bengus blog

Hi. I have not updated this in forever. I am currently in the process of training for my black belt test. More to come soon. I have been in baller mode since my last update. Stay tuned.

Todays updates will be for Friday’s session (the 2^nd of June 2006) and today’s; June 6^th 2006. I didn’t get a chance to do Fridays because I went out with some friends.

-June 2^nd-

I started with my usual warm up, and then worked on so many kicking and striking drills I don’t even know where to start. We actually did stuff for nearly two hours straight because he got there super early, and Master Lee didn’t pull me into any of the kid’s classes. By about 6:15 we were both so tired and concerned we were going to pass out in our actual class. We both knew that we wouldn’t have, we just like talking shit. Board of Trade Mikey came in around 6:20 and seemed like he was depressed, because he was saying he was unsatisfied with everything. It was funny.

At about the time our class was going to start, Master Lee informed me I was going to teach the adult beginner 6:30 Hapkido class. Fine by me, I was already fucking exhausted from all week, and from what Greg and I did earlier anyways.

I led the warm up, pushed them really hard.

They had to do basic kicking drills, and two new defense against belt grab techniques I have never seen before. Master Lee pulled me aside and showed me them both before I had to demonstrate.

1. Front Snap, Roundhouse, Axe Kick. Back fist, Knife Hand, Ridge Hand, spinning back fist.
2. Defense from belt grab Technique #1
3. Defense from belt grab Technique #2

I will edit these both later because I am not feeling well. I just want to get a basic outline of the last two days and I will edit later.

-End June 6^th, 2006-

As per usual, I did my warm up. After this I did a TON of shadow kicks while the school manager was scolding these 3 kids that were goofing off. I paid no attention to it really, I didn’t want the kids to feel any more embarrassed then they already were. So I just kept doing shadow kicks. They were forced to sit in the training room that I work out in as punishment, and wait for till the end of the class till their parents arrived.

Greg arrived (also got promoted today, he is friggin’ brown belt now. Congrats Greg) And we did a good amount of strike practice. For about…40 minutes or so I would estimate.

1. [Edit Strike List]

Around 5:40 Master Lee came in and had me teach all the Tae Kwon Do blue belt kids their “one step sparring” routine and their “kicking routine”. Each belt level in TKD has each of these, and a form per belt.

Blue Belt TKD kicking routine is (starting left foot forward): High front snap, Right hand punch, left hand punch, roundhouse kick, reverse side kick, spinning hook kick, roundhouse kick.

Blue Belt TKD one step sparring routine is (starting left foot forward): Left hand center block while stepping forward with right foot. Return right foot to original position and perform a front foot roundhouse, spinning hook kick, then roundhouse kick

I worked on the group of about 7 students for about 30 minutes. After this Greg, Ibro (green belt), and myself worked on more strikes.

1. [Edit Strike List]

At around 6:15 Chris (black belt) showed me some awesome momentum/jump training drills for my jump spinning kicks. Chris is one of the strongest people in the school, the dude is scary. I really like him too because he always helps me with tons of stuff and gives me new ways to train my skills. These momentum jumps he was teaching me I am going to add to my regular routine because they just kicked my ass and I was surprised I was able to do 540 spins.

Class started and Chris ended up being my partner.

We started with 10x break falls (all).

1. Momentum Drill #1 (EDIT)
2. Momentum Drill #2 (EDIT)
3. Attacker throws Left jab, Right cross, left hook, right elbow strike to the throat, pull down defenders neck with a rear knee to the face/chest, hop step back into outside crescent kick. We did at least 30x each side, was awesome.
4. A new choke takedown I have never seen before. Attacker throws a punch; defender steps outside with and pushes the punch at the base of the elbow with front hand. After this is done defender does a rush choke hold with the rear hand and locks front hand on top of the choking hand. The defender executes a rear leg sweep/takedown to the Attackers rear front foot, taking them down. The defender has to do a side fall and Attacker basically front falls on their chest. After the front fall is performed by the defender, the defender has to switch leg positions into a “scissor” position (chris-crossed basically). The defender tucks their head into the side of the choke, and pulls on the hold. If done correctly the Attacker would be out cold in about 3 seconds. This was challenging for me because it was the first time I did it, I am sure it will get better as the week goes one. We did about 10x per side.

I will edit this later, not feeling well but at least I have a blueprint up.

I started with my typical warm-up but was unable to complete it because Master Park pulled me in to help the Teenage/Adult Hapkido class. He was on one side of the room, and I was on the other with a foam strike target, and a clap bag respectively. The entire class was in a line that would first run up to him and perform the appropriate strike/block/kick that Master Park called out, then change directions and do the opposite hand/foot on me. This went in a circle basically, and lasted a long time.

They did:

1. Inside high wrist
2. Outside low wrist
3. Inside low wrist
4. Outside low wrist
5. High wrist block
6. Defecting crescent
7. Front snap kick
8. Axe kick
9. Roundhouse kick
10. Hook kick
11. Spinning hook kick

I was then paired up with this black belt kid who couldn’t be older than 12. I can’t remember his name, but I have seen him in the demonstrations (he’s on the demo team). The really weird thing is he was not in his dobok, he was in jeans and a white tshirt. Anyways we worked on a basic technique

1. Defender is standing with left hand/foot forward. Attacker is in the same stance. Attacker moves in and covers the hand of the defender with a three finger grab from the rear hand, then covering the other side of the hand with another three finger grab (this is done while stepping in at a 45 degree angle to defenders “outside” with rear foot). Attacker brings the defenders hand (while gripped) to the chest/close, while swinging the now rear leg 180 degrees counter clockwise. This momentum puts the defender in an armbar. After the armbar is achieved, you quickly twist the wrist of the defender in the opposite direction and move upper body in the opposite direction as well. Defender must side fall out. The momentum training for this would be “Momentum Training Number 3”

Around this time class was over and I made my way into the workout room. Greg was there, so I finished the rest of my warm up and we immediately went into strikes. This was incredible; this was the first time in MONTHS that Master Lee didn’t have me help with the kids class, so I was able to work on strikes for over an hour with Greg before my actual class. It is amazing to actually be able to do the very things I come so early for.

1. Roundhouse x10 each leg
2. High Roundhouse (above my head) 10x each leg
3. High, middle, low spin hook kick 10x each leg
4. Inside, outside, spinning, tornado, jump spin crescent combination x5 each leg
5. Back kick x10 each leg
6. Full power roundhouse x10 each leg

I swear we did more than this, because it was over an hour. We took a short break (15 minutes) before class was about to start and talked about World War II, bisexual women, and bad Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.

Class was a basic repeat of Tuesdays, with some minor adjustments to one of the techniques. My partner was the teacher guy I was talking about yesterday Andy [brown belt].

