Posted 4:00 PM by spitgirl
BALANCE BREAK

It's all about the balance. That, I think, is the lesson from today's taekwondo class, which was pretty much an open workout after the warm-up. Having been slightly chastised for goofing off at the last practice, I made a mental promise to myself that my goal for the day was to do the first basic poomse (form) at least ten times, but to aim for twenty. And, to help myself along, I would keep count by counting down on pushups and spin kicks. So ten pushups, one spinning hook kick in each direction, one run-through of the poomse. Before you think I'm some kind of masochist, the second rep was nine pushups, two spin kicks in each direction, and one run-through of the poomse. I got through four pushups and seven spin kicks before the end of class was called.

So the basic poomse #1 is amazingly, almost obnoxiously simple. Sixteen basic steps - two to the left, two to the right, four up the middle, ki-hap (ki-ya for those of you who study Japanese martial arts), a 270' turn to the left, and repeat. The blocks and punches are trivial - down block at every turn, punch every other time. Not surprisingly enough, the biggest two issues for me are:

1. balance
2. stance

One of the things that I noticed was that during my turns, I was constantly fighting against losing my balance. Whoever said taekwondo was just about kicks and punches, or that tai chi was the only martial art that dealt with balance... was dead wrong. The killer one is, of course, the 270' turn to the left. The stances, however, were supposed to be trivial - a nice deep, wide front stance (feet one shoulder width apart, two shoulder width deep). So why is it so difficult to turn? I have a few theories, but Miss Aloi (my TKD instructor) tells us that on average it takes 2,000 reps to perfect a form.

2,000?!

So if I do ten a day, it would take me just over half a year to perfect it.

Well, I suppose that sounds about right.

On another note, Michael F. and I are throwing around some ideas for a martial arts research project, and balance came up in our conversation. How many people who are trained in falls take less traumatic falls when they're older? Not sure...

And I'm off for the rest of the day, seeing as I just gave a pint of blood at the local Red Cross chapter.