Friday, November 27, 2009

Through a rough spot...

Well, we, I should say I made it through a rough spot. I had come to a flat spot in my learning, a small one, but felt despair at not being able to accomplish anything in my Tang Soo Do classes. I knew that I didn't want to give up, yet I felt like I was ready to.

Fortunately I pressed on, our master, Master Joseph Scota encouraged me, or maybe it was a threat! He said, "If you really want to quit lets get our gear on and go out on the floor, that way you will have an excuse!" He wasn't serious, completely, but he was trying to tell me that he would rather fight me to stay than to let me leave.

Of course I wasn't going to take him up on THAT offer, thought as I think about it, he would probably have spent as much time explaining to me how to do better as picking me up off the floor. At any rate, this past Saturday we, Kenny, Riley, Jesse, and I all tested for 8th Gup, Orange belt, and we passed.

this was our first official test, we arrived a little early to stretch and try to prepare our mind and then starting right on time, punctuality is important!, at 1:!5 Master Scota, Mrs. Pruit, and Miss Scully started us through our paces. We did some calethstenics, some sit ups, some push ups, (ugh) and jumping jacks (argh) then walking techniques, punches, kicks, self defense, jumping kicks, some kick combinations, I didn't remember doing THAT one!" all the forms we know, for the boys and I that's 2 we got to watch the higher belts go through the additional forms, up and down in and out.

then they had us gear up to spar. Point Sparring as is common to the World Tang Soo Do association. and before we knew it, 2 hours had passed. I was tired, but felt that other than a few bobbles I had at least not been too much of a disappointment.

On Monday evening I kept checking my email, hoping to know if we had passed. I didn't get the email, until AFTER I had left for class. Mrs Scota told us that she had sent the emails out, we had all passed.

We will be promoted on Monday evening, and then I have so much more to learn it's not even funny. My oldest son is already looking to his 7th gup, but I'm thinking I have so much to learn that I want to progress just fast enough to keep learning, but I really want to get better on the rest of this stuff!

One thing that Master Scota told me, I think the night before we tested, was that my side kicks are getting higher. I can't really tell, but I'm glad he sees them improving!

I have to remember sometimes others can see improvement that I can't, and I'm going to do my best as a new 8th gup to learn everything that my teachers show me... and keep going no matter what!

I'll post pictures if I can next week.

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