Spring break was this week. I cleaned the house, played with the dog, worked out, and worked on my paper for the test. The paper is mostly written. I have to finish the section on OMAC history and then do a lot of proofreading, but it's a good start. I actually managed to go for a jog with Rowlf. Usually he either walks or wants to sprint, so getting him at a jogging pace was a minor achievement.

Next week is the fast and meditation. Max and I are starting the fast at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday and starting the meditation at 4:00 a.m. on Sunday. The fast will then end at 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, giving me a few hours to enjoy eating before Monday comes. During the fast I'm eating only almonds, miso soup, and a multi-vitamin and drinking water and some no sugar added fruit juice. The second day will probably be the worst, although we have a track meet Thursday and Friday nights, so those could be two very long days. For anyone wondering "why?", the fast and meditation are demonstrations of self-control and discipline.

And, even though I'm doing a five day fast and 12 hour meditation, I still think I'm more sane than Steve, who will be running 18 miles tomorrow and 20 miles next Sunday as part of marathon training. Steve has about a month left, and after next Sunday he starts the scaling back part of his training program. So he's almost through the worst of the training. His program doesn't have him run further than 20 miles during training. Go Steve!

Taebek video

Steve took a video of my form with the camera so I could see it. Good for analysis.

Good: Front kicks, most stances, in general I'm pretty happy with it.

Room for improvement: I rushed a little in the middle, I need to get my knee up and rechamber more on the side kicks. I also turned my back on the side kicks, which means I need to increase my side flexibility some (which I already knew and is a work in progress). Also need some more power on the blocks at the end.

I think I'll have Steve take video on some more things so that I can actually watch what I'm doing...it makes it easier to fix things.

The pretest went well. Nothing much to report there. Need to work on remembering self defence #'s 20-30.

Went to Battle of Columbus yesterday. I did forms...no sparing this year. I placed 1st in my division doing Taebek. Overall I thought the tournament ran better than it has the past few years. And of course, I had a better time because the day didn't end with a trip to the hospital.

I've been continuing the Sunday workouts. Today I worked on conditioning, the staff form, self defence, and some other assorted forms. I also thing I got my breaking routine worked out on Monday. I should probably look into starting the paper soon, since I haven't given it any thought at all.

The meditation has been set for April 6. Max and I decided to start at 4 a.m. which has up finishing at 4 p.m. This will give us at least part of the day Sunday to enjoy (= eat). The fast will begin at 4p.m. Tuesday night. It's probably going to seem like a long week. Fortunately, my student teaching is still doing just about everything for bio, so I only have to worry about AP and environmental.

The past two Sundays I have gone to the school to do some extra training. The first pretest is Tuesday. Last week I did some jump rope for conditioning, then ran through all the under black belt forms for more conditioning. Then I worked some Taebek for battle of Columbus prep and figured out that my back stance on the right side is not as good as on the left, so I've been fixing that. Today I did some more jump roping and then worked on all the black belt forms. I completely forgot the middle of one of the 1st dan forms, so I'll have to fix that in class tomorrow. Came home and lifted some weights so that I can be extra mighty. Track starts next week, although the conflicts with TKD don't really start until April when the meets start. Practices officially start on the 10th, but we have a meeting next week to get everything set up.

Steve is out running 13 miles today as part of marathon training. I have no idea how he does it (he's crazy), as the furthest I've ever run at once is 6 miles, and I wasn't particularly fond of that. I'm very proud of him for sticking with his running schedule through rain, snow, and aching joints. I think this week marks the half way point.