Last night marked the end of a long few months of wrangling, back and forth and phyiscal labout, as we took to the mats for the first time in the new ISK Martial Arts academy. There were still a few things to get done in the last few minutes before the start of the class (if I never have to cut a jigsaw mat again it’ll be too soon), but we got there, and the place looks amazing.

It was a big class to start, which was good in a way, as it gave us a chance to see how things would work with a full hall. On the flip side though, it was HOT. I mean seriously hot. Combined with the lingering fumes of the white spirit we’d been using to take the last of the tape glue off the mats, and it made it a very uncomfortable warm-up.

The rest of the lesson followed suit – hard work, regardless of it being line work, forms, self-defence, sparring, we gave the place a worthy christening. If you check the latest news post you’ll see some red faces and some very sweaty doboks, and I’m really suffering for it today. I feel absolutely drained, which I’d love to put down to the hard gym session on Tuesday, but I think it’s that first lesson that did the damage. As a result I’ll be skipping my Thursday session at the gym tonight, as there’s nothing left in me to give.

To the uninitiated this might read like a bit of a whinge really, but anyone who was there last night, and there at any point during the renovations, will know just how awesome it was, and how much of a high we all left on (nothing to do with the white spirit fumes either!). Training should be hard, it should leave you exhausted, sweating and ready for bed; in my opinion anyway, and that’s exactly what we got last night.

It’s great to be in our new home, I look forward to many years of self-imposed pain and tiredness

It was really strange knowing that last night was the last I’d spend in our current dojang, my home-from-home for the last three years. At first It didn’t really bother me; training’s training, you get on with it and work hard, but as the clock ticked around to 9 o’clock and we were asked to line up and then choose our favourite hyung to perform one last time, it really hit home. It surprised me that I chose Naihanchi Cho Dan, but I’m glad it was the one that sprang to mind.

Sitting down for muk nyum at the end was unusal too. Normally I’m pretty good at blanking everything from my mind and not thinking for a minute or two (I’ve just got that kind of mind I suppose…), but for that couple of minutes I had a kind of compressed flashback. Getting in there that first time, gutting and painting it, injuring myself, parties, gradings, my own Dan grading, laughs, frustration, pride – after a relatively hard lesson and a long day at work it was a bit like being hit by an emotional steamroller.

I’m a sentimental person at the best of times, so I’m not too surprised that I felt sad to drive away afterwards, but I know it’s just a building, and I know the next place is going to be fantastic too. As I was cooking my food when I got home, for some reason I started wondering just how hard we’ve worked in there over the years, and me being me, decided to try and figure it out. So here is my faux-scientist, quasi-mathematical look at our work in the last three years.

• By my reckoning, an average lesson would probably have burned an effective 300-400 Calories. Some estimates put the amount into the 600+ range, but I’d rather go conservative here. The fitter and thinner people would burn fewer Calories than us heavier guys Sip Soo specialists.

• We’ve always had the equivalent of four lessons a week in there, if you count things like Viper Squad, kids lessons, post-TSD Kickboxing etc. Again, this is very conservative.

• I’d say that an average of eight people being at every lesson is fair, sometimes it was higher, sometimes lower, but this is a good low estimate.

SO….

8 (people) * 350 (average Calories per leson) = 2,800 Calories burned per lesson.

2,800 * 4 (average lessons per week) = 11,200 Calories burned per week.

11,200 * 52 (weeks a year) = 582,400 Calories burned per year.

582,400 * 3 (years) = 1,747,200 Calories burned in total.

As I said, these are very conservative numbers, but even with that we’ve expended over 1.7 MILLION Calories in that building! It takes ~86 Calories to light a 100W bulb for an hour, so between us we could have kept that light bulb burning bright for just over 846 days continuously!

We wave goodbye to the old place with one hand while we use the other to open the door to our new home. Tang Soo, dojang, Tang Soo!

