Quick wrap-up. Got home from the Texas Classic about 5 hours ago. In her age group (7 and under, white belts) Miranda earned the gold medal in hyungs, and tied for the bronze in sparring.
I did the same, in both my age group and rank class. I managed to earn the gold in forms, even though I competed with Pyong Ahn Cho Dan and three of my opponents competed with Chil Sung E Ro. This is highly unusual, and I am extraordinarily proud and pleased.
I am also extremely tired. I hardly slept at all last night, between the "stress dreams" and the insanely loud thunderstorm that tramped through here at 3:00 AM. I woke up from "eek, I'm having a crisis at the tourney" dreams at 1:00 and 2:15, then the thunderstorm woke me at 3:00, and I was awoken for the final time at 6:00. The last one was a hoot: I was at the tourney, preparing to compete in forms. The judge was Sergeant Apone from Aliens, cigar and all, and he was giving me a lot of static about being ready for my form. I looked down and suddenly realized that someone had stolen my orange belt and replaced it with a long strip of shiny orange paper, which was fraying at the ends like the tip of a New Year's Eve noise maker. I tried to explain that someone had taken my belt and he berated me for whining and blaming everyone else for MY mistake in that stereotypical drill-sergeant manner. Then, embarrassed at how silly I looked with my goofy, shredded belt, I started performing my form, only to realize that someone had strewn folding chairs all over the ring, and I was forced to try to navigate over/under/around them as I performed the form. I awoke, frustrated.
My god, that's just pathetic. I mean, it's so utterly transparent. Usually, when I have stress dreams, they're not so clearly about the thing I'm stressing about. You know the type: you arrive at class for an exam and realize you've never attended the class prior to that day. And you're naked, of course. And that just means you're stressed about work or something. But this one couldn't have been more thuddingly obvious. My unconscious mind really needs to get more inventive already.
Anyway, hooray Miranda and hooray me. Now, wine, King Kong, and sleep.
Mood: Very, very pleased. And very, very tired
Now Playing: Nothing
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Shoulda Stayed in Bed Day
Man, it's been one of those days. One of those "I hate everyone" days where nothing, and I mean nothing is going right.
Not enough sleep last night, had to drop my dog Scarlett off at the vet for a tooth cleaning, then hit the gym for a rough workout this morning. Traffic all over the place on the way into work followed 3 more hours of editing Java properties files to try to get the capitalization in our product's interfaces to resemble some sort of standard (that brings this effort to nearly 20 hours of text file editing this week).
Then, after lunch, I find out the reason I haven't received my license plates for the Jeep yet is that the dealership screwed up and lost the paperwork, so I had to waste 2 hours driving all the way out to Georgetown so I could sit around reading a copy of Entertainment Weekly from January while they ran the Jeep to DMV to get the registration re-done.
Then, on my way back to the office I call Christine to see if we've heard how Scarlett is doing and it turns out the idiot vet screwed up and rolled her over while she still had an inflated trach tube in her throat. So they had just finished doing all sorts of x-rays and whatnot to make sure they hadn't, you know, ruptured her esophagus and they're "pretty sure" she's fine.
Arrgh. I can't wait to get to the dojang tonight. I need to channel this negative energy into some training and sparring time. Two days 'til the Texas Classic. My nerves are getting pretty frayed.
UPDATE -- Next Morning:
Went to train last night and, instead of relaxing and blowing off steam, I walked out of the dojang feeling even worse after I wound up hurting two people in the course of the hour. Both were accidental, and neither time did I do anything wrong or use too much force or anything (according both to my instructors and the people I managed to almost injure) but you'd have to be a total ass to not get upset with yourself when you drop an older woman to the ground and she cries out in pain because her recently injured back has given her a serious twinge as a result of your actions. Or when you feel someone's wrist pop, twice, when you twist it. That really made the whole day complete.
Mood: Grrrrrrr....
Now Playing: White Stripes, "Get Behind Me Satan"
Not enough sleep last night, had to drop my dog Scarlett off at the vet for a tooth cleaning, then hit the gym for a rough workout this morning. Traffic all over the place on the way into work followed 3 more hours of editing Java properties files to try to get the capitalization in our product's interfaces to resemble some sort of standard (that brings this effort to nearly 20 hours of text file editing this week).
Then, after lunch, I find out the reason I haven't received my license plates for the Jeep yet is that the dealership screwed up and lost the paperwork, so I had to waste 2 hours driving all the way out to Georgetown so I could sit around reading a copy of Entertainment Weekly from January while they ran the Jeep to DMV to get the registration re-done.
