Life's Priorities

One day, you too will be able to say “I am FIFTY years old, I just ran around for 30 minutes and I have another 30 minutes of football to go, so if and when I smoke is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.”

Losted

Remember the Hapkido tournament that I competed in about three weeks ago? The photos for that are finally ready. Most of the Hapkido photos were not good because it was indoors and with the zoom lens we were not able to get a fast enough shutter speed to get good photos. Here we go…

It is not always obvious, bit Korean love sport. I don't agree with the way they support national teams, but their passion is undeniable.

This photo was from the Gyeonggi Sports For All Championships. Sports For All is a nationwide organization that covers a wide variety of sports. As far as I know they only compete nationally in single sports. Provincial meets is a all sports affair.

This is a photo from an over 50 year old men soccer match. These guys will quite literally run circles around any a high school student for an hour.

I got in to a fight, at last.

This weekend was the Gyeonggido Sports For All Festival/Championships in Yeoncheon. Across all sports only adults are allowed to compete at this event, and that meant us English teachers would be competing in the hapkido. We had a choice of self defence of sparring and we all chose sparring. My personal reason was that I wanted to prove, to myself, that I can stand up and be a man if things ever get hairy. Until this weekend I would much rather have run away than faced any threat.

On Wednesday I picked up an injury on my left arm, the main blocking arm, and that was worrying me a lot. Honestly, I was TRYING to get out of the competition. I was already scared of this fighting thing and an injury did not help me feel any better. Long story short, I couldn’t get out of it and just had to get some extra padding on.

All the way up to the time of the fight the other masters from Icheon helped us and gave us tips on what to do and how. Unfortunately that is not the time to give a first timer new moves, I tried it and promptly forgot everything new the moment I stepped on to the mat.

The fight was nothing spectacular. My main problem was that my opponent wasn’t very aggressive and waited for me to make the first moves. This is not how we trained, so I had to start doing things that I was not very comfortable with.

I figured out quite quickly that this guy was not going to play the game I wanted, but I was not going to go down just hopping around the mat until the time was up. I tried a few kicks, did not land anything to score points and was hit in retaliation. I blocked a few (Yaaaaah!), and even tried to throw the guy.

Keep in mind that I was fighting men of about 23 who’d been doing this for a lot longer than I have. I’m really upset that I didn’t score a single point, but I am proud of myself for stepping on to the mat and facing my opponent like a man. I was not kicked in the head, I was taken down only once and it was not a shut out (default win due to a five point lead).

The main thing I learned from this was that this was not scary at all. I suppose that when you practice against masters you are bound to see the worst that could happen to you.

Everyone told me I did well for my first time. One person even pointed out that I was fearless and I figures out she meant my attitude and appearance on the mat. I did not run away and I tried to get in there and do what need to be done. I did not go all goggle eyed after the first point was scored on me and I did not waste time to get back to my spot after being thrown for a point. What’s the point of being afraid once you are there? Being scared would not have helped me. At least I was not warned for inactivity and running away like some people who will not be named.

That is the very short and sweet of me and my fist every fight. As soon as I’m able I will post a few photos from the competition.

Hopefully not me.

Today is the big day. I am S***ing myself.

What was that?

Only two weeks to go before the competition and I don’t feel any less sacred.

Last night Master Jo put on pads and did a bit of kicking and punching. It was scary. Master Jo, being an experienced master, has a blindingly fast kick. I’m sure he was holding back, but it was still scary. He would kick and step forward in the same move. This is not really something anyone else has done to us as before.

At first I was just trying to block his kicks and the first few kick I failed miserably. Once I got my first block in I was literally going “Yaaaaah! I blocked th…”

BAM! BAM!  Two punches right on the stomach target.

That was something to get used to. At least I can say that with every sparring session I’m learning something new. Before our session was up I was blocking and punching almost at the same time, then getting out of there.

I would like to stay in there and try a few self defence moves, but I just can’t seem to land them. Landing one of those scores big points and can even end the match prematurely if your opponent taps out.

