Indomitable spirit

Hi and let me start by saying "OW!"

I have been making excuses for not going to Taekwondo for a few weeks, there was the illness, the headaches, my stupid shifts, etc. Last week I didn’t go on the Wednesday because I’d failed my HGV driving test and was incredibly gutted. Anywho, yesterday I decided there would be no more excuses, back to it.

Come the hour, come the man. Yesterday I trotted to the local school for the lesson only to find it all locked up because the kids are on another bleeding holiday. D’oh!

Not to be beaten, I came home and got down to a serious work-out, with loads of kicking exercises, starting at breaking knee height, up to knockout head kicks. I finished off with a load of stretching exercises. This is the first time in a good while I’ve actually got around to doing that. It was, and should be, several times a week or more.

So, though I missed the class I was still feeling good about myself.

Tonight was another class, at St Helens, (about nine miles away) so I made the effort and went to that one.

They have a fight coming up soon, so we spent the whole hour sparring and fighting. I was drenched in sweat, as was most everyone else, and exhausted. Fighting in those chest protectors is like going for a run in a sauna, wearing a basque (don’t ask me how I know!) 

Loads of people were picking up minor injuries; clashing shins, toes bent back, one lad copped a kick to groin and several people had painful knee collisions. I was no exception, I had a few incidents where I kicked at the same time as my opponent and our shins collided, also kicking at someone’s body protector and caught their elbow instead.

What amazed me though was people were getting upset about it! Admittedly one or two of them were only kids so were excused, but the adults were whining as well!

What part of the concept of ‘martial art’ or ‘fight’ don’t you understand?

You fight and keep going until it’s over. There is no middle ground. At times it will hurt, but if you don’t keep fighting you can guarantee it will quickly hurt a lot more!

So I’m stiff and bruised and have drunk two and a half pints of pop since I got in to try and rehydrate.

That’s all the ‘go me’ side of it. The down side is, apart from a more realistic expectation of what martial arts entails, I was crap. My kicks weren’t too bad, but I couldn’t get my foot down quick enough after each one to put me back in a fighting position for a counter attack, and I just couldn’t seem to get outside of peoples range.

It was a good lesson for that. It showed me how bad I am, how much I need to improve, and in what basic areas. Well, all areas. But moving back whilst staying in fighting position, the speed of my reset after each attack, the range of my kicks and stringing combinations together. Everything, really.

Bum.

I went, I saw, I got my arse kicked.

Back to the training.

Good news is I’m off for the weekend (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) and the shunters at work said they will try their very best to call me on Sunday and give me some lessons.

Off to exhausted sleep, me.

Later,

Buck.