So the blog’s been quiet because I’ve been away from the computer. As I noted before, I spent most of today down in Houston taking the first (of many) tests towards my 2nd degree black belt. So, here’s the post mortem on the day’s events.

I drove down by myself (many people carpool) because I wanted to get a gauge on the drive. I’m hoping in May and August to ride my motorcycle down there (about 150 miles one-way), so I wanted to get a handle on location, issues, and how long it took traveling at a reasonable speed (e.g. on my bike I like to take it slow and easy… enjoy the ride, not be in a rush). I’m looking forward to the ride. Couldn’t ride today because the weather was threatening some ugly rain and while if I’m caught in the rain on my bike that’s one thing, I’m not going to knowingly ride into an unsafe situation.

When I first walked into the facility, it felt weird. The vast majority of people there are brown-black belts working towards their 1st degree black belt, so they are all unfamiliar faces… a vast sea of them. But I saw the other black belts there and some of those faces are familiar (apart from the other folks from my school that were also testing). It’s somewhat like a family reunion and kinda cool that way, to see your distant relatives again and to meet some new ones, so to speak.  You go through a lot with these people, and shared experiences can bring people together.

The testing itself was very curriculum oriented today. My test was run by Kwahn Jahng Nim Alex Suh (7th degree) and he ran through our entire curriculum at a very intense pace. The test wasn’t necessarily that physically taxing (due in part to a lot of people and limited space, so you’re crowded), but it was mentally taxing and you really had to stay on your toes and move fast. I actually liked that because it’s different; sure the physical stuff is good, but it’s nice to get a good brain workout now and again… it shows if you really know your stuff and can call it up on demand, because someone on the street coming to stomp your head in isn’t going to pause to let you remember how to defend yourself.

I was worried about my performance due to my ankle. Well, the ankle held up, but in part because I just didn’t let it get abused. I didn’t do a lot of the jump spin inside crescent kicks because those kill the ankle (the impact from landing, the torque from the twist/spin). But I did come out of there with a matched set of blood blisters on the pad of each big toe.

So how did I I feel I did? I did ok. It’s not where I want to be… I usually perform better than this, but I know why I wasn’t on top of my game: other pressures and stress in life, some inner-turmoil about my future in Kuk Sool Won (which has been resolved but caused me to not train as much as I should have the past few months). Here’s what I need to work on:

• Simple memorization of curriculum. The stuff at the beginning, the stuff at the end, they get lots of focus. The stuff in the middle often gets ignored and so without regular practice it fades. I forgot and fumbled on a few techniques today (I prefer to forget and fumble nothing), so I need to just get things back in my head and under my fingers.
• I need to practice sword with my proper sword. The wood practice sword is ok but it’s not as heavy as my nice steel sword. I used steel today and my arm and shoulder muscles tired faster than I liked.
• I ought to do staff spinning and work at least once a week. I need to justify it to myself that the more I do things that improve my wrist strength, that’ll help my handgun shooting too (that Todd Jarrett “grip 20% harder” thing). 😉
• Gotta bring up my overall muscular endurance. I think my reduction in training the past few months coupled with the new smaller dojang (i.e. I can’t really stretch out and get my low long stances.. .I’ve got long legs and when space is tight I just can’t get long and low) led to this. 
• It’d be great to be able to do Baek Pahl Ki Hyung 108 times in a row, each time performed better than the previous. A long-term goal perhaps.

Some good things:

• My relaxation was good. I wasn’t too tense and things flowed ok. 
• Breathing was well managed too. Relaxation and breath control go a long ways towards your endurance.
• My ankle held up
• I can perform under pressure
• I’m almost done with my curriculum, which I’d love to complete a.s.a.p.. Then I can spend the next year-plus doing nothing but refining it. I look forward to that.

The relaxation and breath control stuff is big for me. It’s about efficiency. If you’re tense and using more muscles than needed you’re going to wear yourself out faster. You’ll use up your energy supply, you’ll need more oxygen, and just be overall harder on your system. The more relaxed, the deeper your breath (i.e. abdomen, and very deeply), the better you fare. I’m getting quite good at managing this.

Some random things:

• Skunks seem to be today’s roadkill of choice. The air was so pleasant on both the drive down and drive back.
• 8-ish hours travelling for 2 hours of testing (and an hour or so for promotions and demos). I do sometimes wonder if the drive is the bigger test. 🙂
• In the promotions today, we actually had a promotion to 6th degree, sorta. He was actually promoted back in October but wasn’t able to make it out at that time. He made it out this weekend, so received his official promotion and such. That was nice.
• The reason he was in town was because this weekend a big seminar is being held at HQ for all school owners and Master-ranks and such. It was really cool to see many of the high-ranking masters from around the nation at the testing. Don’t get to see or visit with these people that often.

All in all, not a bad day. During my drive down I decided that this test, being my first of the cycle, is going to be my baseline. It’s going to set the tone of my training and how my testing will go from here. I will only go up. And I’ve got homework to do to get me there. 🙂