We got a lot more done that I did on Tuesday with all of the drills however.

We started with around x3 of each of the break falls in rapid succession (front/back/left side/right side).

1. Attacker throws two punches while Defender is holding two small hand targets (left jab, right cross). Defender hop steps back and Attacker does three more punches (left jab, right cross, left uppercut). Defender hop steps back again and Attacker does 4 more punchers (left jab, right cross, left uppercut, right hook). Defender stays in place and lowers hand targets on top of each other (one hand over the other), and the Attacker grabs the back of the neck of the defender with both hands and pulls it down into a rear knee strike. Attacker switches feet and does another rear knee strike. Attacker then pulls their front leg in an 180 degree sweeping motion while simultaneously pulling on the neck of the defender in the same direction. This whips the Defender around 180 degrees and throws them off balance. Once this is done, one final rear knee strike to the face of the Defender is performed. At this point you are on the other side of the room and in a reverse starting direction. Because of this, you are able to work on your other side/starting directions for strikes on the way back. We did about x10 of these back/forth for each of use.
2. Attacker throws a mid-range punch to the chest. Defender steps to the side (not angle) and does an out side open palm block (rear hand), then a front hand knife hand strike (half power, not full), and quickly into a back fist with the same knife hand striking hand. This was awesome and had interesting timing challenges. About x10 each side
3. 4 new kicks. The first two were all variations on ones we already knew, but using different striking points or striking styles. The first two were primarily for blocking or deflecting, so you didn’t perform them for power or as you would normally do the standard version of these kicks.

A) Attacker does a stabbing motion going from the back of their heads DOWN towards you. You have to time a high side kick to deflect it. It was not like a normal side kick at all; you used your rear foot, pivoted and kicked in a popping motion to deflect the attack. We did about x10 each leg.

B) The second was a crescent kick done in a very similar style. Its primary goal was to knock something out of the hand of the Attacker who moved in on you in a 45 degree angle stabbing motion, as if you were slicing instead of stabbing. This was challenging to get the timing right but I enjoyed it. About x10 each leg

C) A front snap kick with the striking point being the BALL of your foot rather than the top as usual. You have to have your toes totally curled back and this really felt weird/uncomfortable at first but was great to learn a new strike. Did about….5x per leg

D) This was a roundhouse kick with the striking point being the ball of the foot. I failed miserably at this, hopefully will be better by the end of this week. It was extremely challenging. Only did about x5 per leg because time was running out for the final drill.

4. Attacker throws a rear hand punch and the defender steps BACK OR STANDS STILL DEPENDING ON PUNCH DISTANCE (reason this was bold because I incorrectly documented this part two days ago) with a front hand “X” block. The front hand (blocking hand) is to the inside of the attacker for the X block and the rear hand is on the outside. After the block is performed to the punch, you have to slightly move in a circular motion (clockwise) sliding your out side hand into a three finger grab, and releasing your left. By the time the circle is finished you reattach your blocking hand to double up the three finger grab and pull the attackers momentum/punch towards you. Defender throws a knee strike to the ribs after pulling the Attacker towards him/herself. A new step was added today, a takedown. After the strike to the ribs the Attackers same foot moves outside of the position of the attacker while twisting the grip of the hand of the Attacker forcing them to do a violent side fall. This was awesome, if done correctly they Attacker goes down really quick. We worked on this for about 20x each both sides.

Overall this was the best class of the week so far. I really enjoyed it. I hope tomorrow is as good, my final for the week. BO!

As per usual I started with my warm up. I was barely able to finish this before Master Lee pulled me in for the 4:00 class for a repeat of yesterday. The sweating issue was even worse today, one the black belt kids (Ricky) ran and got me a towel it was so bad. The good thing about this particular class “pull in” however was that I was only in there for 15 minutes. He let me leave the class after the belt promotions.

So I worked on strikes with some random red belt kid whos name I cannot recall. He was really young and was trying to get me to talk about pro wrestling. I pretended I was interested/curious about it because I do not watch it, and I wanted him to keep holding the bags/switching drills with me as much as possible.

1. Basic roundhouse x10 each leg
2. Crescent Kick combination (outside, inside, spinning, tornado, jump spin) x10 each leg
3. Power roundhouse to the big bag target x10 each leg
4. Jump Spin Hook Kick x10 each leg

About the time I finished these that kid had to leave for his 5:15 class. Mariano arrived and we were going to get down and dirty with some drills/combinations when he got pulled away to assist the demo team. Lucky guy, i pretty much idolize the people on the demo team. So amazing to me, everyone that is on it I have the highest respect for. Apparently our schools demo team was giving a demonstration somewhere near a YMCA, but I am not sure where exactly. Master Park after class told me it was at a middle school but he didn’t know the name of it. Even after Mariano was done with this (about 10 minutes), he then had to demonstrate techniques and supervise the adult 5:15 class. Master Lee told me because Master Park was leaving to give the demo with the demo team; he needed me in the kid’s class for the majority of the time because he had to teach/supervise both classes at once. It was basically exactly the same as yesterday’s kids class; however there was no dodge ball. They did do summersault drills and watching some of the kids do it was friggin’ hilarious. The girl that asked me about the pressure point diagram is really cubby, and she was having a really hard time with them. I spent about 5 times encouraging her and showing her how to do them, them BAM she did. It was very funny but rewarding at the same time. At the end of the class I had to read to them, only this time the subject was the “fundamentals” of martial arts.

After it was over Mariano came into the kids/beginner room with me and we got to work on a few things really quick before class.

1. High, middle, Low spinning hook kick x10 each leg. Mariano did roundhouse rear leg, roundhouse front x10 each leg
2. I did 5x more of the same crescent kick combination I usually do, and Mariano did roundhouse, spinning hook. 10 times each leg as usual.
3. Roundhouse, spinning hook kick, tornado kick x10 each leg

Class session started and it was crowded as hell. The low ranks were in our room for the evening. My partner was low rank (orange belt) but seemed like he was going to get really good because he listened to everything I was telling him, and was asking a ton of questions. This is a good thing. We started off with leg strikes

1. Basic Roundhouse x10 per leg
2. 3 Axe kick variations (inside, outside, center) x10 per leg
3. Crescent kick combination (inside outside, spinning, tornado, jump spin) x5 per set per leg
4. Tornado roundhouse kick x10 per leg

Master lee told use to do sets of all basic hand strikes. We managed to get to:

1. Basic knife hand x10 per hand
2. Basic ridge hand x10 per hand
3. Basic forward backsist x10 per hand
4. Basic side backfist x10 per hand
5. Basic spinning backfist x10 per hand

For the final technique Master Lee made me demonstrate to the class. It was the same as the last one yesterday. At this point the low ranks were split up on the other side of the room and I had a new partner who is a brown belt. I can’t believe I cannot remember this guys name because I talk to him all the time and I think he is funny. He is a teacher in the non-dojang world. I always think its funny/weird to find out what any of these people do outside of Hapkido in real life. I also would like to point out that Master Lee asked me if “I was here yesterday” before he asked me to demonstrate the technique. Jesus this new Plaid album is terrible.

