Bec's Happybox

Things that are Pink

The cherry blossoms are pretty much done for the year.  I always find this slightly depressing, even though the apple blossoms are a nice consolation prize.  The elation of those weeks when everything is blooming...boy it can't be beat.  Behold, the roundest bunch of blossoms in the universe.  These are not from my tree, they're from a tree in Cherry Blossom Central, AKA James Bay.

These next two are from my tree, and were taken while I was having a little nighttime sitting-high-up-in-the-cherry-tree-time, an activity I highly recommend. 

This one is of my neighbours' tree, taken during a nighttime lying-on-my-back-on-my-neighbours'-wet-lawn session, another thing I find quite enjoyable. 

And now for some of the pink consolation prizes that will still be around, even after the cherries have stopped blooming.  Consolation prize number one: pink tulips.

Swooon, right?  Or how about these pink rhodos?

I was reading a garden book the other day and I came across the phrase "unsightly hodgepodge".  I realized today that my garden may qualify as an unsightly hodgepodge!  It is not simple, well-designed, or elegant.  It has all sorts of colours with no thought given to the overall plan.  But who cares when you have pink bleeding hearts?

This plant is really my baby this year, because when I planted it last year, it died immediately, and I was very sad and never expected to see it again.  But there it was a couple of months ago, poking out of the ground with insistence.  Now I won't have to twist Tobias' arm into letting me buy and plant a couple more this year.  He is not a happy camper when I buy (relatively) expensive plants and then kill them. 

Even pink things that are dying are nice, as evidenced by this little carpet of pink created by my camellia bush.

The aforementioned apple blossoms are pinkish, moreso before they've opened. 

Now I can't claim to have grown my new sparring boots, but I plan to do a lot of good work with them.  What do you think?  Intimidating?  Would you want to be kicked in the head with these boots?

Now there was one last thing that I wanted to include in this roundup of all things pink, but I just looked out the window and it's not there right now.  So watch this space for a pink thing that I promise will delight you.  Well, I guess if you hate pink, it may not.  Hint: it is not a pink bird.  Wouldn't that be something?

There's more to Tae Kwon-Do than Sparring, you know

Sahsez learned her first spinning kick tonight.  My baby!

In four months, Sahsez and I will have our three-year anniversary of beginning Tae Kwon-Do.  When we started, she had just turned five.  She has always been the youngest and smallest member of our club.  But not the quietest!  It's been said that, pound for pound, Sahsez has the loudest kiyup (yell) in the club.  She can definitely make herself heard. 

Next month I am hoping that she will test for her yellow belt with Grandmaster K.S. Hwang who will be visiting us.  That would be very cool.  She's a bit shy though, and might decide to wait. 

Certain aspects of training are still really difficult for her; mostly stuff that emphasizes her size (as the smallest person in the club) or competitive stuff.  She's probably the only kid in the club that would rather do line drills than play dodgeball.  She doesn't like losing.  But man, she's come a long, long way with her courage and shyness and attention span and technique and form.  I'm so proud of her. 

Choke

Here's the thing:  losing to a worthy opponent is not so bad.  I have lost three matches to the same fighter from another club on the island, and after the first time, it ceased to bother me at all.  Because, hello!  she's awesome!  She moves like nobody's business and I swear she's got a third leg hidden somewhere.  I can learn a lot from her and hope to one day be able to say "Hey, at least now I'm giving her a run for her money!"

But losing to someone who is just an okay fighter?  Sucks.  Because if you know that she's not more experienced, she doesn't train more rigorously, she's not in better shape, she's not much bigger, or some other reason why she is just a better fighter, you know that what it comes down to is that she played the mental game better than you did.  And that's hard to take. 

Saturday was not a good day for me.  (Warning: Another long and rambly and woe-filled post about sparring!  But more photos making the click-through worth it!)

Eleventh Hour Thoughts on Sparring

First, a retraction.  I said I was throwing in the towel.  Well, I picked it up again.  Inspired by my instructors and teammates and helped by a large number of training sessions that I didn't expect, I am once again in fighting form.  I am ready to "bring it" tomorrow, as the young people say. 

Now, a few things I've been thinking about sparring lately.  (Warning: this is long and tangential.  I've got a tournament tomorrow and need to process a few things.  But there are two more photos, so click through for those, if nothing else.)

Throwing in the Towel (Figuratively and possibly Literally)

A fact that must be faced:  I have not been sparring much since September.  This was not how I envisioned the fall and winter going.  After the tournament, I knew I was going to be off for four weeks while we were travelling, and then I suspected that I wouldn't be going whole-hog during NaNoWriMo, but thought that in December I would start training pretty seriously for the next tournament, which is now just 24 days away.  And it just hasn't happened.

You see, my training it totally dependent on the availability of my babysitters.  My club offers four sparring nights a month and if I miss one, woe is me, and if I miss two, well, I doubt that I am going to be "bringing it", as they say, at the next tournament.  Especially if my opponents have been training hard for the five months since the last one. 

