to start breaking that down again. Hopefully my student decides to practice this form between now and Thursday.

 

[Makalakumu]

6-6-2007 - Practice Entry

I worked my weight lifting program this afternoon after school.

 

[Makalakumu]

6-8-2007 - Practice Entry

Wow, I haven't updated my journal in a while. Alot's been happening in my life. "School's out for the summer" to quote Alice Cooper and I found out that I'll be starting a new job at a regular high school next year. That's going to be a great career move, but it's also going to demand more of my time, requiring me to be even more organized. Anyway, I worked Martial Arts Workout B this morning and then I went to work and cleaned out my old room.

 

[Makalakumu]

6-10-2007 - Practice Entry

I did my weight program today and took the dog for a run. She pushes me down to 7 minute miles when I go with here and I end up doing my normal three in about 21 - 22 minutes. That is kicking my butt.

 

[Makalakumu]

6-11-2007 - Practice Entry

Normally, I don't to weights and running twice in a row. I like to keep the pressures on my body different and allow some recovery time. However, my mom and dad came up to stay with us and help us plant some stuff in the garden, so they are sleeping in my back room where I work out. Anyway, the workout went great. I took the dog again. She is really liking the part where I run through Superior Municipal Forest. I take here off the chain and let her hunting instincts get a workout. My shins were killing me about halfway through the run. I think the increased pace and doubling up was dealing that. Also, I've got this killer crack in the callous on my heel. Those piss me off because they take so long to heal and the really irritate the crap out of me.

 

[Makalakumu]

6-12-2007 - Practice Entry

I worked Martial Arts Workout A this morning. It was nice to have my workout space back again.

 

[Makalakumu]

6-12-2007 - Teaching Entry

Class was very productive as usual. I'm getting good attendance for the summer so far. During the first class, we worked forms and bunkai for some of my beginning students. I got to go into some pretty specific detail regarding stance and intermediate positions. This was mostly for some of my more advanced students. Hopefully, they pick up the fact that all of their ill soo shik have that level of depth.

During the second class, we worked on hyung, kicking sequences and some more advanced technique. Mostly kicking. I don't do as much kicking as most TSD dojangs. We have some more difficult kicks, but there just isn't time during class to really get the reps in that a student needs in order to really get better at them. They have to practice outside class. We have so much material to cover and the time is so limited. TSD at my dojang can't just be a thing you do once a week if you want to have any hope of learning and advancing.

 

[Makalakumu]

6-13-2007 - Practice Entry

I worked Martial Arts Workout B this morning. Except, I added in a couple of components that I think will start to be a more regular features. I started working on my empty hand defenses against the knife and the stick. I still have them down, but they are a little rusty. I've got to get the form and the body positioning back.

I got frustrated with these about six months ago. Some of them were pretty practical and others were probably bullshido. The problem is that if I dropped something, I had to replace it with something. What would that something be?

I wish I had time to make it to the local kali school. Before I had kids, I was there all of the time and my weapon skills really got better. Now, I'm just sort of maintaining and wishing that I could get better. If I could, I would make it to one class of BJJ and one of Kali per week. There just isn't enough time right now though.

 

[Makalakumu]

6-14-2007 - Practice Entry

I worked my normal weight lifting routine today and then took the dog out for a run. It was humid, but I had a good time regardless. For 2.3 miles, I was hovering right around 17 minutes. At the end, I had the wind to kick it up and I think I could have held the stronger pace for longer if I had wanted to. I was running out of time though...

 

[Makalakumu]

6-14-2007 - Teaching Entry

This was the first class that I had where I really got to see if my little discussion the other week with my student made any difference. It did. We got through a lot of material and I saw a total attitude adjustment. I'd like to test my senior student in the spring. It's going to take some work on his part to make this happen though.

As far as what we did during class, we worked form and kicking sequences as usual. I'm going to have to start picking and choosing more so we can get on to other things. Right now, my student just doesn't have the wind to run through this stuff at the pace I want to go. Partly because he's been ill but it's also because he needs to start doing some more cardio on his own to improve his stamina.

We also ended up working on required bunkai. This typical bone of contention went really smoothly and that was a breath of fresh air.

 

[Makalakumu]

6-15-2007 - Practice Entry

I worked Martial Arts Workout C this morning. It was nice to get back to work on Chinto. I have about half of the bunkai worked out for the moves, but I haven't had time to go back and workout the other half for about three or four months. I found that I had to spend alot of time re-intellectualizing this form.

Let me explain what this is. When you learn a form, it starts off as being very intellectualized and you eventually turn the movements into something more instinctual. The problem with this is that it is a dichotomy. You can be thinking about every move as you do them or you can just do the form intuitively from body memory. There are lots of stages in between and that is where you want to be.

When I started Chinto this morning, I flipped it off and ended in choon be and knew I was in trouble. I had done the form without even thinking about it. In fact, I couldn't even remember the moves. This recipe was disasterous because when I tried to do it again and think about the moves, I couldn't do the form. And when I tried to stop thinking about it, I couldn't and then I couldn't do the form.

I ended up taking a short break, watching the form on video a few times and breaking it down move by move. Throughout the day, I'm just going to do it a couple of time really slow in order to keep the form from slipping into the intuitive zone again.

 

[Makalakumu]

6-16-2007 - Practice Entry

My wife ran a half marathon today and I ran with the kids all over the place so they could watch. That was a heck of a workout in and of itself. After that, I came home and did my normal weight lifting routine. I did not run though. It was way to hot for that.