Then, on my way back to the office I call Christine to see if we've heard how Scarlett is doing and it turns out the idiot vet screwed up and rolled her over while she still had an inflated trach tube in her throat. So they had just finished doing all sorts of x-rays and whatnot to make sure they hadn't, you know, ruptured her esophagus and they're "pretty sure" she's fine.
Arrgh. I can't wait to get to the dojang tonight. I need to channel this negative energy into some training and sparring time. Two days 'til the Texas Classic. My nerves are getting pretty frayed.
UPDATE -- Next Morning:
Went to train last night and, instead of relaxing and blowing off steam, I walked out of the dojang feeling even worse after I wound up hurting two people in the course of the hour. Both were accidental, and neither time did I do anything wrong or use too much force or anything (according both to my instructors and the people I managed to almost injure) but you'd have to be a total ass to not get upset with yourself when you drop an older woman to the ground and she cries out in pain because her recently injured back has given her a serious twinge as a result of your actions. Or when you feel someone's wrist pop, twice, when you twist it. That really made the whole day complete.
Mood: Grrrrrrr....
Now Playing: White Stripes, "Get Behind Me Satan"
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Obsessing/10,000 Days
OK, so the Texas Classic is in 3 days, and I'm utterly and completely obsessing about it.
No joke. And this is really bugging me, because I'm worried that by obsessing so much I'm going to completely psyche myself out for the tournament. I mean, I always tend to overthink things a bunch, but this time out is different. I'm so focused on minutiae it's nuts. I've been practicing my forms everyday, and I'm driving myself nuts trying to get Every Little Thing right. This morning I got myself incredibly frustrated because I seem to have developed a bad habit with my stances when moving up and down the center of the form -- I'm dropping into a sort of half-horse stance instead of a front stance when I throw my punches and blocks -- and now I'm obsessed with trying to undo that habit. I'm getting it right about 50% of the time. And then there's the back stance knife hand blocks at the end and this new "setting the hip" movement I'm trying to get a handle on, since a) it really adds force to the movement and b) apparently it really impresses the judges to see beginner students who know how to use their hips correctly. I figure that competing with Pyong Ahn Cho Dan I need all the help I can get if I want to have a prayer of placing at all.
And then there's sparring. I finally have a bit of confidence in my sparring -- I figured out a couple of moves that work for me, and that's made a huge difference in alleviating my anxiety about sparring. But then again, I've only sparred against people I already know from my dojang. I imagine the environment will be notably different when sparring students form other schools. I tend to approach it with a sense of fun -- like tag, with pads and a lot more sweating -- but I'm sure I'm going to come up against opponents that just want to thump, and who are going to try to throw all sorts of attitude to get under my skin. I've gotta work on just getting my game face on. I'm a big guy, and can be quite threatening without even raising my voice if I just stay focused. I've gotta figure out how to use that....
Gah. Thinking about this too much.
-=-
Happily, the new Tool CD has provided welcome distraction. It's my other current obsession.
I "obtained" it about a week ago, but immediately ran out of bought the real deal the moment Best Buy opened yesterday. The packaging alone is worth the purchase price. The CD sleeve has a pair of stereoscopic lenses built into it, and there's a booklet with about a dozen or so stereoscopic images for your viewing pleasure. Unfold the sleeve into a sort of a U shape, look through the lenses on one end, and see lovely 3D images. Besides being beautiful and inventive, I love that this is a piece of CD sleeve artwork that is specifically designed for the size and shape of a CD case -- highly unique.
Brilliant album, but -- much like Lateralus -- yet another lengthy step away from the Tool that created Undertow and Aenima. Needless to say, it'll divide the "old school fans" who want Tool to stay hard and loud and angsty from those who are open to more progression in their sound. The news stuff is far more personal, with some of their most beautifully constructed songs yet. The two-part epic "Wings for Marie/10,000 Days," about the death of Maynard's mother, is a full-out stunner -- easily the single most beautiful sounding piece of music they've written, and light-years away from anything on their previous recordings, stylistically. "Right in Two" is in a similar vein -- lilting, looping melodies leading up to explosive choruses, along with some amazing tabla work.