Tonight is another session of pain. Interestingly, the more you do this the more your body adapts to take the impact without damage. I don’t know if I am adapting yet, but at least I am learning to ignore the pain that will disappear within seconds.

Pray to Chang Fei for me?

No, I don’t want any. Thank you.

Friday is Teacher’s Day. I doubt it will affect the teachers at this school much because we will all be on various field trips. Interesting thing is that the Gym will also be closed. The even more interesting thing is the reason.

Master Jo is closing the Gym precisely BECAUSE it is Teacher’s Day. He says he doesn’t like it when all the parents turn up with gifts and say thank you for teaching their children how to kick butt. I’ll say it again. The Gym will be closed because Master Jo does NOT want presents and thanks.

Seolbong Cherry Blossoms

On Saturday we had a Hapkido belt test. This was no normal belt test. For one thing, we had no idea what the not heaven was going on. Together with our sister gym, we rented a huge hall and had all the students do their stuff with some important people watching. Seems to me it was more of a show off than anything else.

We only started practicing some of the black belt kicks on Monday. Some of the kick sequences were up to 6 kicks long with 3 kinds of spinning kicks. If you consider that most of us Teachers are still struggling with single spinning kicks, then you begin to see the problem involved. Sadly enough, on the day of the test our biggest problem was not that we couldn’t do the kicks, but more that we didn’t know the order and could not follow the Korean instructions.

The whole things ended up being a royal intercourse up as far as us waegoogs were concerned. I thought I would let the other students do their moves and then quickly follow, but the instructor let us go through everything so quickly that I never had time to catch up, and thus was unable to do most things in any recognisable way. The other Teachers in front of me didn’t even have the luxury of waiting because of where they were positioned on the floor. It was just plain embarrassing.

There is one good thing that I can say of my own performance. I nailed the forward jump fall without any injury. The Man Who Will Not Be Named claimed he knew how to do this move. Apparently, when I missed my one day of training last month, everyone managed to do about 50 of these flips, so he is really good at is. Interesting that the one time I saw him try to do it, AFTER that one day of, he looked like a retard. I am not claiming I am good, but at least I have the sense to admit when I suck, and that is a good thing because I suck most of the time. Buddy tries to give the impression that he is Bruce Lee or something, but the 50 rolls thing crossed the line in to straight out lying. I know that they didn’t do any falls on that day because I would have been told. It is not the easiest thing and the others would have bragged that I missed my chance and that they are now going to make me look bad. It’s all in good humour. Anyway…

After this weird hapkido thing we went to Seolbong Park to have a look at the cherry blossoms. I was quite surprised by the amount of trees there. When they grow up it will look really good. Here are a few pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Taekwondo and its usefulness

UFC 95 happened over the weekend and it was a good one. The fight ended in spectacular ways and it was generally enjoyable to watch.

Every now and then I also download the older UFC events just to see what happened in the past, as I was never able to watch it in South Africa. It is interesting to see how MMA evolved.

I am up to UFC 51 already. At one point the two commentators  are discussing how the fighters entering the ring got started in MMA. This specific fighter was doing Taekwondo when a Brazilian Jiujutsu guy saw him and asked if he wanted to test his skills. Long story short, he dropped TKD, started BJJ and later fought in the UFC. Right after telling this the conversation went something like this...

Joe: It’s quite amazing to me that people are still doing Taekwondo, and this is coming from a guy who used to teach it for a living. I fought in many TKD tournaments and I used to teach at Boston University, and I think it is basically almost useless.

Co-commentator: You didn’t so back then thought, did you?

Joe: No, you learn. That’s that the UFC is about. Now we know what works.

That is basically my feeling about it. I have respect for the abilities of people who do TKD. No one can attack wooden boards like they do, but I just don't have enough respect  to do it myself. That is the main reason why I held out so long from doing a martial art here in Korea. However, I was in the dojang  two weeks after seeing Hapkido for the fist time.

Christmas Eve Hapkido Testing

Our belt test was held on Wednesday at 5PM, so we all had to rush from work to the. Starting at 5PM means that if you arrive AT 5PM, then you are already late, and that was me.