Another weekend down, and another tournament under our belts. Our club once again sent a sizable squad to Bedford and Northampton for the EMTF British Championships, hosted under the watchful eyes of Master Kumar Sr and Grandmaster Salm. It’s always nice to see Grandmaster at these events, and even moreso when I didn’t even realise he’d be there this year. After an arduous trip up, thanks to traffic, accidents and a wayward satnav, we checked-in to our home from home at the Premier Inn in Bedford and managed to get a meal before the next day’s early start.

To be fair we probably should have been up earlier, we’d underestimated how long it takes to get across to Northampton, but we were still there in plenty of time to get changed, feel some butterflies and line up with scores of our Tang Soo Do family. Once I’d been told what was expected from me for the day (Dan grade and above don’t get much of a chance to sit around doing nothing) the competition began quickly and it wasn’t long before our girls were the first to take the mat. They did a great job as the forms categories starting rattling through, and at times it was difficult to know where to look, you couldn’t turn round without seeing one of our guys on the mats!

As the day wore on it was fantastic to see our gup grades walking away with trophy after trophy, the high standards we strive to keep and the effort put in by everyone really shone through. It wasn’t too long before the Dan grades – me included – got called to the mats to stand in front of three or four masters at a time and try to show them why we deserve to win anything. I couldn’t believe how big our first category was, the names over the tannoy just kept coming. In the end I think we had fourteen people in our traditional forms section, and eleven for chil sung, I’ve never been in a group that size before. Despite not coming away with anything myself our guys did great and placed in both categories, and for once I really enjoyed performing, rather than just feeling incredibly nervous the entire time. It doesn’t mean my performance was any better, but at least this time I can still remember some of it!

I didn’t spar again this year, which meant I spent the afternoon on a ring helping to score and judge those who were fighting, but I quite enjoy it to be honest and it makes the day go a lot quicker. Again, our guys did a good job of taking trophies at all levels from 8th gup upward, and the standard of sparring was very high across all schools. Watching the Masters compete in forms and sparring is always one of the highlights of the day, and this year was no exception. The standard of sparring and forms was very high, right across the board, but still the best bit is watching your own instructor training. It sounds silly but it’s so unusual to actually see your own instructor performing a form, especially one of the ones needed at their level. Normally you only ever see them breaking down a form applicable to your own grade, so it’s a treat to see them performing.

When the day finally ended at just after 7 in the evening we lined up, bowed off and until the next time (which seems to be sooner and sooner every time,) said goodbye to our extended family. I guess everyone took away their own particular highlights for the weekend, but for me they were watching our students looking stronger and more confident in sparring than any time I’ve seen them, running a ring with the very nice Master Christensen from Denmark again, and watching a particular bout in the sparring. The more I go to these events, and the more time I spend with the practitioners – both at home and away – the more grateful I am for having been lucky enough to have found this art and club.

I’m not sure how, but I almost let this slip by without a mention. I found out the other day that I passed the grading I took for Senior 1st Dan a few weeks ago! Maybe it’s the fact that it’s an ‘in-between’ grade, and the only one we really have in Tang Soo Do any more (the pre-Dan grade of Cho Dan Bo seems to only be applied to Junior grades in most schools now). I think it might be – in my own head at least – that it’s because my own accomplishment on the day pales slightly in comparison to the others grading. I was over the moon to hear that the two girls passed their First Dan, it’s such a milestone, and one you really suffer for. The other guy grading was going for Second Dan, and he passed that which was fantastic. Trying to explain to people that I’ve had a grading and that it’s not for a new full grade is awkward too

But anyway, all that aside, yes, I’m now a Senior First Dan. It’s funny how when you start a martial art, one of the things foremost in your mind is the prospect of reaching that goal of Black Belt, but never about what’s beyond that, when in fact it’s likely that if you stick to your training, the Gup grade years only account for about 10% of the time you end up doing it. I can’t speak for anyone else still training after first dan, but to me the whole thought of advancing in grade just goes out of the window, I don’t even think about it. I suppose that’s the way it’s meant to be, but it’s still odd. Training is just something you do, same as going to work every day (except a lot more enjoyable!!).