1. Attacker throws a rear hand punch and the defender steps BACK OR STANDS STILL DEPENDING ON PUNCH DISTANCE (reason this was bold because I incorrectly documented this part yesterday) with a front hand “X” block. The front hand (blocking hand) is to the inside of the attacker for the X block and the rear hand is on the outside. After the block is performed to the punch, you have to slightly move in a circular motion (clockwise) sliding your out side hand into a three finger grab, and releasing your left. By the time the circle is finished you reattach your blocking hand to double up the three finger grab and pull the attackers momentum/punch towards you. On thing that was added was a knee strike to the ribs after pulling the Attacker towards you. We worked on this for about 20x each, but only on one side, and then class was over.

I forgot to mention yesterday that I ripped a pair of my boxer shorts in half in class. This is not the first time that this has happened, and when it does happen I don’t sense/hear/feel it. I just come home, take off my dobok pants and can’t understand why my boxers are split in half. It’s not what you would expect either, something simple like a crotch tear: its more weird that that. They are completely ripped in half. I should have taken a picture before I threw them out. If it happens again, I will.

I got there pretty early today and did my usual warm up. I finished this quickly but there was not really anyone there early yet, so I did a lot of break falls. Mostly flip falls without the big mat because I want to get those down really good. I worked on shadow kicks a lot as well. At about 4:30 Master Lee asked me to help him do belt promotions for the kids class until about 5. Since I had gotten a decent amount of stuff done, and I was already covered from head to toe in sweat I figured why not.

So I go into the class with him and he instructs all of the kids to form 3 straight lines. Each one was called up and told if they passed their promotion test or not. We both were sitting on the floor legs crossed next to each other. I had a stack of promotion tickets that had to be filled out accordingly. So as each kid was called up by Master Lee I would fill in their name, the date, and their belt color. This was done two times per sheet because one copy was for their records, and one was torn off and given to the child to give to their parents (whom then give to grandmaster with a $25.00 fee for their new belt). After this is done the whole class has to clap and go “YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!”(This is specifically what Master Lee instructs them to do). This was making me laugh but I can’t really laugh at the kids. Sometime it is really hard not to.

I was also sweating so bad that it was dripping all over the promotion sheets. I also had to keep wiping my arm that I was writing with. And when I got up for the next portion of the kid’s class there was a perfect outline of my ass and thighs from where I was sitting. Really gross, but I feel it’s important to mention this. I had to supervise and instruct the kids for a game of dodge ball. They flip out and get really excited at this, running all over the place etc…

So I made them into two teams, explained rules and then they went nuts for about 10 minutes playing. You wouldn’t believe how many kids try to cheat. For example: Coming back in after being tagged out etc….You have to yell at them right away and correct them or they will walk all over you. Is this what parenthood is like?

After their game was over I had to read an article to them (this isn’t the first time I have had to read to the class) about “conflict resolution” and how it pertains to martial arts, and in real life. You would think when I do this it would bore the shit out of them and they would not pay attention. However; this is never the case. Every time after I have to give a q/a session about the subject matter and a lot of the kids raise their hands and have the correct answer or ask questions. It’s surprising.

It was about 5:00 and Greg was there so we went into the practice room and worked on a few combinations/strikes. Even though we didn’t get a lot of them done, I was sweating so bad because of how hot it was in there I honestly started feeling weak. Greg had told me he felt the same way.

1. Crescent combination (outside, inside, spinning, tornado, jump spin) x5 each leg
2. Basic Roundhouse x10 each leg
3. high/medium/low spinning hook kick x10 each leg
4. Axe Kick, Tornado Roundhouse, Spinning hook kick 10x each leg.

After this point it was about….5:45 and I had to go back into the kid’s class again and basically an exact repeat of what happened at 4:30. This was with different students; otherwise it was the exact same routine. Except I was sweating even worse. And…the kid last week that ran out crying because he missed his dad started crying again today and had to use the washroom.

So at around 6:15 I was done and explained to this chubby little white belt girl what the “red dots” were on the diagram of the man that is in the beginner room. Explained to her they were pressure points and strike points via a visual diagram. She had asked me in class what there were and I told her after he class I would explain it. The thing is I had forgotten about it and she came up to me and reminded me, so the kid really wanted to know this for some reason.

Our class session was pretty awesome, lots of new challenging stuff.

My partner was Andrew [Red belt]. He is really good and is testing for his black belt in October. He tells me I have really good kicks. In between each drill he was doing front flip falls onto the mat, which rules.

We started with around x6 of each of the break falls in rapid succession (front/back/left side/right side).

1. Attacker throws two punches while Defender is holding two small hand targets (left jab, right cross). Defender hop steps back and Attacker does three more punches (left jab, right cross, left uppercut). Defender hop steps back again and Attacker does 4 more punchers (left jab, right cross, left uppercut, right hook). Defender stays in place and lowers hand targets on top of each other (one hand over the other), and the Attacker grabs the back of the neck of the defender with both hands and pulls it down into a rear knee strike. Attacker switches feet and does another rear knee strike. Attacker then pulls their front leg in an 180 degree sweeping motion while simultaneously pulling on the neck of the defender in the same direction. This whips the Defender around 180 degrees and throws them off balance. Once this is done, one final rear knee strike to the face of the Defender is performed. At this point you are on the other side of the room and in a reverse starting direction. Because of this, you are able to work on your other side/starting directions for strikes on the way back. We did about x5 of these back/forth for each of use.

2. Attacker throws a mid-range punch to the chest. Defender steps to the side(not angle) and does an out side open palm block (rear hand), then a front hand knife hand strike (half power, not full), and quickly into a back fist with the same knife hand striking hand. This was awesome and had interesting timing challenges.

3. 4 new kicks. The first two were all variations on ones we already knew, but using different striking points or striking styles. The first two were primarily for blocking or deflecting, so you didn’t perform them for power or as you would normally do the standard version of these kicks.

A) Attacker does a stabbing motion going from the back of their heads DOWN towards you. You have to time a high side kick to deflect it. It was not like a normal side kick at all; you used your rear foot, pivoted and kicked in a popping motion to deflect the attack. We did about x10 each leg.

