Tae Kwon D’oh!

So I got my ass handed to me at tae kwon do last night.  At 260 pounds, I don’t exactly float like a butterfly or sting like a bee, but I can usually make it through a forty-five minute class without blacking out.  The key word is “usually.”

I’m a high blue belt, the rank which I’ve dreaded since I began doing tae kwon do two years ago.  I’m now considered an intermediate student.  From here on out, we’re expected to work harder, be more committed and eat, sleep and breathe tae kwon do.  That’s my interpretation anyway.  Basically, take it seriously or go the hell home.  Part of my problem stems from the fact that, of the seven classes offered each week, two are during the day, when I’m working and I often have conflicts with the four weeknight classes, especially since the Masonic year started up last month.  There are also classes late on Saturday mornings, but that tends to disrupt the day and, more often than not, I’m busy anyway.  So, even though I was going three nights a week for most of the summer, I’m still only averaging about a class and a half a week.  Any muscle tone I build up in a class is gone by the time I get to go again.

So anyway, on a good day, I wobble through the class and put on the best showing I can.  I give it everything I’ve got.  They may not realize it, though, since I’m usually starting to sweat justing walking in from the car.  (I have a low sweat threshhold, what can I say.  I blame my Greek and Ukrainian heritages.)  But last night was more intense.  I’ve noticed that since, over the summer, when we had a special guest instructor – a seventh-degree Grand Master who, it seemed, was also out to kill me – that the classes have gotten more intensive.  During the Grand Master’s class over the summer, we didn’t do anything difficult, it was just that the pace was so much quicker.  The regular instructors seem to have picked up on that.  Either that, or they’ve all decided that I must die.

Last night started pretty routinely.  Thirty jumping jacks – no problem;  we usually do fifty.  This is one aspect where I can keep up with the black belts (which I couldn’t when i first started.  We went rapidly through some basic moves and combinations – high blocks, body thrusts, nothing complicated.  The pace was rapid, but, with the exception of the double forearm blocks (which have been the bane of my existence since I got my orange belt), they were nothing I couldn’t handle.  From there, some stationary kicks.  Not too bad.  Yes, when we got to the combination of three kicks with each leg (groin kick, front kick, crescent kick), I was finishing a split second behind everyone else, but that’s normal.  We were excused for a quick drink of water.  Not much of a last meal, in retrospect.

With half an hour of the class left, I began to realize things were about to get very bad.  There were eighteen of us in class that night.  The instructors had us line up nine bags in a straight row down the center of the room, with us split into two groups, one at each end.  Then we, in rapid succession, were to kick each bag with a roundhouse kick and move right on to the next one.  When we got to the end of the row, we got back in line and did it again.  Four passes in all.  So far, not too bad.  Then, since we’d only been kicking with our right legs, we had to do the same with our left legs now.  That was a little worse since, during the first set, I’d begun to lose feeling in my right leg.  Not bad.  At this point, I was more concerned with the embarassment as, by the end, there was a two bag gap between me and the person before me.  I was also feeling bad for the guy behind me who I was slowing down.  I was wet with sweat and panting when we finished.  At this point, I was about where I am in a regular class.

Next, we lined up, two to a bag, and, in rapid succession, hit it with palm heel strikes.  That was fine.  It was half a chance to catch my breath.

then, back in lines of nine for another round at the bags.  This time, double side kicks.  Kick, bring your foot back to the floor, kick a second time.  Two trips up and back, nine bags, two kicks each.  For you math wizards, that’s seven-two kicks, in rapid succession, with the same leg.  And, of course, once we’d done that, it was seventy-two more with the other leg.  (Okay, in all honesty, it was seventy with each leg…both times, towards the end, I ended up skipping a bag, just to try and keep up.)  After the palm heel strike exercise, I’d adjusted so that I was at the end of the line, so I didn’t hold anyone else up.  This also meant I was last to finish.  By about three bags, with everyone else watching and waiting.  And watching.  And, yes, there wasn’t a person there who rolled their eyes or looked at their watch or made me feel like I was too slow.  Fact is, they cheered me on and encouraged me to finish strong.  I’m not much for being the center of attention (especially when sweating like a pig) and, though it was meant positively, all it did was make me feel like a fat retarded kid.

By this point, I’d begun to consider sitting out one of the exercises.  I just needed a break.  I perservered.  However, from here on out, the details get a little fuzzy.  I was using so much of my energy to stay conscious that I didn’t really take stock of most of my surroundings.

We did another “two-on-a-bag” exercise, this time taking turns roundhouse kicking it instead of palm heel strikes.  Where the line exercise was focusing on speed, this was focusing on technique so it was an easier pace.  If only standing hadn’t become so hard.

Back in line, this time to only do two passes.  But they were roundhouse kicks, with a spin in between.  By the time I got to the end of the first line, I was dizzy and, I’m pretty sure, blacked out.  I know we had to do another set with our left foot, but i don’t remember that round very well.

We finished up with one more “two-on-a-bag” exercise.  For blue belts and up (which is what I mean about the heat being on from this point forward), we were doing jump spin back kicks.  I can do each aspect of this move…seperately.  I can do a back kick.  I can even do a spin back kick with 50/50 accuracy.  Or I can jump.  Combining them is…not my strong suit.  I’m concerned about testing in November, because my required board break is any jump kick.  I can’t do jump kicks.  I’m fat.  Gravity is not my friend.  I can jump but, having used up all my energy to get up there, I don’t really have much left put into a kick in the very short time I’m airborne.  (I’ve decided, for my testing to do a jump front kick, the most basic jump kick;  I should be able to pull it off without hurting myself too badly.)  So, jump spin kicks were not a happy time for me, and I’m grateful that I was all but unconscious by that point, and that huamsn have a tendency to forget how painful certain experiences are.

When class was over and we bowed out, I had to sit to put my shoes on.  Actually I just needed to sit, but putting my shoes on was a good excuse (usually I can slip them onwhile standing).  Once I felt I’d recovered enought o make it to my car, I did so.  Driving home was a treat because I realized that, drenched as i wa sin my own sweat, I ran a serious risk of it soaking into the cloth driver’s seat.  Something I’d never have considered until I got the new car.  So I ended up driving home hunched over the steering wheel.

I had a migraine last night – a rare situation fortunately – and it persist a little today.  I don’t know that it’s related to the brutal workout last night, but i don’t not know it either.  My pphilosophy, though, is “Whatever doesn’t make me stronger can only kill me.”