But it's not all pretty-pretty stuff: There are plenty of crushers on there as well. "Vicarious" is awesome, picking up (rhythmically, not thematically) where "Schism" left off, pointing out the hypocrisy of people who wag their fingers at people who are interested in violent imagery but who then immerse themselves on a constant, steady diet of sensationalistic "if it bleeds it leads" quote-news-unquote. "Jambi" crunches along at a nice pace. "The Pot" is cool, with Maynard singing in an utterly new style -- another piece about hypocrisy. But the real corker is "Rosetta Stoned:" Over 11 minutes of complex and powerful hard prog rock about a high school drop-out stoner who, while tripping near Area 51, is chosen by the aliens to deliver a very important message to the rest of mankind. But, well, he forgot his pen, y'see. Hysterically funny stuff, the song builds and builds until it utterly explodes at about 8:40 -- one of the best pieces in the entire Tool catalog, hands down.
Oh well. Back to obsession.
Mood: Twitchy
Now Playing: Tool, "10,000 Days"
No joke. And this is really bugging me, because I'm worried that by obsessing so much I'm going to completely psyche myself out for the tournament. I mean, I always tend to overthink things a bunch, but this time out is different. I'm so focused on minutiae it's nuts. I've been practicing my forms everyday, and I'm driving myself nuts trying to get Every Little Thing right. This morning I got myself incredibly frustrated because I seem to have developed a bad habit with my stances when moving up and down the center of the form -- I'm dropping into a sort of half-horse stance instead of a front stance when I throw my punches and blocks -- and now I'm obsessed with trying to undo that habit. I'm getting it right about 50% of the time. And then there's the back stance knife hand blocks at the end and this new "setting the hip" movement I'm trying to get a handle on, since a) it really adds force to the movement and b) apparently it really impresses the judges to see beginner students who know how to use their hips correctly. I figure that competing with Pyong Ahn Cho Dan I need all the help I can get if I want to have a prayer of placing at all.
And then there's sparring. I finally have a bit of confidence in my sparring -- I figured out a couple of moves that work for me, and that's made a huge difference in alleviating my anxiety about sparring. But then again, I've only sparred against people I already know from my dojang. I imagine the environment will be notably different when sparring students form other schools. I tend to approach it with a sense of fun -- like tag, with pads and a lot more sweating -- but I'm sure I'm going to come up against opponents that just want to thump, and who are going to try to throw all sorts of attitude to get under my skin. I've gotta work on just getting my game face on. I'm a big guy, and can be quite threatening without even raising my voice if I just stay focused. I've gotta figure out how to use that....
Gah. Thinking about this too much.
-=-
Happily, the new Tool CD has provided welcome distraction. It's my other current obsession.
I "obtained" it about a week ago, but immediately ran out of bought the real deal the moment Best Buy opened yesterday. The packaging alone is worth the purchase price. The CD sleeve has a pair of stereoscopic lenses built into it, and there's a booklet with about a dozen or so stereoscopic images for your viewing pleasure. Unfold the sleeve into a sort of a U shape, look through the lenses on one end, and see lovely 3D images. Besides being beautiful and inventive, I love that this is a piece of CD sleeve artwork that is specifically designed for the size and shape of a CD case -- highly unique.
Brilliant album, but -- much like Lateralus -- yet another lengthy step away from the Tool that created Undertow and Aenima. Needless to say, it'll divide the "old school fans" who want Tool to stay hard and loud and angsty from those who are open to more progression in their sound. The news stuff is far more personal, with some of their most beautifully constructed songs yet. The two-part epic "Wings for Marie/10,000 Days," about the death of Maynard's mother, is a full-out stunner -- easily the single most beautiful sounding piece of music they've written, and light-years away from anything on their previous recordings, stylistically. "Right in Two" is in a similar vein -- lilting, looping melodies leading up to explosive choruses, along with some amazing tabla work.
But it's not all pretty-pretty stuff: There are plenty of crushers on there as well. "Vicarious" is awesome, picking up (rhythmically, not thematically) where "Schism" left off, pointing out the hypocrisy of people who wag their fingers at people who are interested in violent imagery but who then immerse themselves on a constant, steady diet of sensationalistic "if it bleeds it leads" quote-news-unquote. "Jambi" crunches along at a nice pace. "The Pot" is cool, with Maynard singing in an utterly new style -- another piece about hypocrisy. But the real corker is "Rosetta Stoned:" Over 11 minutes of complex and powerful hard prog rock about a high school drop-out stoner who, while tripping near Area 51, is chosen by the aliens to deliver a very important message to the rest of mankind. But, well, he forgot his pen, y'see. Hysterically funny stuff, the song builds and builds until it utterly explodes at about 8:40 -- one of the best pieces in the entire Tool catalog, hands down.
Oh well. Back to obsession.
Mood: Twitchy
Now Playing: Tool, "10,000 Days"
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