No biggy though because it took a long time to organise everything. The students from ALL the classes along with their parents were. Yup, that is what I said, their parents. It seems that the day before Christmas is the big show-of day for the parents to see what their children are up to.

In this country most dojangs are run as hagwans. This is especially true for dojangs with lots of school students. I have to give credit to Master Jo though, if you want to work harder and put more time in then he is always there to help. Anyway, dojangs, being hagwans where you don’t actually learn anything you need for any test, can also be a place to send children just get them out of the house, and I suspect that is why we saw all these parents who can’t be bothered to come during the year to check up. Maybe I am wrong, maybe I’m not, either way, it is just an opinion in the end.

Our test was not really a test at all. Starting with the lowest belt colours, we took to the floor in groups to do a few kicks, punches, blocks and break falls. I made a few mistakes, way to many to my liking. The weirdness of this situation that we knew nothing about was no fun at all, and being first up meant us foreigners had no chance to see what was suppose to happen.

After the kicking and stuff, the Korean colour belts had their chance to break boards. Each student had his little board on which he wrote a message for mommy and daddy. You write a message and then hit the hell out of the board. Nice! One parent for each student would then come to the floor and hold the board. The student would read the message and proceed to break it, sometimes with a little help. It was actually quite cute to see.

I was the only foreigner who broke anything. Master Jo asked me to throw a roundhouse kick at a baseball bat. Breaking a flimsy bat is fun. Likely Master Jo wanted to show his foreigners of a bit and I was perfectly willing to help. This is a business after all, and he does treat us well.

After my “big kick” the testing day was brought to an end because the busy parent had to go catch up with all the thing they usually do, seeing how they were forced to come look at their little darlings for more a few minutes longer than the one hour they expected.

It was a weird experience overall, but not something I would have wanted to miss.

After the testing the students who arrived late and missed their chance got the opportunity to do their stuff. I was stretching when these students took to the floor. As Eddy is normally directly behind me in class when we practice, I never get to see him kick. It was painful to see. AS an example, his roundhouse kick came in at about knee high. This is a kick that should potentially hit someone’s head. Sure, I can’t go that high yet, but at least I can punish our chest a bit. That is what you get for stretching a bit ever day.

Eddy, for some reason, thought he was going to get a blue belt after this test. White to blue in two months? Are you kidding me? He impressed me later when he said that he doesn’t think he is ready for a blue belt and that one more month will do him good. You think? It took me five and I don’t really believe I deserve it. That is why I will be putting in extra work this holiday, so that I can be more deserving of my belt colour.

All I want for Christmas is a broken leg.

Tonight at Hapkido Master Jo reminded us of the Skills Test. I don’t like the term Belt Test or Promotion Test any more because you don’t necessarily get promoted to a new belt, but your skills are still tested. He reminded us because he wanted to let us know what we will have to do. Apparently we will have to do some kicking, punching, self defence, falling and board breaking. He pointed out that only us foreigners, six of us now, would have to do it. He pointed to every one of us to indicate who he was talking about and when he got to me he said I would be breaking a baseball bad with a low leg kick.

My mind said something like this: “WHAT?! EXCUSE ME?! WHAT?! ME?! A BASEBALL BAT?! WHAT THE…?! WHAT, WHAT?!”

At first I thought he was joking, but now I pretty sure he was serious. He even brought out the bat that I would be kicking to prove his statement. He hinted that I might have to do a roundhouse kick to break it, but I am pretty sure that is completely beyond my current abilities. I am, of course, assuming that doing it with a low leg kick is within my abilities.

I am seriously scared to do this and I suspect I will be scared for the rest of the month, but when I do it (positive thinking) I will be able to say “Hello, my name is F… Otto. I can break a baseball bat with one kick!”

I might just have to create a Facebook groups for people like me. It will either be called “I broke a baseball bat with my leg” or “I broke my leg with a baseball bat”

Another Month. Another Test.

We will have another belt test today. Hopefully I will not make a mess of it like I did last time. From what I have figured out so far, Hapkido belts are based on your knowledge of Self Defence Moves. Kicking, punching, tumbling and weapons are not part of the pre-black belt requirement. I could be wrong, but there are children here at the dojang who are useless, so it must be Moves.

