Posted 10:33 PM by spitgirl
BOUNCE OUT

Remember those bruises from yesterday? I didn't get enough sleep last night, but one of the things I did happen to do was to wake up at 6am with my shin hurting like crazy. I ended up trying to find my ice bag in my bed (it was cold, damp, and definitely still icy - I don't see how I slept with it in my bed and managed to avoid waking myself up) and clamping it on the bruise, just to fall back asleep as my alarm was going off. I know this probably drives people crazy, but I played the Alarm Clock Game until about 7 and then dragged my butt out of bed. Note to self: make all sorts of excuses but go to bed before 11 on a school night. So, back to the bruises, I seem to have one on the calf muscle itself, making it cramp up slightly. Then, on the opposite side, I'm developing a bruise that I can't quite see but definitely can feel. I'm thinking it'll be a nice dark purple in another two or three days and then I can really show it off. (After all, the only reason for having bruises from martial arts is to look hardcore. *smirk* Okay, I'm just kidding. It really does hurt.)

Okay, so I said before that Nathan day was on Thursday. But this week Nathan's going to be busy on Thursday, so I was invited over today instead to play with the burbling, bubbly baby boy. And he was in fine form today, as well. I took some photos on Friday; I should have them up sometime soon. In any case, today was taekwondo day, and I hobbled into the room early because I was trying to kill some time and of course there's the catching up with Miss Aloi. (The operative question of the day: "What do your TKD friends think about you testing?" My response was, just in general, "They think it's cute.") So, having caught up, she sent my classmate, Kiet, for the hogus.

I like to call the hogus "the little white marshmallows" because they are, in essence, little white marshmallows when you're about six years old. If you've never seen little kids sparring, they look like miniature versions of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (cf. Ghostbusters), whacking at each other with very trebly ki-haps. So, when you're an old fart like me (as Kevin reports Carson calling me two Sundays ago), the hogus look slightly less like marshmallows and more like the padding that geishas wear inside of their kimonos.

So after our warm up, we strapped on the hogus and went back and forth across the mat, whacking at our partners. My partner, a yellow belt, simply didn't ki-hap when I kicked him (like he was supposed to), so even my lame little roundhouse kicks almost knocked the wind out of him. I hope I didn't hurt him. That would suck. I told him to ki-hap but the kid's so quiet that I started to pull my kicks a little. After then, we worked on some sparring. Yes, I suck!

But afterwards, Matt and I worked on a few minutes of footwork, since Micah said that I should get that from TKD as much as possible. "Elaine, are you working on TKD?" Miss Aloi asked. "Yes, ma'am, just working on footwork." "Then bounce!" Oh, right, I'd forgotten the critical point of TKD sparring - one must bounce up and down to maximize speed. Must work on that a little more. Boing. Boing. Boing.