B) The second was a crescent kick done in a very similar style. Its primary goal was to knock something out of the hand of the Attacker who moved in on you in a 45 degree angle stabbing motion, as if you were slicing instead of stabbing. This was challenging to get the timing right but I enjoyed it. About x10 each leg

C) A front snap kick with the striking point being the BALL of your foot rather than the top as usual. You have to have your toes totally curled back and this really felt weird/uncomfortable at first but was great to learn a new strike. I only did about x4 each let because we were running out of time. Master park always screams “ONE MINIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIUUUUUUUUUUUUUTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE” when we are about to change drills.

D) This was a roundhouse kick with the striking point being the ball of the foot. I failed miserably at this, hopefully will be better by the end of this week. It was extremely challenging. Only did about x4 per leg because time was running out for the final drill.

4. This was our final drill of the evening and I may have to reword it later this week. Attacker throws a rear hand punch and the defender steps in with a front hand “X” block. The front hand (blocking hand) is to the inside of the attacker for the X block and the rear hand is on the outside. After the block is performed to the punch, you have to slightly move in a circular motion (clockwise) sliding your out side hand into a three finger grab, and releasing your left. By the time the circle is finished you reattach your blocking hand to double up the three finger grab and pull the attackers momentum/punch towards you. This is really challenging to describe. We worked on this for about 10x each side and then class was over.

Ari, the kid whom invited me to his birthday party got promoted to blue belt today. I congratulated him and then realized how lucky he was to be doing martial arts at that age in his life. I wish I would have/my parents would have made me.

Did usual warm-up. Finished this relatively early, around 4:30. I was sweating in the car really badly even before I got to class, arriving from work. I am one of those people that do not like air conditioning unless it’s over 110 degrees. On Fridays there is this black belt instructor that (cannot recall his name) consistently at about 4:30 he pulls me into his 4:00 o clock class that he is teaching. This guy teaches in a style different from any of the other black belts/masters. I really enjoy his class, and even though I am only in there for about a half hour or so I learn something new every time. What makes this guy different is he spends a considerable amount of time on 1 technique, usually with variations. This is a more American style of teaching. I am not by any means saying I prefer this, I will say however it is a privilege to experience it once a week. And with the amount of classes I do each week, this is a nice experience. He really takes a lot of time to explain the technique, it’s very interesting to me.

We worked on one core drill with three variations. It was a defense against knife while the attacker has the knife pointed almost directly to your chest. The example set was the attacker sticks you up with a knife and says “Freeze! Give me all your money!” etc….

The whole basic set up is to raise your hands up and stare the attacker directly in the eyes to imply fear (you would be scarred anyways). While doing this you have to simultaneously slightly bend your knees. In a fashion that’s extremely slight and subtle. Reading this you might think this is outrageous and impossible but its not. It took me about 10 times before I got the movement down right. If you do not do this correctly, and you try to do *anything* to the attacker with locked knees (example: move to the side, grab his hands, run away) you are dead. You will get stabbed. However a slight knee bend gives you the opportunity to pivot to your “outside”, meaning pivoting to your right with your upper body turned to the side. A good but cheesy example would be to picture the way a gunfight would happen in the old days. When two dudes were about to draw their weapons, as they did they did this exact motion and fired. Their torso/upper body was not flat, turned to the side giving the opponent a significantly less area to target with the gun. If I can find an video of some cheesy gunfight I am going to link it.

This technique is only possible moving/pivoting to the outside. If you do not, and pivot inside it will not work.

After you pivot there were three things you could do when the attacker moves in stab you, which if you timed everything correctly (through training) he would miss.

A) Grab the attacker’s knife hand with a 3 finger grab with “left” hand. Then take the momentum of the stabbing motion and pull him in that direction. After that, take your right hand and cover the other side of his attacking hand with another three finger grab. You then push his hand towards your chest and down to your belt while swinging your left foot back 180 degrees. Usually the person will drop the knife before they even hit the floor (side fall).

B) Low/Mid X block on the top of the wrist of the attacker. Right hand on top, criss crossing over the left. Defenders torso also works its way back slighty as this motion is done. The right hand goes into a three finger grab using the momentum from the stab. The stabbing/attacker hand is turned over, and the left hand also goes into 3 finger grab. You then yank the arm towards you and kick them in the face with a front snap, axe kick them to the neck, roundhouse to the knee cap etc…. its up to you. Personally I would just front snap them to the face.

C) This one we did not get to. We ran out of time.

So after this the school was pretty crowded for the 5:15 class. Mariano and Greg were there and of course I wanted to work on strikes with then. One thing that is really nice is the school got all new hand targets and clap bags. I swear they have to replace those every six months or so…which seems about right I guess for a big school that has classes all day 6 days a week. They are closed this memorial day however. Yesterday Master Park was making one of his statements before the class started and asked everyone what they were doing on Memorial Day. I said “I’m coming here”. He said “I hate you. School Closed”.

We were really lucky because we got to work out the *entire* time. Master Lee usually does not pull me into class to teach the kids on Fridays I have noticed. It could be just a temporary thing though. About 20 minutes into our pre class strike session Greg was holding for me while I was kicking. Master Lee called out Mariano. I was like “OH HELLS YA”, not because I didn’t want to practice with him; but finally someone else got picked etc…

However Mariano was back in 30 seconds, Master Lee just wanted help moving a huge bag that people use to practice complicated falls/flips on. It just figures. Anyways we did a lot:

1. Roundhouse, spinning hook kick, full tornado kick. The usual 10x each side. I kept fucking this up at first.
2. Crescent combination (outside, inside, spinning, tornado, jump spin)
3. We did this new (sort of) thing were one person would hold the clap bag, and one person would hold the big bag. The person whose turn it was would stand in between each of the people holding the bag. A strike of choice was done to the big bag, and then the clap bag. Each time counted as one. So you were doing a total of 10, which were 20 strikes of your choice. To mix it up even more, the people holding the targets would change the placement position to add variation. This was very fun and exhausting. Overall I think we did around 4 turns each person, which was about 25 minutes or so.

At about 10 minutes to six, Mikey [Red Belt] showed up. Mikey has been there longer than any of us (at least 6 months), and works at the board of trade in Chicago like my friend/ex-co-worker John Jaeger. Mikey is very good, but has limited time because of his work schedule and only comes on Fridays. He has helped me with technical problems with a lot of my kicks because he is very good at them. He already has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and he is close to his in Hapkido as well. He is one of those guys that jokes around a lot, like myself I guess…and always “busts balls” or whatever you want to call it. Personally I think its funny and it doesn’t bother me, and he is a nice guy anyways. He…I believe started the whole Chuck Norris thing on me, or was one of the first anyways. After he stretched (for about 5 minutes, I have no fucking clue how he streches so little time and doesn’t get hurt), we did some stuff.