This was really bothering me until I decided that since there was nothing at all that I could do about it, I might as well stop worrying.  And by stop worrying I mean that I have accepted the fact that I probably won't perform well at the tournament.  I probably won't place.  Curses!  Curses!  I hate that.  I hate that I know that I'm not going to be at my best.  But there you have it.  And I'll still fight.  Of course I'll still fight.  Fighting is life!  I may be a lousy sparrer, but I'm not crazy. 

Sick, tournament result

Like many mom-dad-kids families I know, ours doesn't have much of a safety net in place in the event that mom gets sick.  And that's where we're at right now.  It started yesterday.  It's nothing too serious, just a head cold, but I feel the urge to knock myself in the head with a sledgehammer just to get some rest. 

M'hijo did take a 2-hr nap yesterday, while Sahsez played at a friend's house, so that was a blessing.  He's down right now and as soon as I finish this post, my morning pages, a neo-citran, and a bowl of chicken soup, I'm going to try to sleep again myself.  He'll probably cry for me just as I finally drift off!

This is a particularly bad time for me to be ill because I am supposed to be getting things ready for our trip.  We leave on Saturday morning, theoretically.  Possibly Sunday.

Oh, the tournament.  It started badly, with us arriving late due to very slow service at the cafe we'd gone to for breakfast.  My fault for not really taking the 10:30 start time seriously and showing up at eleven, betting on none of my divisions being called that early.  Well, guess what?  I missed my patterns division by ten minutes.  So I was upset, but actually, the other people in my division were all in my club (three others) and they all got a medal, so  it worked out well.  I do regret that I wasn't able to perform my pattern in the tournament environment, because that is a bit scary to me and I wanted to get over my fear.  I'll have to wait a few months now until I get another chance to do that.

Then, we had four or five glorious hours or waiting!  "Hurry up and wait!" is how one of the competitors put it.  It was a bit tricky having both of my kids there, and being all antsy about competing, and also not wanting to get worn out amusing them and carrying M'hijo around and stuff.  I ended up relying on Tobias even more than I thought I would.  He was a good sport though, chatting with all the people from the club, even though he doesn't know most of them very well, and taking M'hijo for little walks and keeping Sahsez from going ballistic.  Still, I won't put them through that again.  It's just too long and boring a day for them.  This may mean no off-Island tournaments for me until M'hijo weans, but oh well. 

Finally, I got to fight.  Only first, I had to receive a medal.  See, it turned out that at my rank (beginner) there was no one else signed up for sparring.  So I won a gold medal by default.  Not exactly what I had hoped, but what can you do?  I'll just assume that if there were any other competitors at my level, I would have beat them. 

Luckily, there were three other competitors one level up, so I got to fight.  I lost a fight and won a fight and this gave me a bronze.  Then, because I was a "gold-medallist" I qualified for the women's sparring grand championship round, where I lost again.  But hey, I got three fights!  That's pretty good.  It seems that most people's main goal with the tournaments is not necessarily to win a medal, but to get as many fights as they can.  Of course, you are more likely to get more fights if you win a fight, but in my case, I lucked out with getting three. 

I expected to be nervous of fighting in front of so many people.  I wasn't.  I really hardly even noticed the people around me, just my opponent.  I think my coach probably had to call me over three times before I noticed that he had called a timeout to talk to me, because I was just so engaged in the fight. 

I expected the fights to be of moderate or low difficulty.  They weren't!  They were so much harder !  What really surprised me was how poorly my cardiovascular held up.  I think I'm in pretty good shape right now but man, halfway through each match, I was breathing very heavily and wondered if I'd be able to continue.  But there's something about the ref saying "FIGHT!" that has the effect of turning off my tiredness.  One second, I'd be thinking "Naptime" the next, I'd be on fire again, trying to score like my life depended on it.    

I expected the fights to be about as fun as sparring class at the club.  THEY WERE SO MUCH FUNNER.  Even when I was losing badly, it was just so neat.  I get almost as much pleasure out of someone else getting an awesome point on me as I do getting an awesome point on them, so the only really bad thing about my sucking was that the matches were over more quickly. 

That said, all I can think about is the opponent that beat me (I fought her twice, she won twice) and how I'm going to beat her next time.  Unfortunately, I won't be training for the entire month of October, and then there's NaNoWriMo in November, and then Christmas, etc. etc., but my club is hosting a tournament in February, and man she'd better be there.  I may not beat her in February (after all she'll be training too, it's not like I can expect her to take a break and let me catch up) but I do intend to get a few more points on her. 

I've been puzzled about something I've seen in  sparring: it's the hug at the end.  A hug with a stranger that you've just been pummeling for two minutes.  What is the deal with the hug?  I wouldn't hug a stranger who hadn't just been trying to kill me, so why would I hug one that had?  The kids sometimes do it, the men usually do it, and the women ALWAYS do it.  But why, I've wondered.   Surely a bow and a handshake or a high-five suffice to show "No hard feelings, good fight".  The hug seems like taking it a bit far.

