Gratitude

Yup, an entire month has passed since my last entry. Annoying.

So, as I mentioned a solid 5 weeks back, no big breakthroughs, no big insights or epiphanies these days. Still trianing a solid 3-4 nights a week minimum, but real life concerns continue to dominate my thoughts and training continues to be part of my day that makes nearly-intolerable situations more tolerable. Happily, the "release" aspect of training hasn't come at the cost of progress: my technique is improving, I think. My new forms are getting more and more solid: Jin Do , Naihanchee Ee Dan and Dando Hyung Cho Dan are all doing just fine, and I finally feel I have enough of a grasp of Chil Sung Sah Rho (the best of these four new forms -- by far, IMHO) to move from "remembering" to "polishing." It's a beautiful form, and I find its rhythms and pace fascinating. I look forward to exploring it more over the next year.

Lately I've been thinking about my training from a perspective of gratitude. Obviously I've been under some pressure lately and I'm grateful for the positive release Tang Soo Do offers, but that's actually a very small part of the debt I feel to this art, and to my instructors and friends. Lately I've been taking a look at my life and how it's changed in the past four, nearly five years, how I've changed and how much farther I have to go to become the person I wish and hope I can become. And time and again I come back to my training, my instructors, my friends in TSD and realize with profound gratitude what this art has given to me.

This past week this point was driven home in an unexpected, but incredibly welcome, way. Kyo Sa Nim Jimmy Vasquez came home for a couple of weeks of weeks from his current homebase with the Air Force )in California) to visit his family, and he trained with us quite often s a result. While I often mention the influence my friend and instructor Sa Bom Nim Hoke Nunnan has on me in this blog, I've rarely mentioned Jimmy, and honestly this is a failing on my part. Jimmy is, in many ways, directly responsible for my choosing to stick with the art past the first couple of ranks, and for helping me to see Tang Soo Do as a family activity that could help me to connect with and spend time with my wife and kids in new ways.

When I first started training, I was overwhelmed by the art, and by Sa Bom Nim. He seemed too ... *much* to me. Initially I 'd thought he was arrogant, but later I realized he was simply confident and I was insecure. But even then his skill and ability seemed to be too big to approach, and I felt ridiculous even trying. I saw other students who were so far beyond my physical abilities and skills that is was almost like they were another species entirely. It took me a solid 2 years to begin to believe in myself, to believe I could get to blue belt. And a lot of the credit for my being able to believe could do it, I could get there, belongs entirely to Jimmy.

Jimmy demystified many aspects of the art for me and made me feel more able and less ridiculous. His skill, while always formidable, never seemed the result superhuman ability or the result of natural gifts, but rather of single-minded dedication and hard work. He helped me to realize that with hard work I could achieve the results that seemed so effortless in others.

I've of course since learned that those others worked hard too, but it took a few years to gain that perspective. And Jimmy's good humor, dedication, encouragement, and steadfast example helped guide me to the place where I could see these truths.

I won't even get into the ways in which he helped my family grow together in his Saturday family classes, beyond simply saying that now that now that I teach Saturday classes now and again my first goal each and every time is to try to teach a class that Jimmy would approve of. Jimmy's Saturday classes were something very special, and I hope that someday I can build the sort of goodwill and camaraderie he did among this unusual subset of students.

So, for that, I am incredibly grateful. Thank you, Kyo Sa Nim.

Mood: Wistful
Now Playing: The Blue Nile, "Hats"

Distractions

Yup, another long pause between posts. Oddly, I feel like I have less and less to say about my training, lately. Not that I've lost focus or interest -- anything but, honestly -- but I find that recently breakthroughs, observations, and epiphanies are far more scarce. In other words, I'm plugging away, but my training hasn't surfaced anything I feel particularly compelled to share.

I will note a couple of moments of significance, though, if only for documentary purposes and for my own reference later. I will note that February 2010 marks the point where I've actually articulated to my instructor that I want to teach, and to move into a role that has more official responsibilities within our dojang in the future. The boundaries of this role are difficult to define at present, and the timeline on which they will occur more difficult still: could be weeks, months, or more.

But it's a goal. I have a lot of responsibilities to my family that I can't simply ignore, but stating this intention out loud to my instructor, mentor, and friend, and hearing him express encouragement and happiness with my decision, was a special moment for me. All journeys begin with a single step: this is simply the beginning of yet another journey. When the next steps will occur is difficult to say, but I'm on the path regardless.

Also of note is my recognition of just how much of an impact stress can have on my training. Without getting into too many details, I'll just note that I am under a fairly significant amount of stress at present. I am happy to say it has nothing to do with anything that is truly important. My family and friends are healthy and well, as am I. But the past couple of months have been difficult.

And through all of this, my dojang family and Tang Soo Do training have once again provided a refuge, a place of peace where I can channel and vent the stress of my life. All of which is, obviously, good. But it's not without its own frustrations. One thing I've noticed is that it's much harder right now for me to remember technique, to recall things I've learned in the past months. I typically pride myself on my ability to call up technical aspects of our art easily, and lately this has not been the case.