1. Roundhouse, spinning hook kick 10x each side/leg

Greg at this point went to do leg lifts, and Mariano was just taking a break. The kid did 2 classes a day everyday this week.

Mikey and I continued doing a few more things, and he asked me to point out on my blog how badly I tie my belt. This is true however. My belt comes undone from my dobok at least 10 times during the duration of the time that I am there every day. It’s pretty pathetic too if you think about it with how dedicated I am to everything with my training, I can’t even tie my belt well enough that it wont come untied. In my head I just think “well. It comes untied that much because I am working my ass off like a professional Judo athlete.” Or something like that.

2. Crescent kick Combination. Mikey likes to do 3. He calls them “threesomes”. I prefer to do 5 as I have previously described in many updates so far. We did about 10x of the combination on each leg.
3. Jump Spinning hook kick. This is an extremely difficult kick. We worked on it about 10x per side, each leg

Time was running out, and we had to go into the main room which was fucking freezing because it is the only room in the dojang that is air conditioned. This feels disgusting. I mean walking into after you have been working out really hard and drenched in sweat for the last few hours.

So we walked over to the 6:30 session, lined up….and here comes Master Lee with his crazy good smile saying “ERRRRRRRRRRIK!”. This means “come with me, don’t even ask questions”. I had to do the adult beginner hapkido class again, full warm-up, demonstrate the drills etc…

I really do actually like doing this, I just….I like learning new things more. But every black belt there and at other schools/styles that I have emailed has told me that I should be honored. They tell me that it takes a true martial artist is one that knows how to teach, and that I should feel flattered that they ask me so much. I guess I am just selfish, but over the last 4 months it has started to bother me less, and I still think I am getting so much done in between and putting out as much effort as I can etc…

So I led the warm-up, I made it much more difficult than they were used to. I made them do way more stretching than they were used to and told them it was because the school was closed on Monday and they were all going to be eating like crap over the weekend. People laughed etc…

After the warm up Master Lee came in, showed me the drill to explain, and then left. I asked him if I could use the washroom really quick. When I did crazy Jun [red belt], who is probably one of the students I admire the most in the school was doing insane cartwheel-into-back flips by himself in the middle room. I asked him how he was/how was work etc… the usual BS. He is a nice guy, and he did a translation for me one time. We both do the exact same thing for a living only he is 1000x better at me in martial arts.

After I got back I taught and explained the drills and helped all of the students when they had questions.

1. Front snap kick, roundhouse kick, axe kick

2. Basic escape/wrist lock (cross hand grab) number 3 aka “The Chicken Wing”. Attack does a cross wrist grab to the defenders opposite hand (not same). Defender fakes a thrown out hand to the opposite direction that he/she is going to perform the “wrist against thumb” break, and steps outside of the attacker’s direction. When you break your hand free you grip the attackers hand in a “L” grip position and slide into a three finger grab. Your opposite leg does a 180 degree motion putting you close and along the side (outside) of the attacker. At the same time your opposite hand smacks down on a pressure point in the middle of the attackers “attacking” arm, bending it upwards. The hand then slides up into another three finger grab and pushes down onto the wrist of the attacker’s hand. This is really hard to describe. Everything is done very smoothly and at the same time. I will try to get better at describing some of these.

3. Attacker throws punch. Defender steps outside and blocks with front hand at the elbow area of the punch pushing the arm to the chest/face of the attacker, while at the same time doing a wrist strike to the attacker’s face/chest. Defender then grabs the back of the neck of the attacker pulling them down into a really nice rear knee strike. Ouch. Then defender jumps back and does power front kick.

4. Basic double three finger takedown. Attacker grabs wrist cross hand, defender does a fake similar to the Chicken Wing setup, and does wrist-against thumb escape. The hand that escapes goes into a three finger grab, and the rear leg does a 180 degree sweep after the break and the outside step forward is performed. After this, the opposite hand of the defender grabs the other side of the attackers hand and another three finger grab, sweeping/pulling the attackers wrist to the belt/stomach (their own) forcing them to fall down (side fall) or their wrist breaks.

Class was over at this point and I was fucking exhausted despite not doing and “official” class. Mariano is coming to our softball game tomorrow. Greg is going to check his gmail account I made him. Rashad asked me again to come over for the UFC fight but I don’t think I can cancel plans for Jaegers birthday. I do really want to see that fight however, and I hope Gracie beats that frat boy looking Matt Hughes bad. I really do.

After I left class I washed my car. I also just did two sets of 15 pull ups.
I also forgot to mention I pulled a muscle in my neck doing a low spinning hook kick. I am not sure why doing this of all things, I do this everyday. Its irritating though, and I am sure I will feel it more tomorrow during our softball game.

As per usual, I started with my warm up routine. It was really dead until about 4:45. Up until this point I worked on breakfalls, and shadow kicks, movement drills, and jumped rope for about 7 minutes. Jumping rope is so hard I can barely do it. 7 minutes really isn’t a long time at all, but I was sweating really badly by the time I was done and felt like an hour had passed. At 4:45 Marinano [red belt] and I worked on some basic strike combinations as quickly as possible because I knew I was going to have to do the whole kids TKD class again. Just had a feeling etc…

Pre Class drills

1. Left jab, right cross, left cross, right cross, left uppercut, left hook, right uppercut, right hook. This combination 10 times then reversed hand order.
2. Crescent kick combination: inside, outside, spinning, tornado, jump spinning (5 sets of this combination, each leg) x5 each side
3. Tornado Crescent, High (above head) roundhouse, spinning hook kick, tornado axe kick. X10 each side

Kid’s class:

This was essentially the same as yesterday, just with more students and different students. I led the warm up which I love doing anyways because it’s just more stretching/exercise. The kids all got 15 minutes to practice their forms then were tested for belt promotion. Only like 3 passed. One kid that was new there started crying and said he missed his dad who was watching the class. I said to him “He’s right there see!” and then took him over to his dad for a bit till he clamed down.

After this was over I helped Ryan Massoth learn basic front snap kick, reversed backhand strike, and basic inside crescent. He listened really well on all of these again, and seems really eager to learn and understands that its going to take 1000’s of times before technique happens.

6:30 Class

My partner was kid I can’t think of his name, he’s a purple belt. He was telling me to “take it easy” and that his whole body was sore. People usually never say things like this, but Jesus Christ you don’t think my whole body is sore every day that I am in class? He later explained to me that he thinks he was sore from “holding a ladder”. I just shrugged it off but still thought that was a weird thing to say. Pretty much everything we did was the same as yesterday, however this time I learned the last drill *correctly* I was completely (as well as my partner) omitting a step entirely. I couldn’t even blog the drill properly last night because of this.

