Things & Stuff

Not much to blog about the past few days, so this will just be a sort of random update....

The weekend was busy, but uneventful, and the work week has been equally so. Mostly I find my thoughts obsessively drawn to the 8th gup test I'll be taking this Saturday morning. This test is necessary in order to advance from 9th gup upgrade -- white belt with 2 stripes -- to 8th gup and an orange belt. I'm fairly certain I'm more than adequately prepared -- of all the stuff that will be on the test there's just a couple of techniques I could use some fine tuning on (there're 2 wrist grab techniques that I just can't seem to nail consistently, and 1 one-step sparring move that I feel unsure of my footing on). I have training tonight and a test prep class Friday night to work the kinks out, so no real worries.

Happily, my leg seems to be on the mend. I was able to execute all of my required kicks for the first time, yesterday, so that was a relief. I'm being careful not to put too much force behind them, just to be safe, but I should be able to demonstrate what I've learned effectively during the test and will hopefully be back in sparring shape within another 1-2 weeks.

The small number of white belts that enrolled around when I started training has had an interesting effect on the test conditions: Apparently, while there are lots of orange belts and green belts testing for advancements, I am one of only two students that are taking the 8th gup test. The other student is a kid of about 8, who is perhaps half my height and probably about a quarter of my weight. Should make for some amusing photos, especially if we have to do one-steps or sparring against each other.

We've had a sudden influx of new white belt students in the past few weeks, which has done wonders for my confidence. After my initial "bad night" of training with the new students a couple of weeks back, I've had the opportunity to work on basic techniques one-on-one with several of them and it's been really gratifying to see that I actually know this stuff, and can demonstrate it fairly effectively to other students, even teach it. So that's been a bit of a confidence booster.

One thing I realized the other day is that once I complete my test, I will likely become the ranking class member in the beginner level classes. The two orange belts I typically train with are both testing on Saturday as well and will almost certainly advance to green belt as a result, after which they will be training in the advanced classes. There were two other orange belts who I used to train with, but they've both gone missing in the past month or so. So, whoa! I get to be the big dog for a change.

Well, the biggest of the little dogs, that is. But still!

Mood: Mellow
Now Playing: Massive Attack, "Collected"