Ramblings About My Life..: August 2006

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Pictures...Finally!

As promised, here are the pictures! Enjoy!

Totally unrelated to my previous post, but since they are pictures of my TKD activities during this summer, I'll just post them up anyway! I was asked by my instructor, Mr Peter Cheong, to go and "assist" in a martial arts demonstration in the Nurses' College near the General Hospital. Here's everyone who took part in the demonstration at the Dataran, warming up before going on stage! Somehow just stepping on the Dataran itself brings back fond memories of SJAM training with Patrick, Irwin, Jeremy and Leong - I wish I could remain in those days forever! Hahaha!

Team photo after the demonstration just outside the nurses' dormitory. The demonstration went alright - no major mistakes were made, the pattern and self-defense routines that I took part in proceeded without any glitches and most importantly...no one was injured! But I suppose even if someone was injured, it wouldn't be much of a problem anyway. We were watched by, what, a hundred soon-to-be nurses and at least 5 qualified nurses!

Now on to the photos taken during the belt-promotion exam! Here's a photo of everybody who took part in the grading just before the events commenced. Presumably, before everyone became mightily sweaty, bruised or bloody (or in some cases, an unfortunate combination of all three).

Two senior belts doing the "peace" sign seems to be rather out of place in an event as serious as a belt-promotion exam - but I guess we were mighty relieved to survive the grading and come out of it with most of our body parts still attached! From left - Wai Hong and myself.

Myself with three of my fellow candidates plus two guys who made the 2-hour drive down to JB from Batu Pahat to help with the grading! Many thanks for their help!

If someone could win an award for "Having The Most Beautifully Executed Side Kick", it would be Wai Hong! His side kick is, to simply put it, excellent. It's fast, powerful and looks exactly like the ones shown in textbooks or training videos! I wish I could do that...

Me and Master Tan - the guy who smacked me and Wai Hong in our heads when we were too lenient in removing the weapons from our attackers...hahaha! That's a lesson I won't forget anytime soon!

Sunday, August 20, 2006

My 2nd Dan Grading!

I just went for my 2nd Dan belt promotion exam (or described aptly as my instructor as a "grading" session) today. By virtue of over-napping the day before the exam, I had trouble sleeping the night before the exam and woke up extra-early at 0630 - my acute bout of insomnia was not due to nerves of any kind, for I had taken part in countless gradings and to me, this was just another one. I managed to stumble downstairs after my bath to take my breakfast, which was a slice of toast smothered in kaya for that extra sugar boost I needed today plus a cup of Milo, nectar of champions (if you have no idea what I'm talking about then obviously you can't have seen much of the idiot box). After packing my bag, I left home and drove extra-slowly to the dojang - just because I was really really early and I had always harboured a curious wish to find out how slow exactly I could drive. It is with great pleasure that I announce that I drove at 40kmph for the entire 15-minute drive to the dojang (the roads were completely devoid of vehicles so I had fun seeing how long I could keep the CRV in Gear 2)!

Upon reaching the dojang at 0800, I discovered that the gate was still locked. A quick phone call to my instructor rectified that little problem and I was soon doing some brief warm-ups in the training hall. After doing a couple of exercises to loosen muscles still half-asleep, I watched a bit of early Sunday morning TV (the kind where they show television programmes nobody really watches) and waited. And waited. And waited some more. The wait was long enough that I could feel myself cooling down, only reenter full mobility after doing some more warm-ups, then cooling down again after waiting for what seemed an eternity. It was an exercise in futility, but one that was gratifying in a way. When you can still touch your knees with your head in a 180-degree fold-over position after all this while (and aging at a rather significant rate at that), nothing feels better than to give the finger to Ageing. While using your head to touch your knees. Anyway, my halycon start to the day was soon brought to an abrupt end when I was drafted into the Labourers' Corps by my instructor to haul tiles from the ground floor up to the top floor, where the training hall was located.

After my brief stint in the Labourers' Corps, I was soon covered in a layer of sweat. This was irritating in more ways than one. Firstly, I had expended most of my kaya toast in undertaking the ardous task and I would have to survive the entire grading with nothing more than my cup of Milo. Secondly, sweating equals sweaty clothes. Evaporation equals sweaty clothes becoming dry after a while. Sweaty clothes drying equals clothes that have the distinctive smell of dried sweat. And diffusion equals the entire dojang smells it. So, I was tired and smelly before the grading had even began. However, it wasn't all bad news - I managed to make a couple of acquaintances. And since you never know who you're going to spar against in a grading, it's always a jolly good idea to have more acquaintances so that they know you aren't an arrogant bastard that they so would love to beat the living crap out of. Others call it sucking up. I call it diplomatic solutions. But seriously, it never hurt to have more friends - and I certainly don't make friends just to save myself from getting seriously bruised in sparring. Life's a lot less dull without friends, no matter what the introverts extoll of solitarity (looks cool, gives this mysterious air that freaks people out, a lot of meaningful conversations with their inner selves, etc).

