Sparring

We did some sparring in Black Belt class a couple of weeks ago and after Sifu Ryback asked us if our egos were involved. I thought to myself that mine is definitely not. I can assure you that for many years before it most certainly was. I didn’t want to get hit and I was always trying to get the upper hand and be dominate. Now I have changed my focus.

My main focuses in sparring are:

1) I try and recognize what my opponent is going to do before they do it.

2)I work on sparring form a right lead instead of the dominant lead.

3)I try and incorporate new combinations and see which ones work or don’t work and why.

I recognize that there are people that are way better at sparring than I am and I am okay with this. I am working on things that will hopefully make other people better at sparring or even better than they are now.

After all this, is there some ego in here. I would say yes as but it is a lot different that it was before

Travel Time

I am getting closer to my busy season for work which means I will be away from the Kwoon quite a lot coming up. I have been travelling for work since 2018 so it is something I am used too but it is still not an easy thing to do. No matter how well I plan, I am not able to get in the training I want and sometimes there is literally no place to train. The one thing I have been able to do thanks to Zoom is to stay connected with the Kwoon. This helps me stay motivated and allows me to keep focus on my goals.

In past years, it was a lot more difficult because Zoom was not a thing so when you were away, you were away. You had no idea what was happening in classes or what changes were being made. It was hard to come back and keep up with everything. I have stated in the past and I will repeat it again, Zoom has really helped me. So, although it is not ideal and the training does suffer while I am away, it is better than it used to be.

Hitting A Wall

I hit a bit of a wall this week where I just felt done. I was sore, exhausted and had no energy. I think I had been pushing too hard and not taking enough time to properly recover. It was only for a day but I do need to be aware of this going forward.

I need to start pushing harder on my forms however as I feel like I am not progressing as much on these as I need to. I am going to start putting some extra time in on these over the next little while to get back up to where I feel I need to be.

Open Training & Progress

Saturday was a good day at open training as it was pretty quiet so I was able to focus on a few things myself. I was also a bit dissapointed as there were not many adults or black belts there so I didn't get to work on some of the things I wanted to. In the end, it was still a good day though.

I am making some good progress in the Broadsword form and I will then start focusing on the Butterfly Swords. I will still be working on the Snake form as well but am prioritizing the school forms first as I feel they are more important to my growth.

1 Month In

We are a month in to the year and I am pretty happy with most things so far. My fitness training has been going well and I am on week 8 and have not missed a workout yet. My core requirements are also on track (thanks in part to my fitness training).

There are areas that I need to work on especially when it comes to my forms. I have the sequence (mostly) for the broadsword form and just need to start repeating it. The butterfly swords, I have the beginning and that is all. And the snake form I have even less of. I will be reaching out and asking for assisatnce from people on the team and other instructors to help with these.

My personal requirements are also going well and I feel like these are where I am excelling as they were chosen specifically to improve myself as a martial artist