Drills were

1. A) Basic open hand blocks 1-5. High inside, High outside, Low inside, Low outside, High middle (block the top of your head). About 7x each hand.

B) Basic closed fist block 1-10. Front hand high, Back hand high, Back hand High inside, Back hand high outside, Back hand low inside, Back hand low outside, Both hands low outside, both hands face, both hands, both hands high head. About 7x each hand.

2. Partner kept saying “ow” every time I would block his kicks with my feet. I wasn’t hitting hard either. “AWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAO” is more accurate.

A) Attack does front snap kick with back foot. Defender does a side kick with the front foot.

B) Attacker switches feet and does a roundhouse with back foot. Defender does an inside heel kick with the back foot to block it.

C) Attacker does roundhouse with the opposite foot. Defender uses front foot to do what seemed to be an outside-reverse roundhouse, blocking the roundhouse with the inside of your shin.

D) Attacker does roundhouse with the opposite foot. Defender does a roundhouse with the back foot blocking it with the front of the shin.

E) Attacker does a rushing knee strike with the rear leg. Defender parries the attack with a rear leg knee strike, but coming down from the top in a circular motion. This was my favorite besides B). About 10x for each of us on this, both sides.

3. Attacker is holding two small hand targets. Defender (I don’t know if I should call attacker or not) does a back hand “slap” to the left target with front hand, immediately following up a palm hand strike with the opposite hand. This is followed with a an uppercut with the front hand, and then a hook with the back hand. The “Attacker” then throws two crosses, one with each hand. “Defender” has to duck each. The way you should properly duck a punch is to move in a circular sweeping motion in the direction that the attack is coming from. Also while doing this you bend your arm and cover the side of your face in a “L shape”. After “defender” properly ducks both, you do a front hand elbow strike, then a rear elbow strike. “Attacker” then moves the bags to the waist/groin height area stacked on top of another and you do a back knee strike. This was done about 10x each side for both of us. I was making a mistake yesterday with the knee strike. It should have been a rear knee strike. I corrected this tonight. Also to give my partner some credit, he really helped me on my ducking against a left cross. I can do right cross evasions fine, but for some reason I totally suck at left. I got much better at them tonight.

4. This was a really crazy kicking combination that was hard to get more than 3 times per turn done because of the length of it. We were both able to though. The first one of each of these was done with the rear foot. Front snap kick, jumping front snap kick, jump back front foot front snap, roundhouse, jumping roundhouse, jump back roundhouse front foot, side kick, hop step side kick, jump back front foot side kick, hook kick, hop step hook kick, jump back front foot hook kick(very hard), spinning hook kick, full spinning hook kick, reverse full spinning hook kick. Sheesh. Yeah this one was a lot.

5. The mistake I made last night was that drills #4 and #6 were actually combined. I am going to sort it and try to do a proper now.

Attacker throws a rear hand punch. Defender steps in with rear foot and blocks with the front hand gripping the wrist of the punching hand. Defenders rear hand does a palm hand strike to the chest of the attacker, and then immediately grabs the back of the neck (pressure point) of the attacker and pulls down on the neck while pulling the attackers punching arm up and in a typical Akido/Hapkido push/pull motion. When the attacker is lowered you execute a crushing rear knee strike to their chest/face. After this you would do a pulling motion on the attackers punching arm, yanking them towards you and off balance. You then grip the attackers punching hand with both arms putting their thumb into a lock in the process. You then do a quick outside 180 degree spin, getting really low and bending your knees. The taller your attacker is, the lower you have to get. This puts their arm into a really bad arm bar and no matter how big the fucker is, or how strong they are, they be in pain. Attacker has to do a side fall to avoid their arm being broken. That’s how you get out of most of them. I say “get out” because most people are going to resist (people that do not train) and that’s the absolute worst thing you can do when you are in a joint lock of any kind. After they are down anyways, even if they do a proper side fall, you already have them in natural arm bar anyways. Once this is done, defender does a back fist to chest/face.

My partner hated everything about this move and looked like he was going to cry for some reason. We did about 5x each side and then we were out of time. I left class again tonight feeling like I didnt get anything done. I don’t understand it.

Oh i fixed master parks computer machine as well. It didnt have a virus. It is HARD as hell working on it because i know absolutly no Hangul.

I started with my usual warm up routine. Today I was really beat and I haven’t been to the last 3 sessions (Friday/Monday/Tuesday) because of personal reasons. This might have been why I was feeling so worn out. Not sure. Also cut off all of my hair and most people seemed to notice. Very flattering for bengus! Master Park said “WHOA ERIK HAIRCUT!” , Grandmaster Hyun said “I do not like your haircut” and then laughed, Greg [Purple Belt] “Its going to take me awhile to get used to”, Sunmee [Orange belt] ran up to me rubbed my head, laughed and called me “baldy!”. None of the kids called me jesus anymore. No Chuck Norris stuff either.

After I completed the warm up, Master Park told me he thinks his laptop has a “virus”. I told him I would look at it at some point. I was able to work on a few strike combinations….

(roundhouse x10 each leg, my usual crescent kick combination [inside, outside, spinning, tornado, jump spin] x10 each leg, high/medium/low spinning hook kick x10 each leg, tornado roundhouse x20 each leg, Left jab/right cross/left cross/right cross/left uppercut, left hook/right uppercut/right hook x10 each hand order/side, Greg [purple belt] showed me a new takedown that went into an arm bar but I only had it performed on me once so I can’t remember it clearly enough to document it. I will edit this tomorrow or note it more clearly tomorrow) before I was inevitably pulled into the Tae Kwon Do class. It was full class thing, did warm up. I made the kids do 60 jumping jacks today just for fun, they hated it. The first part of the class each kid was separated by rank to practice their forms for 15 minutes. Master Lee left the room a few times while I had to watch the kids and correct them on their mistakes. Unfortunately I do not know all of the forms. In Tae Kwon Do there is one form per belt, and Master Lee has only shown me the first 5 so far. I appreciate learning these regardless, because I do not even take Tae Kwon Do.

After the practice each kid was tested, by rank on their form as well as a kicking combination (usually 4-5 kicks without a target/shadow style kicking). When this was completed they were split into partners like we do everyday in Hapkido (This doesn’t happen as often in TKD). Each partner got a small hand target and the kids did front snap, round house, axe kick. I don’t think they were used to working this way because I had to tell multiple groups to change the person holding the target after 10 strikes or so.

