Thursday night’s alright for sparring!

So tonight was sparing night (fight night to everyone else). Tonight’s session was particularly challenging for me because I have a slight cold and was firing on only 80%. We practiced our techniques but I didn’t put as much energy in as I normally do and that was tough. We did one step sparring and I let a lower belt get the better of me. She caught me with some hard kicks and I had to tell her to calm down. I will be waiting for her to join the senior ranks to do proper sparring.

When the junior grades left I was the only lady remaining again. I held my hands up and said that I wasn’t on full form today but I don’t think it mattered. So I had 4 rounds and the first one was against a 2nd dan. He didn’t make it easy for my at all and he was about half a foot taller than me. I did actually notice that when our instructor told us to find sparring partners most people went to the other side of the dojo and it was only me who was left in his zone. I remembered the feedback I got from my grading, which was to attack then go forward and also feedback from another black belt which was to defend then counterattack and move. Well I still have my teeth, head and knees. All intact!

Each round was for a minute with 30 seconds of rest in between but it nearly killed me. The most important thing was I survived. I am starting to enjoy sparring more now but I do wish the ladies who start stay and make it to the senior grades. I may do martial arts twice a week but I can promise you that I still maintain my femininity!

Until next time take good care of yourselves and let’s preserve our beautiful martial art.

I got my red belt… Hooray!!!

I know it’s been almost a week ago but I spent almost 3 gruelling hours working for my red belt. I don’t know which was harder, the 120 push ups and sit ups or the sparring.

There were 5 of us going for our next belts. One yellow stripe, two blue stripes, a black belt and me. I thought at the end of it my chest was going to explode. So here’s what I did to get that much closer the big black one:

1. Say Master and Instructor using South Korean terminology. No problem there especially as I bought my book with me and looked it 10 minutes before.

2. About 45 minutes showing our stuff by doing kicks and combinations. I had more stamina for this than when I did my red stripe. Must have been the bag of chips I had for lunch. I even did the upsetter punch, which we don’t really do in class.

3. Then we had one step sparring. I didn’t know who I would face in this one so I turned to You Tube the night before for help and it worked. I faced the person who was going for his black belt and I remembered what I needed to do. I was determined not to be a big girl’s blouse and say “I don’t know what to do next, help me!” As part of this section I had to also get out of a front and side head lock. Listen, stamping on the foot first works well as a first defence in both instances. That stuns them and then you could anything else to drop them and… run away. I also had to get out of two bear hug. This one works with a drop and force of the glutes. This also stuns your enemy.

4. Then came the sparring. Oh boy! So My first round of 2 minutes was with the guy who was going for his black belt. I thought he was going to take it easier with me because I was a lady. Fat chance! He got me with some good kicks but I defended my head and kept my guard up because I had some near misses to the head. I then had 2 more rounds with the guys going for their blue stripes and just about survived that. The final round was two against me. I must add here that I was the only female who sparred that evening. My opponents were a green stripe and the brother of the Tae Kwon Do World Champion, who is a 2nd Dan black belt. Now this round was for just one minute but all I could see legs coming and me from the left and legs from the night. I managed to not get my head taken off by keeping my guard up and running around the dojo. “Chicken”, I hear you cry. Listen mate, them guys took no prisoners in that match.

After my exercises, which I still felt after a few days, I did a jumping back kick to break a board and I did it first time. Yay!

When it was all over I felt euphoric, mainly because I survived and came away with my teeth. Just another year or 18 months countdown to my next belt. Stay tuned!!!