Memory

We had a teacher workday today. Over the course of the day, we had a memory tournament (the game you played when you were five). I won two games and made it to the "elite eight", but lost. Then, later in the day, we all gathered around a table in the library to watch the finals. Adults cheering on other adults in a memory game...teachers are weird. The art teacher took pictures to document the event.

In other news, I have been increasing the amount of flexibility work that I'm doing outside of TKD classes. I'm also working on jumping drills and the heavy bag on evenings when I'm not in class. I run a couple times a week.

3rd degree

Master K looked at the black belt cards tonight and the plan is for me to bo test in April and then test for 3rd degree in May. This is going to be a very busy spring. I will probably be going into the school on Sundays to do some extra working out since track will start interfering will class times about once a week starting in March. I also plan to be training for a national forms competition, but that isn't till summer and I'll be working forms that I also have to be practicing for the 3rd dan test, so that shouldn't necessarily be too much extra time on top of what I'm already putting in (which will become significant).

I'm trying to increase my upper body strength and get better with hand techniques. I've been working on the heavy bag I got Steve for Christmas and with weights down in the basement. I'm also trying to run more and increase ab work for general fitness type stuff. I have to try to get any running conditioning I want to do in now because ironically, once track starts it becomes hard for me to find time to run at all during the week.

A few recent dog pics

Rowlf and me with the tree





Snow Day!

less ACL more other randomness

Haven't written in a while. The ACL is pretty much recovered, so there isn't much to say about that. However, I may have some big tests comming up for TKD this spring (possibly 3rd dan and forms competitions). So this blog may become focused on me describing my progress in that area rather than rehab.

testing

I've decided to do the next mid-term test for Taekwondo. I pretty much know all my forms and I've gotten to the point where I feel I can perform them relativly well. I'm looking forward to doing it. I probably won't do any real sparing, but I might try a break. I havn't decided on that yet. It will deffinatly be nice to do some forms in a performace setting again, though. I'm getting more comfortable with turning on the right leg every day. For basic kicks I'm fine...haven't really tried out any spinning wheel or spinning hooks yet. The test is next Friday. Steve will be test too, for his navy belt...he'll only be 2 away (probably about a year) from black.

I went to the doctor this morning and got the OK to start doing whatever I wanted on my knee. He said to slowly start working on the pivoting and sparing. So I've still got a little way to go before I'm 100%, but at least I can do everything now, even if it isn't all out yet. I've stopped at home to get something to eat, and then I'm going to get to school to teach the rest of the day.

So, I actually got to pass out candy for Halloween! Last year we bought candy and then no one came...which wasn't surprising since Mt. Adams isn't really full of families. But in Oakley there were lots of little kids. We have some candy left over...I made sure we kept a couple Reese's. In other news, our furnace finally got fixed at 8:30 last night. It hadn't been working since last Thursday. Long story as to why it took so long. The important thing is that it was above 60 degrees in the house when I got out of bed this morning.