Kyosa Nim Tried to Kill Us Today

Sometimes class feels like boot camp, and today was one of them. It started when he put his wife at the front of class in the middle of our stretching warm up and she made us jump up and down for a couple minutes. Jumping is incredibly difficult for me (and my husband admitted it was really tough for him too). Then when the instructor was back in front he had us stretching again. I could barely breathe and having done yoga on and off for 9 years I knew I needed to calm my breathing in order to get a good stretch.

The next thing I knew we had our legs spread wide and he wanted us to do excruciatingly slow push ups. The fact that I could do a couple made me feel really good but my muscles started screaming so loud. If I did another one something would snap! "You shouldn't be on the ground right now!" he instructed and I tried again but the pain held me back. Luckily he didn't single me out but frustration filled me because he always notices. I want him to notice that I'm doing push ups every day...not that I still can't keep up. Later I spoke with my husband and he admitted that he couldn't do them all either. This from a man who can do 50 push ups in one session. After that I felt like a little less of a wimp.

We followed that up with squatting all the way down, touching the floor, coming up for a front snap kick (ahp chagi) with the right leg, going all the way back down and coming into a left front snap kick. That was ONE count. I think we did 1o, I lost count about the same time that my legs tried to stop working. My brain would say "Okay, legs, stand up," and they wouldn't move. I wanted to do it so badly but my body just wouldn't concentrate. I finally manged to move in some kind of corny slow motion but I refused to quit!

Despite the fact that I was unable to keep up with the physical exertion, later I marveled at my body's ability to recover. Even though I doubted my ability to move my legs after that, we went right into practicing other kicks and by the time we got to the jumping front snap kick, my legs were back to business!

The day was capped off with a little bit of sparring. I faced off against a skinny tall 12 year old orange belt. I thought I could get him but his technique has improved considerably in the past few months. He got me with a kick right on my temple, I'm still not sure why I couldn't block it. I got in a couple punches to the face (we don't make contact, of course).

My son did a lot better in this class as well. We were threatening to pull him out because he hasn't been practicing or applying himself but today he got two compliments from the instructor and his performance seemed better overall.

Ups and Downs of Home Training

A few weeks ago our instructor gave us a sheet of paper and told us we needed to have it completely filled out by the next belt test, sometime in February. It consists of five types of training routines, each with 22 blanks to check off. The categories are:

• Strength Training- Sit ups and push ups or weight training
• Flexibility/Stretching- 15 mins
• Forms Practice- 20 mins of forms practice
• Kicks- 25 reps per side of at least 3 kicks
• Hand Techniques- one step fighting techniques and other punching/blocking practice as well as conditioning against targets

I get up in the morning and take my dog for a walk, then do 15-30 minutes of Stretching, usually a yoga routine and Strength Training. Sometimes I do as many sit ups and push ups as I can but others I do a more challenging Yoga or Pilates workout designed to strengthen the body. Variety is the key for me, if I get bored I won't do it. Right now I am getting frustrated because it seems like my lower body is getting stronger a lot faster than my upper body. I still can't do that many push ups with proper form-straight legs, on my knuckles. I know I just have to keep doing them and I let myself get frustrated too quickly.

The good news is, I noticed my arm muscles are getting tighter and bigger already. I had my husband measure me yesterday so that I can get a baseline for my fitness level. I don't have a scale and I don't believe in them anyway. I was wishing I had gotten him to do it a month ago because I can already tell a difference. My thighs hardly jiggle any more and I can tell my abs are tighter. Still, I felt a little sad because my thigh measurement now is about what my waist measurement was at my ideal size 15 years ago. The good news is, I didn't work out then, I was just naturally curvy. Now I may never get back down to a 26" waist but I will be stronger and leaner than ever before.

I avoid the kicking practice the most, sometimes I even attempt it and don't complete the 25 reps per leg necessary to get a check mark on my sheet. We do a lot of kicks in class but usually we do only 10 per side and then switch to another kick. Doing 25 in one set pushes me to my absolute limit. I work hard on the roundhouse kick, even though it is an advanced white belt kick and I am working toward my orange belt right now, it needs a lot of work, especially on aiming. A discouraging discovery was made in class on Thursday, I've also been working on my jumping front snap kick. The instructor pointed out that I was kicking at the wrong time. Devastating to realize that I had probably done a couple hundred kicks wrong and I basically have to relearn and retrain my body.

What is Tang Soo Do?

Tang Soo Do-Moo Duk Kwan was founded in Korea in 1945. Translated as "a brotherhood and school of stopping inner and outer conflict and developing virtue, according to the way of the worthy hand," Tang Soo Do is a hard and soft style, meaning a combination of hard kicks and punches and soft flowing movements. Hwang Kee (1914-2002) brought together techniques from Soo Bahk Do, Tae Kyun, and Kung Fu to create the physical, mental, and spiritual art of Tang Soo Do. Unlike Tae Kwon Do which uses mostly kicks, Tang Soo Do encourages a balance of hand and foot techniques equally.

According to Grandmaster Hwang Kee:

It is not a sport. Though it is not essentially competitive, it has great combat applications. It is a classical martial art, and its purpose is to develop every aspect of the self, in order to create a mature personality who totally integrates his intellect, body, emotions, and spirit. This total integration helps to create a person who is free form inner conflict and can deal with the outside world in a mature, intelligent, forthright, and virtuous manner.