Normally it takes one year to get through the requirements for your first black belt. In other martial arts it can take as long as four year, so I don’t put to much faith in the value of this particular black belt. Never the less, a thick black will sure look cooler than a thin yellow or thin red or thin anything. We also get our names embroidered on our black belts, and I like that a lot.

Right now it seems that we foreigners are being fast tracked through these moves and thus through the belts. At the rate we are going now we are all set to get our belts well before the end of one year. The others might get theirs in an even shorter time than I will.

Eddy is one of these “lucky” ones. Eddy joined one month ago. Because of a competition (in which I won gold), we had our October belt tests in November and Eddy joined one week before that test. During that week we studies self defence, so Eddy was lucky enough to get his first upgrade after just one week. If he gets a new belt tonight he will have received two upgrades in one month. I had my first belt test one month after I started and the actual test that included the requirements another month later. That is two month for my first belt.

Eddy sound like he is fantastic, right, but here is the thing. He was lucky. He joined in the particular week when we studied the requirement and now, with the extra foreigners, we are moving much faster than when I was alone. Eddy can’t kick, while my spinning kick is gaining height. I am this ( àß) close to doing the forward flip while Eddy is afraid of rolling forward on the floor. Master Jo points out small thing that I do wrong while he corrects Eddy once and then seems to give up, letting him do whatever he wants. I studied TEN moved to get my orange belt while Eddy needs to know only five. I am assuming he will get his new belt tonight with just the five. This is Korea, after all, and failing someone is just not done, so I’m pretty sure the five will be all he needs. I got my belt even with the mess I mad of it last time.

I’m, you can see why I would be upset. I work my arse of and have to do more than double what Eddy does, but I am not upset at all. When I get my black belt, and Eddy gets his one month later, I will be able to kick his arse in fifty ways that he doesn’t even know about. He will BELIEVE he is a black belt, but I will KNOW I am a black belt.

I didn’t join in order to get a black belt. I joined because I wanted to learn something useful while getting fit, and the gym just boring. Eddy keeps on asking be what the next bet is for me, but I don’t know and I don’t really care either. Why care about what colour your next belt is if you can’t even do a stupid little roll on the floor? Why should I care about when I get my black if I still lose my balance when I try to kick to fast or to high? It will come when it comes.

There is another foreigner with us who wants to be able to KNOW she is a black belt. Pinky is still kicking like a girl, but in a short time she has already surpassed Eddy. Eddy kicks like the guys in the clip at the end. I will be happy to have Pinky with me as a black belt, knowing that she knows how to kick my arse.

Attending an Open Class

I attended an open class yesterday. The “native speaker” claimed that they did nothing special, but we all know how it goes with open classes. The Korean teacher will plan for weeks, if not months in advance to make this the best class ever. Sometimes they will combine the best students from two or three classes and they will even have a practice class. When all is done the school’s head master will be happy that his school was portrayed in the best light possible and all the other teachers and education department representatives will pretend that they don’t know what is happening and be full of admiration for the fantastic class.

This particular class was odd for me because it was at an elementary school. I’ve never even thought at that level. My co-teacher who went with me taught high school and this is her first year in middle school, so she was just as lost. OK, maybe a little less, but she did admit that she knew next to nothing about elementary school. Add to this us being about 20 minutes late because of, well, I don’t know why, and the whole thing was just a waste of my time.

One good thing that came out of it was that I got to go home early. I have a bad cold and was able to get an hour’s sleep before getting on with the normal evening activities.

The normal evening’s activities include Hapkido. We did front flips again tonight. Just a few more sessions and I will have it down pat. The new girl joined us today. We are now four adults/foreigners and it is turning out great. We get attention together that I never got while I was alone. Everything is now explained in detail and taken in small steps. Maybe it is because it is now worth separating us from the others or maybe the Master has learned a few things from teaching me, the Westerner. Whatever it is, I am learning things I never learned before and am improving faster than the others because I have a bit of experience already and now I am being show what I didn’t know before.

