道

training now at a steady and even pace, usually three days a week. sometimes i go on saturday, for the extra long workout. but lately i’ve been using it for work time.

for the first couple months i was really burning, pushing it hard and wanting to rush ahead of where i was. mostly because i had been away so long, and also because i was so happy to be back to the dojang. getting the busted rib and cutting my foot as i did served to slow me down a lot. after i rested for a solid week, i sort of settled into this even pace when i jumped back into training. and naturally came to a place where i am feeling more content in my progress, and no great need to rush too far ahead. plus it’s better to hit an even schedule. when you obsess and drive too hard for long periods of time, you are more prone to just stop or give up because you can’t keep that as a regular pace forever.

i am looking forward to the belt test one week from today. i feel pretty good about it, though of course there is always a touch of adrenaline in being tested. it’s a big day at the dojang, of course. master L. wears a big, bright tie, all the symbols are hung over the table, family gathers, and it takes a few hours to get through all the demonstration and testing that will take place before it ends. belts and certificates are awarded later, sometimes up to a week later.

Taekwondo schools have variations on belt hierarchy, but usually, Green I, or Green Instructor, is understood to be the halfway mark to black belt.

this is a test for my blue belt, which marks the first rank over the halfway point toward black belt. [UPDATE a year later...I don't think Green Instructor is the halfway point!!] i’m pretty psyched for this one…but then again, i’ve been psyched for every advancement! but blue belt is special in its own way because you have moved beyond the “lower belts,” which matters in a few ways. one is that you get less slack! but i like that. in other words, until the halfway point, you are allowed a bit more leeway on your technique. not that you won’t be shown the right way when you need to be, but you are allowed to be working it out. but then you get up to about green instructor (halfway to black belt) and you are given more and more refinement.

like when master L yesterday who, after class, gave me some further insight/instruction into my hopping side kick. which we had all spent time drilling on in that class. looking back, i think i was somewhere between a step-behind side kick and a hopping side kick. as he was showing me how one leg should essentially replace the other when you strike, he’d say “this [slowing it down/breaking it down into two parts] is okay for beginning belts, but …” and then he’d show the way you truly ought to end up refining the kick. i thanked him. he said some things that uplifted me at that point. one of which was that he wanted martial artists/people like me in his dojang a long time. and he said some words recently about my passion for TKD. i’ll add that while he is very positive, and brings out the best in everyone, he does not toss around personal statements like this casually. so they meant a lot to me.

but you see my point…at a certain point you are no longer thought of as a “beginning belt” and thus, held to different standards. which is fine. i hold my technique to a pretty high standard as it is. and i do benefit from being shown refinements on what i’m doing. i don’t really worry about “halfway” to black belt more than the passing thoughts i’ve written here. can’t get caught up in that. the important thing is to keep making progress, and focus on improving technique, power, balance and speed. after all, the belts stand in for those benchmarks, anyway.

out of all the class yesterday, i was the only one who consistently knocked over the dummy with my side kick. yeh, i must kick pretty hard, because i keep getting comments on it. sometimes from black belts, and the other day from a yellow belt friend (who happens to be a cop in this town, i just found out yesterday!) who said he dreaded holding the pad when i was coming up to kick. “see this?” he pulled up his shirt to show me his side, all reddened. “that’s all you.”

i don’t know why these comments surprise me. does it sound odd to hear me say “gee i must kick hard?” as if i have no idea? but how can you? as the person kicking, you focus on the execution of the technique. extension of leg. balance. keeping guard up. follow-up strikes. and so on. at least i do, at this point. the more you practice, the more things become automatic and so dont require your conscious attention.

but to the point, i wonder if everyone is like this. does it take a while to really gauge how hard you are kicking? how much of an idea do people have? aside from the feedback you get? dont know. i wonder how much of that mismatch in perception is part of that childhood thing i carried for a long time, involving physicality and my tiny size for years. anyway—i know the power of a kick is not the end all be all, nor do i lose sight of the fact that i have a ways to go before i possess true mastery of the art. but comments like that mean a lot on the way up. because some days you feel pretty inept. it can change from day to day in training. i’m used to that by now. you have good day where you feel like a powerhouse master martial artist, and then some days you just feel like you can’t hit it right, or have so very far to go, or are a clumsy, dizzy mess. (tho, honestly, those days grow fewer, which is nice.)

i think the rhythm between those states is a good thing. or at least reminders that you have a ways to go. (and i think you always have some ways to go, unless you are a grandmaster!) above all, you don’t want your ego to get ahead of you. there’s really no surer way to mess up, hurt yourself, or look like an ass. and i still value humility very much in my martial art, as well as in other martial artists. to me, this quality is part of what separates a martial artist and a bully, braggart, or brawler.