After the class was over I did a few side kicks by myself on a self standing target in the kid’s room. I then actually just talked to people a bit in the other room for 10 minutes. Mostly about the Gracie UFC fight on Saturday which I am curious about. Not a *huge* UFC fan per say, but I do enjoy a good match. I do like K1 however a lot.

So after the class warm up with did break falls, about 5 of each (front, back, left side, right side). My partner was Dom [Black Belt].

Drills were.

1. A) Basic open hand blocks 1-5. High inside, High outside, Low inside, Low outside, High middle (block the top of your head). About 7x each hand.

B) Basic closed fist block 1-10. Front hand high, Back hand high, Back hand High inside, Back hand high outside, Back hand low inside, Back hand low outside, Both hands low outside, both hands face, both hands, both hands high head. About 7x each hand.

2. This was interesting to me. It was using kicks as blocks against a kick, and a knee strike. A total of 5.

A) Attack does front snap kick with back foot. Defender does a side kick with the front foot.

B) Attacker switches feet and does a roundhouse with back foot. Defender does an inside heel kick with the back foot to block it.

C) Attacker does roundhouse with the opposite foot. Defender uses front foot to do what seemed to be an outside-reverse roundhouse, blocking the roundhouse with the inside of your shin.

D) Attacker does roundhouse with the opposite foot. Defender does a roundhouse with the back foot blocking it with the front of the shin.

E) Attacker does a rushing knee strike with the rear leg. Defender parries the attack with a rear leg knee strike, but coming down from the top in a circular motion. This was my favorite besides B). About 10x for each of us on this, both sides.

3. Attacker is holding two small hand targets. Defender (I don’t know if I should call attacker or not) does a back hand “slap” to the left target with front hand, immediately following up a palm hand strike with the opposite hand. This is followed with a an uppercut with the front hand, and then a hook with the back hand. The “Attacker” then throws two crosses, one with each hand. “Defender” has to duck each. The way you should properly duck a punch is to move in a circular sweeping motion in the direction that the attack is coming from. Also while doing this you bend your arm and cover the side of your face in a “L shape”. I should start finding pictures of some of these to better explain for people that are not in my class. If anyone is reading this that is in my class or takes martial arts of any kind, please feel free to comment. After “defender” properly ducks both, you do a front hand elbow strike, then a rear elbow strike. “Attacker” then moves the bags to the waist/groin height area stacked on top of another and you do a front knee strike. This was done about 10x each side for both of us.

4. Attacker throws a rear hand punch. Defender steps in with rear foot and blocks with the front hand gripping the wrist of the punching hand. Defenders rear hand does a palm hand strike to the chest of the attacker, and then immediately grabs the back of the neck (pressure point) of the attacker and pulls down on the neck while pulling the attackers punching arm up and in a typical Akido/Hapkido push/pull motion. When the attacker is lowered you execute a crushing rear knee strike to their chest/face. About 10x each side.

5. This was a really crazy kicking combination that was hard to get more than 3 times per turn done because of the length of it. We were both able to though. The first one of each of these was done with the rear foot. Front snap kick, jumping front snap kick, jump back front foot front snap, roundhouse, jumping roundhouse, jump back roundhouse front foot, side kick, hop step side kick, jump back front foot side kick, hook kick, hop step hook kick, jump back front foot hook kick(very hard), spinning hook kick, full spinning hook kick, reverse full spinning hook kick. Sheesh. Yeah this one was a lot.

6. I can’t remember this one perfectly but it ended in outside spin takedown with both of defenders hands gripping the attacker’s wrist during the outside spin, then attacker is put into an armbar and gets a back fist to the chest/face after doing a side fall from the outside spin takedown. I will edit this tomorrow after class.

Despite all of this, after class I felt as if I didn’t get enough done for some reason. This happens to me once a week usually. It’s probably a psychological issue. I told josh [red belt] about this myspace profile. Yeah

I did my usual warm up routine. Today really nobody came early so I wasn’t able to work on my usual strikes or kicking drills so after my warm up I did shadow kicks. These are actually really good for your technique and control because there is no target or resistance. So you are forced to have better control of your kick, and over time this makes your technique much better. I did this for about 40 minutes by myself, and then spent about 10 minutes on footwork, movement. Then another 10 on breakfalls, and did about 100 crunches. This was a bad idea because my abs are already so sore from all week and I already did 180 leg lifts earlier during my warm up. Oh well though. Master Lee came in at about 5 and informed me that I was going to be teaching the kids TKD class entirely, warm up, their drills, and end of class ceremony thing (first time I had to do this in kids class). Since nobody was there anyways, and I had already gotten a ton of work done by myself, I didn’t mind. Ryan Massoth showed up early for the 6:30pm class but he got there right as I was starting the warm up, so I couldn’t work on anything with him until about 6:10. Same random kid called me “Jesus” again. Two kids that are really annoying kept pulling each others hair, and I warned them 3 times and finally just made them do 50 pushups. Master Lee wouldn’t have even warned them, he would have just made them do the pushups.

So after this was over I decided to show Ryan the fundamentals of a basic side kick. Explained it the best I could, he listens well and realizes its going to take 1000’s of tries before he gets technique. My friend Dan who has insane kicks (red belt) also jumped in and helped me teach Ryan. We showed him what a “proper” kick felt like and explained that we were not “meat-heading” the power ( a lot of people that don’t know what the hell they are doing purposely kick/strike too hard and have no technique whatsoever), and I think Ryan understood that.

Dan is fucking crazy. He’s training for his black belt exam in October right now, and is *really* good at kicks. He is defiantly one of the best kickers in the school. A few weeks ago he signed up for some unregulated UFC type competition, but a smaller one local in Chicago etc. Anyways, he explained to me that he got his ass beat in 15 seconds. Apparently his opponent was some dude that had a record of 15-1. They were close to the same age/height/weight, but his opponent had so much more experience than him. I told him not to even worry about it, and be glad he had the balls to at least try out. Most people wouldn’t dare. He was also lucky he didn’t get beat up too bad. He explained that he just really froze up and the guy came in fast and it was one punch that knocked him out. One single punch. Insane. Anyways I don’t think any less of the kid or his ability; he has balls for trying and was just inexperienced. Especially against some guy that has that kind of record for his first fight. He’s really young too, I think 18.

So in class we did some new stuff, and some minor adjustments on drills we have been doing all week. Dan was my partner tonight as well because we are close to the same height/build.

1. Attacker throws a punch. Defender moves 45 degrees under the punch outside of the attackers reach, while throwing a strong jab then opposite hand cross (while ducking the punch), then rises up and throws a hook to the head. We did probably about 20 of these on each side between the two of us.