*** 

Did you know there is something called a Memoriad?

One Black Eye

I’m not exactly seen as someone who stares at himself in the mirror. I consider the mirror something to make sure I don’t look like Young Einstein after my shower, or like a cow just gave birth to me after I take my helmet off.

Imagine my surprise when I looked in the mirror after lunch and noticed my one under eye was darker than the other. I didn’t sleep well last night due to a bout of coughing, so a little colour was to be expected, but there was a definite difference.

On Friday we were practicing the Ee Chul Bong, aka Nanchuks. Somehow, out of the blue, I managed to hit myself just under the left eye. I still have no idea how I managed it. The move I was doing when it happened should not even make that possible. Even worse, how did I not see it in the mirror? Really, how?

I deserved what I got.

I was hoping to wear an orange belt when I go to Hapkido today, but alas, I still be donning the lowly yellow. Eddy and I were assured that we did well in Friday’s test, but I personally feel that we sucked. I know I did. I should have done a lot better. Part of the reason is that Eddy was wasting my practice time by talking all the time, but that is not a good enough excuse.

In case you are wondering how Eddy talking can be a problem, “listen” to this:

Doing a strange, almost familiar move and making a weird sound.

“Eddy. Make space for yourself. Lift the arm up and out so that you have a wide door for yourself.”

“OK.” Doing some strange limited space movement crunched up movement.

“Nope. Not that. Let me do is so that you can feel what it feels like from my side. Then you will feel why you need to make space for yourself.” Showing the move.

“Did you feel that?”

“Yes. You know, that is the circle movement I read about. And if you do this right then you can really help yourself to kick someone’s arse and I am feeling more confident already (after 5 days) and I really like this except for the right muscles, but you know…”

“Eddy! Speak while you do.”

For every 5 seconds of practicing he is content with talking for 30 and still not listen, or feel.

I learned my lesson and have taken steps to rectify the problem. From now on I will be tell Eddy to focus on what he needs to do as often as I have to. Also, over the weekend I sat down and wrote/described on to paper every self defence movement I have learned up to now. This way I can go over it often so that it becomes second nature. I doubt the other students can remember more that the current level that they were studying, but then again, trying to remember the previous 50+ when you have to learn 10 new complicated moved in four days is not easy and even less when your partner is learning something else.

I am also working on memorizing the names of the kicks and pushes. That might be more difficult, but I have to do it. Next time I want that stupid orange belt and I want the one after that quickly. I’m working on getting more foreigners to the dojang and I want to be the boss of them when they start. *wink*

* Update: We were handed our new belts on Tuesday. Needless to say, I was surprised and a little embarrassed.

Training with cartoons

On Monday I introduced my friend to my Hapkido master. When he heard that I competed in a competition over the weekend he exclaimed that he was looking for a Hapkido dojang. After making the introductions on Monday he decided to only look for the first session. Master had other ideas and asked him to join me with bamboo staff practice. He appeared completely lost, but I’m sure the same can be said of my first time. Now I just hit myself very hard one some body part whenever I start working on speed.

Yesterday we studied self defence. It was Eddy’s first experience with something like this, so he still needs to learn to relax. He was learning the basic moves for getting himself out of someone wrist grip. Essentially it is just stepping in to the person and thrusting your hand past said person. Before doing every movement, Eddy would tense up and start vibrating like a, an, er, a vibrator! His eyes started bulging and then SUDDENLY he would slowly step in to do something strange to get his wrist lose.

I dare YOU to try to keep from laughing when someone is acting like a mad cartoon character every time they practice their moves.

* Eddy is not his real name, but I still hope he doesn’t read my blog.

And it's aaaaaaaall right.

It felt good, even though I can’t remember anything specific. I know I nailed the three movements for he most part and I remember that the whole arena was watching me from the applause I got after each movement, but that is it. I am sure it was, possibly, good enough to get a medal, but I have no idea if it was worth the gold. Master Jo assures me I looked really good, but I think I got the audience vote (medal) and the photo opportunity vote(trophy).