I now have the answer to this mystery!  The answer (for me, anyway) is that during the fight (presuming no one's fighting dirty), paradoxically, you actually build up good feelings for your  opponent, so that by the end of it, you like them so much you can't help hugging them.  It's such a strange thing.  It feels like when you hug a boy after you dance with him, even if you don't really know him.  It's like "We've done this thing together, and it was good, and I want to thank you for that and show you that I appreciate you and like you". 

Or the hug could also mean, "Oh thank you so much for not breaking my nose!" Which no one did.  Thank God. 

Take a good look at this nose, it may be the last time

Tobias asked me last night, "So are you going to get your nose broken at this thing?"

I said, "Maybe.  Hope not."

I REALLY hope not.  My nose is not perfect, but I love it.  It's been with me since I was a baby.  It is very, very unlikely that anything will happen to it tomorrow at the tournament, but it's always a possibility.  Let me tell you though, if someone does break my nose?  Protocol, etiquette, and honour may just fly out the window quite quickly and I may have to lay the smack down.  But seriously, this is next to impossible, so no worries!  No worries!

Yes, I am nervous. 

Pre-tournament confession

Friends, this weekend, a very exciting thing will happen:  I will participate in my first Tae Kwon-Do tournament.  I am nervous and thrilled in a ratio of about 3:5.  Mostly I am really, really excited to get in the ring with some people outside of my own club.  I am competing in both point sparring and forms.  Forms, I don't really care about, but I'm doing it to be a good sport and to try to challenge myself to improve my pattern (a beginner's pattern called Dan Gun for those who care) but sparring...ah, sparring is my true love.  We'll see if I can still claim that after Saturday. 

I want to say that this is my first tournament and as such, I will be satisfied if I do my best and get oh, a couple of points on each opponent I spar, and all I'm really doing is competing against myself and trying to show good sportswomanship and blah blah blah blah blah, and all of this is true, BUT I'm doing the Artist's Way and Julia would say that you should SAY WHAT YOU REALLY WANT and TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN DESIRES.  So, I admit it:  I want a fucking gold medal!  Sorry, but I do.  I just do.  If I don't get it, I will not cry, but I want it.  Yup. 

I suck at sparring

Used to be, after sparring class, I would be so full of adrenaline and good feelings that I would always have a really great evening at home, get a good night's sleep, and still be pleased with myself the next day.  Not so much lately.  I have been getting my ass kicked, and last night was no exception.  I have several very small injuries today and I don't think I scored more than a handful of points last night, despite having about eight matches.  Boo.

In my Tae Kwon-Do club, there is a sort of elite sparring club-within-the-club.  It consists of  the people who consistently show up to sparring classes, and prioritize attending these classes over the other ones where we focus on forms and techniques.  They're pretty good fighters, and many of them have won medals for sparring.   If the club-within-the-club was Frankie's Gym from Million Dollar Baby, I would not be Maggie Fitzgerald (Hillary Swank's character).  I would be Danger Barch, the kid with a mental disability and delusions of grandeur. 

Lucky for me, Tae Kwon-Do has a really different philosophy from boxing, so it's unlikely that the other club members will do unto me as the boxers at Frankie's Gym did unto Danger (if you haven't seen the film, they beat the crap out of him).  In fact, the other sparrers are quite encouraging and helpful, sometimes annoyingly so.  You can only hear "Now, the mistake you made there was..." so many times before you start resenting the good advice.

I should say, the other adult sparrers are quite encouraging and helpful.  The kids just want to beat you down.  They're ruthless, and don't care (much) if they hurt you.  This is why I get nervous when it's five minutes till classtime and no other adults have shown up yet.  I don't want to get in the ring with an under-16!  They tear you apart! 

Certain members of my family seem to enjoy my defeat, if the smiles that greet me when I come home downtrodden are any indication.  "Get yer ass kicked?", certain members ask with barely concealed glee.  Apparently,  certain members believe that I could use a little more humility.  "I think Tae Kwon-Do is very good for you!", Tobias certain members have been heard to say.  And he wasn't talking about the physical benefits. 

Anyway, I've decided to adopt a new motto for life: "fail harder".  So far, I'm doing well at this. 

Fear me!

I'm not as vain as I once was (hard to be when your "beauty regimen" consists of sometimes washing your face with soap and usually brushing your teeth) but I've been resisting wearing a mouthguard during sparring for about eighteen months now, simply because I didn't want to look like an idiot. 

Well, recently, my club has cracked down on non-mouthguard-wearers, banning them from receiving and executing shots to the head.  And dude, without head shots, my whole sparring scenario sucks!  My signature move is the back fist to the side of the head.  Fakey front kick, then back fist.  That's all I can do, really.  So I was forced to get a mouthguard. 

And yes, I now look like an idiot.  But on the upside, last night's sparring class was tonnes of fun.