I’m hoping I’ve gotten my injuries out of the way for the next few months. The head seems to be better and the rest of me is pretty good too.
We have a tournament in April to start getting ready for. I’m still debating about sparring. For sure I’m going to break and compete in weapons for my first time ever. Sparring we shall see. We have some new people who are going to need guidance for one. Then there’s the fact that even with just the “school black belt” they’ll probably make me compete against other black belts that are half my age.
These tourneys are a crap shoot. Sometimes I’ve had fair competition against people my same age, rank, and weight. More often than not they are younger and usually outweigh me. When that happens one of the masters always give me the option to bow out. I never do. A few times I held my own but on at least one occasion I got murdered. So, I’m leaning towards no because the Cho Dan confirmation test is the following month and I’d like to be in one piece.
Despite having my bell rung hard, I was able to muddle through teaching sabum the next level of the snakes and palms drill:
Here’s the snake and palm drill from an intermediate pattern:
- Attacker throws center line chest punches or grabs
- Defender palm blocks attacker’s right with a right
- Defender palm blocks attacker’s left with a left
- Defender palm blocks attacker’s right with a left (cross body)
- Defender palms attacker’s left with a right (cross body)
- Defender snake blocks attacker’s right with a left (abbreviated knife block)
- Defender snake blocks attacker’s left with a right (same deal)
- Defender snake blocks attacker’s right with a right (a circular loop under their wrist with a knife edges; hence the “snake block”)
- Defender snake blocks attacker’s left with a left
- You just keep cycling through this pattern until you get a rhythm going
Chi Sao and Lap Sao are a nice distractions, however the boxing and snakes and palms drill go best with taekwondo. We actually had the snake and palms drill flowing for a while. So, I think in a few weeks we can try mixing the attacks from high to low. Also, at the advanced level the pattern gives you practice in trapping and grabbing range. This way you can also trap or grab and practice counters too.
All the blocks are short, non-chambered, and natural. It’s fun watching sabum try to break her habit of wanting to blast with something chambered. However, she’s learning this one up really fast.
~BCP