It's been a bit of a challenge to let myself off the hook for this. I'm a perfectionist by nature, and when I trip up on stuff like this I tend to beat myself up a whole lot. Under normal circumstances I can use this impulse as a way to motivate myself to train harder, to focus more, devote more time to technique and practice.

But I've had to acknowledge that right now, right here in this time and place, I need to be grateful for the benefits of release. I think I'm letting so much negativity out when I train that my mind is grateful for the chance to just be ... empty. And as a result it's not eager to allow new knowledge in. I spend a lot of time wondering why things that my peers are grasping quickly seem to ricochet off my mind. I laugh it off, but it's not a particularly positive feeling. After several weeks of struggling with it, though, I've realized that I need to listen to what my mind and my heart are telling me about what I need from Tang Soo Do right now.

Putting my pride in learning and performing on the shelf and simply accepting that at this time this is how I need to practice my art hasn't always been easy. But I also recognize that this is part of embracing our art as a part of my life, not just something I'm learning. As Sa Bom Nim Nunan said to me recently, when I once again passed on sparring due to my own nervousness about the ongoing recovery of my left knee, "It's OK. You're in this for the long haul."

And it's true. I am. And sometimes that means that I need to accept that my life, my immediate circumstances or concerns, might interfere with my ability to learn new technique.

And that's OK. I'm 42, and in 30 years I hope to still be doing Tang Soo Do, every day, to the best of my ability. Part of that means accepting that the benefits of Tang Soo Do aren't confined to learning new technique, new hyungs, new terminology. Sometimes, the greatest benefit of this art is simply -- or not so simply -- being able to end the day with a shrug, a roll of my eyes, a wry smile at the absurdity of my life, and a good night's sleep.

Mood: Fairly mellow
Now Playing: Angelo Badalamenti, "Mulholland Drive"

Four Cho Dans

Saturday evening our dojang held the Dan Promotion Ceremony for the students who tested in the last dan classing. This included both my wife Christine and my son Trevor, both of who now join my daughter Miranda and I in the Highly Officially Blue Belted rank of Cho Dan. So, fun. My wife and kids and my mother are all Cho Dans in Tang Soo Do Mi Guk Kwan. Better yet, I now have the entirety of my relatives here in Texas training at our school. My brother, his wife Lisa, and their kids Sam and Sean are all orange belts now, and are making wonderful progress both in training and in becoming a part of our dojang family. Of the things I've accomplished since joining the Mi Guk Kwan and beginning training this is what I'm most proud of.

Here's we are: how awesome is that?

So, back to the ceremony. It was terrific. I wound up be the narrator/master of ceremonies guy, reading all of the candidates biographies as they performed their vignettes and then introducing and describing each of the subsequent demonstrations. I did well, but this wasn't the original plan. Instead, Christine and I had rehearsed a practical application of throws/self defense for women fight scene that we had planned to present as a way of showing how our techniques can be useful against much larger opponents (I'm about 2X Christine). Alas, it didn't work out that way.

It was looking awesome -- we were going to demonstrate the training application of several throws -- bear hug from front and back, choke from front against a wall, grab-and-drag hair pull, and defending against a series of punches. Then we had a choreographed attack scene where I really went at her hard and she kicked my ass. Since she trusts me to not use too much force, I was able to use a LOT of strnegth on her, while being careful to avoid injuring her neck or doing any real physical damage, this way she could show how effective the stuff we do in response really can be.

But, unfortunately, over the past two weeks I've developed a problem in one of my knees. I was worried it was a problem with one of the big ligaments or tendons in the knee, but happily it's nothing so serious. It did require a big shot of cortisone into my knee, though (yeah, that was exactly as much fun as it sounds) and I'm also off training for a few weeks. As a result, I had to bail out of our demo. This was very depressing for me -- we'd put a lot of work in on this together, Christine was really excited to present it, and I really wanted to participate in the ceremony.

Luckily Mr. Perry -- the most senior dan member of our dojang, and one of the finest men and martial artists I have the privilege to know and train with -- stepped up and volunteered to assist Christine. He was brilliant and Christine performed with terrific confidence and skill. The demo was both exciting and informative, entertaining the audience but also showing that the right techniques can make all the difference.

For my part, I instead volunteered to be the voice of the evening, and all in all I think I did a good job. It wasn't really what I had in mind, and I'm still kind of sad that my stupid little injury took me out of our demo, but what can you do? The ceremony needed someone who was comfortable reading aloud for an hour, too, and well, I'm not exactly shy. So, at least my time and efforts helped to make the ceremony better.

-=-

So, yeah, as for the injury I'm off the mat for a couple of weeks while I let this stupid knee inflammation settle down. I'll also be doing some physical therapy to try to isolate the reason it occurs in the first place so I can avoid aggravating it again. Hopefully I'll be back to training by early February. Until then I'm planning on just working solo on non-impact stuff like sleeve grabs and elbow techniques, skipping throws and sweeps if needed.

Until then, I'll probably just be extra grumpy. Grrrrr.

Modd: Grumpy
Now Playing: One eskimO, "One eskimO"