The Martial Artist

8-10-09

Training today was a bit give and take. Jennifer and I did some extra things at work on Sunday Night/Monday Morning and we simple were not up to practice in the morning. Another factor was that we ended up working out late Sunday night and it honestly 2 practice sessions in 10 hours felt a bit like overkill.

I did a Reiki Attunement this afternoon to strengthen myself because honestly the past few weeks have been so intense that I felt completely ran down, and I have been feeling sick almost every day this past week. I would love to say that it is just pressure for the promotional testing this weekend but honestly the pressure of the test has not hit me, but stress from outside drama has been a nightmare these past few weeks. One of my wife’s former friends has been busy calling a number of our friends, family and even business accounts making up the saddest stories since he started abusing medication and tried stealing some of my pain killers and anti depressants a few weeks back. I am thankful that I caught him, however I he did get away with a number of each and I think he took them all at once and this detox and withdraw is hurting him pretty bad. He was going to a methadone clinic to clean himself up, however it appears that he was not ready to stop using drugs and steal meds from us must have seemed like his best choice. We heard through a former roommate of his that the individual made a scene at the clinic a few weeks back and can no longer be seen there, but we thought it was just nonsense fighting, I guess we were wrong. Thankfully after the first call went through we called those who needed to be called and I spoke with my schools Grand Master to let him know what was going on and we were able to brace them for what could be said and what actually happened. The people who did catch phone calls also documented the calls and one of our friends was able to use his work contacts to trace the phone calls.

Well enough of that bad business. Black Belt/Grey Belt class tonight rocked we had a total of 20 people in class which was a 2009 record for attendance. The Monday night class taught by Master Weaver is a forms focused class and it is not as “formal” as other classes, Master Weaver will also say himself that he is perhaps the most unorthodox instructor at Kim’s Academy, and well I would have to agree. Master Weaver is as I believe the 3rd highest rank individual at Kim’s Academy so that allows him the right to be that way. In truth Master Weaver is a wonderful instructor and I love the style that he uses. He is very easy going and loves to make class fun for everyone as well as a complete learning experience. It is tempted sometimes to set up a hidden recorder just to catch all the things that he says because his wisdom is as deep as his sense of humor.

Class today was a bit different. We worked on couple of forms as a group, and then lower ranks were dismissed to work within smaller groups on their own. I was the only Danbo in class today so when I was dismissed I was told to go through Koryo 10 times while he was working with the rest of the black belts on the higher rank forms. Honestly the timing was perfect because one I got done with my assignment I went out for water and when I got back we were lined up kicking shields with a focus on back kick and jumping back kicks. Odds are for our pretest a 360 back kick or jumping back kick will be one of the required board breaking kicks. After we did that worked on some 2 on one sparring so those testing could have a bit of practice in that area and we finished class with one step’s that again would most likely appear on the black belt testing. It was a great class and I am not sure if it was the energy from the storm, my reiki attunement, the energy of the class or perhaps of all of them but class went even faster then normal.

Grey Belt class is actually only a 45 minute scheduled class however it has been known to go on for an hour and a bit longer a few times. Today felt like 15 minutes but I think it was actually about an hour long. After class was over Jennifer and I presented our papers to Master Weaver for his endorsement and I felt bad that my written paper was 6 pages long but Master Weaver did not seem to mind. If you can not tell by my blogs I do ramble a bit more then I should and considering that the paper was 10 pages long before I edited it I guess leaving it at 6 page was not too bad. I also presented Master Weaver with some items I am working on for my website, actually it was a version of the history of Taekwondo and he seemed semi impressed. He gave me a wonderful assignment to read more about the Kwans and honestly it works well because that was a project I was planning on starting this week. He asked me a couple of questions to test my basic knowledge of the Kwans and seemed impressed that I actually knew the answers. As it pertains to Taekwondo history or the history of Kim’s Academy I view Master Weaver as a creditable source, because he has been involved in Taekwondo for over 33ish years and as I said before he may be easy going, but he is knows a lot about Taekwondo history and so forth as well as a great deal on a number of other topics. Honestly as he is the 3rd or 4th highest rank individual at Kim’s Academy that is certainly a great reason to show him a great deal of respect but another thing about him that I raised the level of respect that my wife and I give him is because one day we were at the book store and one moment there was no one behind us and the next moment Master Weaver was there initiating conversation. By tradition it is the lower ranks responsibility to initiate conversation to show respect and for him to see us, walk over to us and start the conversation by extending his hand out first that really did mean a lot, and when that happened I think we only had a handful of classes with us at best and he already knew our names and some basics about us.

Well tomorrow is another day. I am looking forward to hitting class at the West Branch and I am hopeful that my wife is able to take class with me. She has not attended class at the West Branch for a while now and I think the cardio class of Jr. Master Peshca will be a good thing for her this close to the test. Odds are that Jr. Master Smith will be calling on of our pretest and Jr. Master Peshca will call the other if tradition holds and both of them run hard classes and their tests are shorter versions of their classes. I am hoping that she enjoys the class and starts attending classes there more often. The two of us float from branches and train under several instructors; however we both need to start thinking about which branch we are going to call our home branch soon.