I’m not going to the World Championships in Florida this summer, so my focus should really have been on the British ones in a couple of weeks, but somehow it’s just slipped me by completely. I think it’s been with all the focus on the grading, then the BIG SECRET, then the Worlds after that, there’s not much room to think about anything else. My entry’s in now though, so the next couple of weeks are going to involve a lot of practise to sharpen up my forms as much as possible before the day. As much as it’s fun to compete and pit yourself against others, it’s just as enjoyable for me to just be there and see new and old faces. It’s such a great bonding experience for the ISK clubs too.

Having just had to watch two days of great squad sessions, it seems like a good time to write this post. Chances are, by now you’re well and truly addicted to your training. If you stuck around for longer than a couple of weeks it’s almost inevitable, why else would we put ourselves through the pain and exhaustion we do? However, there’s something that all of us will have to face before too long, regardless of the length of time you’ve been training, and that’s downtime.

99.9% of the time the only things that are going to stop you tying on your dobok and getting stuck in will be either illness or injury. But when the inevitable does happen (no-one’s invulnerable, no matter how much they like to think they are), how do you cope with not getting your ‘fix’? It’s not easy, but there are still a lot of useful things you can do toward your tang soo do training without actually breaking a sweat.

Unless you’re so badly injured you can’t physically make it to the class, or you’ve just contracted Ebola and don’t want to spread your disease, you should still haul yourself along whenever possible. There’s a surprising amount you can learn from sitting on the sidelines, so keep your phone in your pocket and keep your eyes and ears peeled.  For example, watching other people performing their forms. When you’re in with the rest of the class performing at the same time, it’s impossible to get a good look at other people and see what they’re doing, and more importantly, to see how the instructor is correcting them. They might well be corrections or exercises that you realise will benefit your performance.

Stay sharp when people are performing their one-step and self-defence drills too, you’ll soon see what’s truly effective and where technique can be improved. Keep watching and try to see how you can apply your observations to your own training e.g. “Ahh I see, you keep the elbow pointing up throughout and the arm stays barred during that self-defence!“.

Watching is never as good as doing, and there’s no point in thinking otherwise, but it’s still a whole lot better than doing nothing. You’ll only find yourself looking at your watch thinking “I’d be warming up now“, or “I bet they’re sparring now” – trust me, I speak from experience, and I’d be willing to bet that every other senior at the club knows exactly what I’m talking about. Turn your downtime into something productive.

Hi everyone, this is my first entry on the site here, and what better way to kick it off than with my condensed experiences from the past weekend, and the most recent ISK Dan grading.

Turning up to the dojang on a Saturday is always a hard thing, normally because the only reason for us opening it on that day is because someone is taking a Dan test, and this Saturday was no different. Many of the slowly-growing contingent of ISK Dan grades turned up, suited and booted and with their business faces on. With two First Dan tests, one Senior First Dan (yours truly), and another testing for Second Dan, it was no time to laugh and joke, even if the nervous jokes and smiles might have indicated otherwise. I think we can put it down to gallows humour.

Dan gradings are behind-closed-doors affairs, and rightfully so, not knowing what to expect is part of the experience. I won’t go into the details of the afternoon here, obviously, sufficed to say at the end of the day there were bruises, blood, tears and at least four very sore, exhausted people. Those tests have a weird way of going very quickly, while at the same time taking an absolute lifetime to end. I can remember more of it than I can my own First Dan grading, but certainly nothing like four hours worth.

I think it’s fair to say it takes a certain kind of person to get through these tests, and I’m proud to be among them. Standing there, gasping for breath with legs that feel like they’re made of lead and realising you’re not even halfway through the testing, it’s very easy to think ‘Why am I doing this??’. At the end of the day you can be the fittest, strongest, most knowledgeable person in the world, but if you don’t have the Heart to get through it, you won’t. I take a great deal of pride from the fact that our tests are so hard, it’s nice to know my belt is earned, not bought. My respect goes out to the others still standing at the end of the day, and my thanks to everyone at the club for helping me to get there.