While having lunch I was called to receive my medal. It is odd because it is mostly a take-your-medal-and-go kind of affair. There was more ceremony with the introductions of all the “important people”.

It was a similar thing with the trophy which was awarded for the overall winner of all the self-defence competitions.

 

At least I didn’t make an ass of myself :)

How can you not love Gmail?

Google just keeps on adding new stuff. I with I received the kind of mail that would allow me to use this new feature.

On a more Korea note, I was told ten minutes after my class finished, ten minutes earlier than I expected, thus sending my plans down the drain, that the schedule has been changed. That NEVER happens to me, so I will forgive them this time.

Yesterday at Hapkido Master let me practice the defensive moves for the competition on him. Because he could feel what I was doing, he picked up quite a few things. It is amazing how changing small thing can make the whole move, well, dangerous. I have heard it said that you only really start learning about your martial art when you reach black belt, and that everything up to then is just preparation. I can see why they say that.

Training, till the floor is wet :(

You would not believe how confusing it is to remember three flashy little self defence techniques. OK, maybe it is not THAT bad, but I am new and EVERYTHING is confusing to me. I keep on getting my footwork wrong. I get confused between the endings of two of the moves and the more tired I get the more I forget what’s what. I think at the moment I look something like this:

(My throat is raw from all the screaming yesterday, so today I sounded exactly like this)

Just for fun I include these nimrods:

Practising this is quite tiring. I am sweating like a pig by the end of the session *EEW!* The exhaustion was compounded today by the school picnic which saw at cross the biggest mountain in the city. I have a question. Do some of my students have no other clothes than their school clothes? Does some of my student think it is normal to hike a mountain in sandals? Are girls completely unable to stop talking?

I'm going to compete. HA!

I think I might have agreed to enter a Hapkido competition in little over a week from now. I initially thought I said “Yes” to go to a local competition to watch, but then the Master said we will be practicing this week, him and I, and then I realised I was being entered I felt bad about saying “No”. At least it doesn’t really matter if I screw it up. I am only a yellow belt (second belt, white being first) and by the time of the competition I will have been doing Hapkido for only about two and a half months. You can’t really expect too much from me, can you?

Neck Break Stuff

Yesterday was gymnastics day at Hapkido. I just don't see the point of doing this. The risk of injury is high and it will do nothing for self defence or fighting ability. OK, maybe it will, but I don't see how. If you plan to join a demo team or become an action film star, then maybe.

I'm still not able to do a front flip, but at least I can feel my landing improving and I suspect the Master is also starting to support my in air turning less. I just need to find the time to work on it alone and focus on what I do wrong. With me you have to start slow. Later I will keep up with the blistering pace, but you have to start slow.

We did back flips as well. I am still far from doing that one, but all in good time. I'm not 16 any more and I only just finished my second month. What did scare me was when Master moved the mats to the wall and preceded to demonstrate that action film favourite of running to the wall, taking two steps against it and flipping back. What the...?! I'm suppose to do that? I did it, with a lot of assistance. I'm starting to get the hang of what things are suppose to feel like. Call it body awareness, if you will. At least I haven't broken my neck yet.

Not breaking anything, yet, is not good enough for my girls friend. She is in Korea for two weeks. It has been three months since she has been home. I thought of skipping Hapkido this week, but I know that if I start skipping classed then I will get lazy again and we all know what happens when you give in to laziness in training, so Girlfriend must spend an hour with me in the Dojang. Girlfriend did not like the gymnastics AT ALL. The HATED the wall running and said she NEVER wants to watch me do that again. I don't blame her.

One BIG problem with the gymnastics is that it puts a lot of strain on the ligaments around your ankles. Maybe I should start wearing my ankle support every time we do stuff like this. There is just no point getting injured for something like this.

Oh, I must mention this. We did spinning/jumping kicks yesterday. I didn't fall once and I reached the highest when we had to do a straight up jump kick. I was a sprinter in school. Most sprinters can jump fairly well, just like most long jumper are normally quite fast.

At least once a week I think to myself: "Sweet! I'm doing Hapkido IN KOREA!"