2. Attacker throws a punch, and defender steps 45 degrees to the outside blocking/grabbing the punch with your REAR hand. At the same time defender grabs the back of the neck of the attacker, pinching a pressure point. Almost simultaneously, you pull down the attackers arm with your grab, and yank the neck in a circular motion. This swings the attacker 180 degrees, and sets them off balance. Finish with a high spinning hook kick to the face. This was a ton of fun. Probably 20 times per side for both of us.

3. The next was two variations of sweep takedowns defense from punches. A) Attacker throws punch, defender blocks with front hand (and grips the punch) and steps forward at a 45 degree angle. Defenders rear hand shoulder slams the attacker simultaneously doing a rear foot sweep to the attacker’s rear front leg. All of this has to be done at the same time, smooth etc…attacker must execute a smooth side break fall or they are dead. B) Attacker throws a punch. Defender steps outside at a 45 degree angle blocking with the rear hand. A smooth circular transition motion must be made switching the rear hand (blocking) with to the front hand. While this is being done the rear hand is brought back sharply for a forearm strike to the attacker’s throat. So the opposite blocking hand is holding the punch hand down, the blocking hand does a forearm strike to the throat, and the defenders REAR foot does a sweep to the back of the attacker’s front leg. This is all done at the same time and smooth etc…its very difficult for me to describe because I am just starting to log this stuff. That said etc…, this is fascinating to look at and see in action. It’s so brutal and amazing, and this technique if it was performed at an expertly trained level to an attacker and it was pulled off well: it would devastate the attacker. Attacker again needs to do a violent side break fall to avoid being hurt badly.

4. This was my most favorite of the night. It was the same as the 3^rd one but a variation on it. It’s the same setup as 3.A): however the attacker knows you are going for a leg sweep take down and gets out of if. After this happens since you already have his fist in a grip, you go into basic Hapkido/Judo shoulder throw number two. This is where your grip is under the attackers shoulder and gripping their upper arm that’s throwing the punch. Attacker must perform a good front flip/throw breakfall or they are in trouble. This was so much fun, and I love trying to get my flip falls better. Most were okay but of course I had at least 3 were I either nearly broke my knees, or crushed my testicles. I’m probably sterile at this point from the amount of mistakes I have made in training over the years: but that’s how it goes. You make mistakes, you get hurt. That’s part of training, in any martial art. Word.

When I got home I did an additional 2 sets of 15 rep pull-ups. No idea why, but that’s how I roll.

I usually do the same warm up everyday (the core one that I do personally), this is outside of the actual class warm up itself. This is something I do everyday regardless and on my own. It does not reflect the actual class warm up, or if I am teaching the kids class and leading their warm up. So from now on, unless something changes I am just going to say “usual warm up” and link to my 1st blog post explaining it in detail.

Pre class training (which can be anywhere from 1-2.5 hours, depending if i get pulled into a class before mine whether its to teach, assist, or fill in as a partner for someone) usually varies on buy the day. I will admit I spend more time practicing kicks more than anything (before class), but we have been incorporating diff things. Some days throws, some days running/jumping shoulder rolls over objects (usually big bags stacked), wrist techniques…it all depends. I will always try to specify though.

***PRE CLASS TRAINING***

1. Left jab, right cross, left cross, right cross, left uppercut, left hook, right uppercut, right hook. This combination 10 times, then reversed hand order.

2. Backfist, reverse back fist, spinning backfist, half circle down backfist. This combination 10 times both sides.

3. High/medium/low spinning hook kick. This combination 10 times both sides.

4. Front snap, roundhouse, spinning hook kick, tornado kick. This combination 10 times both sides.

5. Prone front foot hook kick, high roundhouse kick (above the head of person holding the target), axe kick, tornado kick. This combination 10 times both sides.

6. Roundhouse kick, spinning hook kick, full tornado kick (a full is basically taking a full step forward before going into the kick). Other students call this combo “the matrix” because it’s done in the first matrix movie. I think this is really stupid/funny.

***KIDS CLASS***

This was surprisingly fun because I got to do a lot more physical activity than usual. In fact I was sweating balls by the time I left the room, and it was only about 15 minutes or so. One kid told me I looked like Jesus. “YO ERIK YOU LOOK LIKE JESUS”

With that out of the way we went back to the other room and did some basic kick combinations but for some reason I cannot remember exactly what they were because we started working on jumping front rolls over the stacks of bags. I haven’t done this in a long time and forgot how high i was able to go so I wasn’t sure of my own ability. After some practice i was able to clear a stack of 8 which is about…..5 feet or so? I’m not sure. It’s challenging, and if you fuck up…..you break something. Period. There is this short red belt guy (josh) that has been there as long as me and he just fly’s over the stack. It’s awesome. Marino and I were doing flip falls without the big mat from a low height like all the hardcore Korean students do. We are not perfect at it yet, but getting there. This is another thing if you do incorrectly you can really hurt yourself badly.

***6:30 CLASS***

Right before the warm up started Master Lee pulls me out of the class and told me I had to teach the beginner room. The hapkido class is spilt by belt/rank. Beginners are in a separate room for their first 6-7 months. Ranks are white, yellow, and orange. Advance class is the main room and ranks are green, blue, purple, brown, red, and finally black.

So I led the class through their warm up, and master lee pulled me aside before each drill and showed me. Then he asked me to explain/demonstrate each one (total of 3) to the class. I was really frigging nervous because I have never had to do this for the adult/hapkido class, mostly only kids and Taekwondo. After explaining each drill i was told to walk around and observe/correct mistakes. Master Lee was in and out of the room most of the class, watching me from a distance and assisting others as well. Overall I enjoyed the experience.

The drills were….

1. Step back front snap kick with front foot, hop step front snap kick, axe kick

2. Defense from chest grabs (single hand). Defender stands neutral during the attack and then does an “L grab” (palm facing chest) to the bottom of the attacks wrist. At the same time, the opposite hand grabs a pressure point on the attacker’s forearm (one of the easier ones to find). Then Defender does an “outside spin” putting them into an arm lock/arm bar (extremely painful). We did this same one yesterday in my room, but there was a sweep takedown after.

3. Attacker throws roundhouse kick. Defender steps back with a block from the rear hand, then hop steps forward with rear hand grab to the elbow/sleeve of the attacker. Again: did a similar drill in my class but no takedown in the beginner room.

I also found out from Rashad (brown belt) as to why big baby kid (I should stop calling him that and be nice) left the room yesterday. Apparently he had a weird look on his face and asked to be excused. He said he didn’t feel well etc…which is understandable. Whatever. Anyways: apparently after class Rashad asked him why he thinks he might feel nauseous and not well and big baby replied “I ate fried chicken before I got here”. So the mystery is solved, and a lesson to all of you. Don’t fucking eat fried chicken before you do martial arts.