Anyway, after many delays, the grading session began proper at 1000. By this time, close to 20 candidates had arrived and I was fairly surprised at the number of people taking the exam. Granted, more than two thirds were 1st Kups taking their black belt promotion exam with only 6 going for the 2nd Dan promotion exam including me, but compared with my black belt promotion exam years ago with only 5 candidates, this was pretty happening! The chief examiner for the grading was Master Tan, an 8th degree black belt - that's what I call seniority! - while the other instructors were there to be examiners or assistants. I had my patterns as my first event after the theory paper and they went pretty well, although I felt I did them a bit too fast. Well, that's what happens when I do something from memory - I do it real fast. For some reason I have always had this fear of going too slowly for fear of confusing myself. Mostly because when my mind isn't occupied with trying to recall something, it thinks, and when it thinks, my body lags behind. This is the very reason for all the "too fast" or "hurried" comments on my piano exam papers. Anyway, I managed to fire off 5 patterns in a row without a single mistake or a moments' hesitation, which is pretty good considering just 2 months ago I had nearly forgotten them all.

The event after the patterns was the combined step-sparring and self-defense exams. I am not abashed to say that my step-sparring has always been my forte, with my patterns running a real close second - but my self-defense, having been neglected for quite a while, consisted mostly of Ewok-like dancing moves in an ingenious idea to throw the balance off any attacker (who on Earth punches a cute, dancing Ewok?). So the step-sparring went alright, but the self-defense was a load of rubbish. I improvised nearly everything, especially when I had to escape from being choked while lying down and when I had both hands restrained plus someone choking me from behind (although I did a fancy jackhammer kick which brought gasps of appreciation from the watching crowd - even if I didn't manage to break free in the end). However, at the end of the section, me and my partner were punished by the chief examiner for being too lenient on our "attackers" and not taking their weapons away - I got a nice smack in the side of the head whereas he got a knee in this head when he demonstrated to the rest of the participants the correct way to make your attacker surrender his weapon. Needless to say, the other participants were extra sure to remove the weapons from their attackers when it was their turn.

After all the excitement of the step-sparring and self-defense stuff, we were given an hour's lunch break. However, those who had free-sparring as their next event didn't dare eat much for fear of being bogged down by all that nasi goreng and meehun goreng or vomiting their lunch after getting a blow in the midsection. As I was one of those unlucky few left, I just ate a handful of rice and noodles, washed down by half a cup of juice. After the hour-long break, we continued with my least favourite event, jayu matsogi or free-sparring. I've never really liked sparring, or have I really excelled in it since during training rounds I usually never have the most vital component in sparring - the urge to smack the opponent so hard he would have to find his kidney in the gutter. I have always preferred just defending and trying the occasional half-hearted kick; a style of fighting that has seen me get bruised countless times. However, today wasn't a day to hold back or control my aggressiveness - today was the day I'd actually get marks for it! So I was a little more aggressive today - and sparring was actually a rather tame affair, even in the 3-on-1 event! I'd say I gave as good as I got, and maybe even more.

The final event was power breaking. My first task was to do a knife-hand strike through 6 tiles, but after seeing Master Tan examine the tiles with a smile that said "You sure they can break this or not?", my confidence went from oraaaa! to oh...shite instantenously. As it turned out, the tiles were too freaking thick. The most anyone could manage today without seriously rearranging the anatomy of his hand and forearm was breaking 3 tiles out of the 6. And even then, they came off with cuts, scratches, bruises and swellings. I consider myself pretty lucky to break 3 without any serious mishap apart from a bit of skin coming off my arm near the elbow. The rest were normal - flying kicks, jumping kicks and stationary kicks. My turning kick brought compliments from nearly everyone - on my first try, I cracked 2 of the outermost planks but the innermost plank literally exploded. I mean, it broke into two and flew apart with a huge bang. I managed to break the remaining two with the least effort on the second try. People were commenting that it looked like kungfu. Anyway, I passed 4 out of 6 tasks in this event, enough to constitute an overall "pass" for this event, so it wasn't really that bad after all.

The grading session finally came to an end at around 1630. All the candidates were made to sit on the floor in our pre-organized rows and go up to the examiner's table when our names were called, whereupon Master Tan would let us know of the shortcomings he noticed in us during the entire exam and most importantly, if we failed or passed. When it was my turn, he told me that he noticed that my techniques during the patterns and the breakings were a little "stiff", which surprised me. After all, I always thought I did better in those events. However, after I asked myself if my techniques were good in those events, I discovered that the answer was a "no". I mean, I know all the movements and stances that I'm supposed to know. But knowing the techniques and executing them from memory just because I remember them is completely different from understanding the techniques and executing them. He gave me a piece of advice, which was not to make my body do Taekwondo techniques, but to let Taekwondo techniques flow into my body. And with that, he said "Congratulations". Even though this "Congratulations" hopefully means I've passed the grading, I have this feeling that no matter what rank I reach in Taekwondo, I'll still feel the same as the day I tied the white belt on each and every day.

P.S. - Pictures will be up soon, delays due to certain "logistics" restrictions.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Pictures From My Japan Trip

There hasn't been much to blog about these days - interesting things that I feel like blogging about will probably get me arrested (what with Pak Lah cracking down on bloggers/SMSers disseminating "untruthful" information) and everything else that is bloggable in my life right now will probably put readers to sleep faster than halothane (or anaesthetic of your choice) - so I'll just post some pictures of my trip to Japan. Enjoy!