Hold me, I’m scared.
Right, so I had a few hundred words written already and wiped them out to start over. After talking with a friend for a bit I’m going to try a different approach than what I had in mind. Hopefully it’ll work out.
Four months. Not a lot of time left. Some of you are about to get bombarded with questions and pleas for help. See with your help, and the help of some of my fellow students, I’ve created this pocket of stress in the back of my head. I’ve got this idea that I can’t shake and it’s making me a little crazy. Part of it is buying into the hype. I mean you hear a thing so many times and you start to believe it, right? Part of it I wrote about a few postings ago – the feeling of higher expectations due to the fact that I’m not just a student. Admittedly I’m fairly certain that this is my own hang up. No one has ever said, directly or implied, that I need to out perform anyone else. Quite the opposite actually. Its constantly drilled into our heads that you have to judge everyone on their own level and against how they’ve performed in the past. One of my hugest failings is my ability to read too much into something though. I’ll worry at it like a dog with a bone until it either tastes like I think it should, or it falls apart completely.
Rereading this a few times, I’m still not sure how to end it or if I should even publish it. It boils down to me wanting to be able to perform at a level I can be proud of, having no idea what that level is, and a strong desire for someone else to tell me. It makes me sound needy, and I hate it. I’ve never much cared for what other people think and get annoyed with people who seek validation through others and now this.
Anyway, enough of that.
This past cycle was a little crazy and I’m still not sure how I made it through. Between sickness, a two week vacation, and snow days, I may have missed more classes than I actually took. Still managed to feel comfortable enough with the sword form and Chil Sung Sam Ro by the end, though there was a bit of panicking about that. A huge thanks to MrsP and the other half of my brain for getting me not only through the required parts of the sword form but all the way to the end of it. Still not quite sure how I got through Chil Sung Sam Ro, but I’ll take the win and thank everyone for that.
Taught my first private lesson a few weeks ago. One of our Advanced Dragons was preparing to test for the coveted Black Dragon belt. Still haven’t heard as to whether or not she got it, but she did amazingly well during our lesson. Only took a minute or two for her to remember the form from the previous cycle (she needed to know this cycle’s form and last cycle and be able to perform them at the level expected of one of our Karate Kids) and she quickly adapted to the changes and details I suggested to her to bring it up to that level.
For those of you not in the know, my wife is amazing. For our anniversary she took me to Ninja World and bought me a new pair of chucks and a chinese broadsword. I love the pair of chucks that I already had. They’re heavy and great for training and conditioning. The problem is they’re heavy and it makes some of the prettier tricks difficult. So I wanted a pair of performance chucks to start working on those prettier tricks. The broadsword is this coming cycle’s xma weapon. Someone (won’t name names) has been not-so-gently nudging me to get one so that I can learn the form that’ll be taught during the XMA class. While I’m not a fan of the XMA forms (okay, they can be beautiful, but as I’ve said before – bear, not bird and I don’t fly well) I’m eager to learn a new sword form. Gives me more incentive to finish building my fire sword that I’ve had the parts and wicking to build for a year or so.
I’m sure there’s more, but I’m typed out for now. I would promise to write more often but we all know how that’ll turn out. So until the next time…
Tang Soo!
tippingthevessel 