Post by Anthony 'Antz' Whitaker on May 10, 2005 0:23:29 GMT
Well, in a good way, anyway!
You see, I booked this whole week off work, and just before the end of last week I got this wild spur-of-the-moment ideas that I would actually take a trip to the Tae Kwon Do academy run by none other than our own Stuart Anslow! As I write this I have just arrived home, six hours after turning up at his dojo (or whatever they call it in Korean).
The two-hour session started off with us doing this twist on basketball, then we did some stretching and proceeded to do board-breaking (although I limited it to kicks and elbow strikes, as my hands had not undergone the rigours of conditioning that the TKD regulars would have been subjected to -- although I've recently started using break-boards again for the first time in ages during my own style's classes, the board we use is softer than these ones, and in our style it's an extra and not a requirement.
After a fair bit of that we did short bursts of sparring where I got to spar against about half of the attendees present -- and one of the people I sparred against was Stuart himself! That was a bit of a kick-fest if ever there was one!
The class ended with two-on-one sparring, and I gave it a go, although my concentration wavered somewhat due to the added pressure and the fact that I hadn't really done that kind of sparring before. Although I knew the best tactic was to position myself so that one attacker was in the other's way, actually doing it with the two quick-footed people I was up against was easier said than done -- coupled with the fact that I was sweating like a pig from the heat and it was affecting some of my judgment.
After the class ended many of us went to have a kebab and wind down in an, ahem, interesting way(!) -- well, very interesting for Stuart and Lynz anyway...
All in all, a great evening, and one I'm really glad I was a part of. It was the first time I'd ever participated in any Korean style, and I still coped better than I thought I would. I was initially nervous about the board-breaking but still gave it a go just to keep in the spirit of things -- and it didn't hurt at all (although when trying to break a board with a spinning hook kick I caught the edge of the board with my heel, putting a nick in the skin of it -- but the board did break when it hit the floor -- ahem!
)
Well, I could carry on, but I think my bed is beckoning...
You see, I booked this whole week off work, and just before the end of last week I got this wild spur-of-the-moment ideas that I would actually take a trip to the Tae Kwon Do academy run by none other than our own Stuart Anslow! As I write this I have just arrived home, six hours after turning up at his dojo (or whatever they call it in Korean).
The two-hour session started off with us doing this twist on basketball, then we did some stretching and proceeded to do board-breaking (although I limited it to kicks and elbow strikes, as my hands had not undergone the rigours of conditioning that the TKD regulars would have been subjected to -- although I've recently started using break-boards again for the first time in ages during my own style's classes, the board we use is softer than these ones, and in our style it's an extra and not a requirement.
After a fair bit of that we did short bursts of sparring where I got to spar against about half of the attendees present -- and one of the people I sparred against was Stuart himself! That was a bit of a kick-fest if ever there was one!
The class ended with two-on-one sparring, and I gave it a go, although my concentration wavered somewhat due to the added pressure and the fact that I hadn't really done that kind of sparring before. Although I knew the best tactic was to position myself so that one attacker was in the other's way, actually doing it with the two quick-footed people I was up against was easier said than done -- coupled with the fact that I was sweating like a pig from the heat and it was affecting some of my judgment.
After the class ended many of us went to have a kebab and wind down in an, ahem, interesting way(!) -- well, very interesting for Stuart and Lynz anyway...
All in all, a great evening, and one I'm really glad I was a part of. It was the first time I'd ever participated in any Korean style, and I still coped better than I thought I would. I was initially nervous about the board-breaking but still gave it a go just to keep in the spirit of things -- and it didn't hurt at all (although when trying to break a board with a spinning hook kick I caught the edge of the board with my heel, putting a nick in the skin of it -- but the board did break when it hit the floor -- ahem!
)Well, I could carry on, but I think my bed is beckoning...
It can also take movie clips that are restricted in length only by the available memory on the SD card within it.
The kebabs afterwards were also a great way to relax, and I almost felt non-autistic for a moment when surrounded by all these like-minded people.
