Amanda Takes Off...

Tonight's class was much better than last night's class. We did a lot of target practice. Monday, Master stuck with me until I finally started turning my supporting foot while doing front kicks and roundhouse kicks. (This is either different than what I was taught before or this is the first time that I've been forced to do it correctly.)

All of a sudden it clicked: you get a heck of a lot more power out of the kick when you twist the ball of your foot.

So I was enjoying target practice tonight.

We freesparred three times. I freesparred Tired and two guys from Brother's studio. I felt awful during the third sparring session because it was supposed to be no contact. Once we ran into each other and I slammed into his thigh. Another time I was doing a hatch kick and he moved forward at the same time to kick me and I hit him on the shoulder—hard. I apologized in Korean, pointed to myself and said, "Stop." He nodded and agreed.

Neither of us were wearing our glasses, which I'm sure didn't help, and the room was packed with at least 20 people sparring, but I still felt terrible.

At the end of class, most people left. Those of us who stayed did push-ups, sit-ups and other random exercises. We did 100 push-ups (40, then 2 sets of 30 with some other work in between). That, combined with the more than 300 punches we did yesterday, is just about killing my shoulders.

When he dismissed us, Brother Master approached me and complimented me on sticking around after class and doing all of the work, even though I was one of the last ones to finish my sets.

I, in turn, asked him for some help with my poomse. I am really glad that I did, because I learned how to do a more powerful sweeping face block and I finally figured out how to move both hands for a palm body block. Both Masters were telling me, "천천히, 빨리. 같이." In other words, "Slowly, quickly. Together." I know the meaning of each word and I kept watching what they were doing, but I just wasn't understanding how to put it together.

At one point he put me in the basic horse riding stance and just had me practice the palm body block. I finally understood what was going on. I did ten palm blocks for each side, finally getting my hand in the right place and my uniform to snap. Tired, Studious, and Powerful, the only boys left in the studio, clapped for me.

I thanked Brother Master several times and was informed that he wouldn't be there tomorrow; Master will be back.

I'm glad I stayed and asked for some extra help from him. I went into class today thinking, "I can learn something from him, and today I will." And I did.

Also, he taught me 힘 (power). A useful word.