Candidate Journals

At 6:30am every Wednesday morning, I run 3.24 miles at Harrisburg Park with a group of runners I joined a little over a month before the pretest we had on July 18th.  That's 6 laps around a track that measures .54 miles.  Running with them helped me prepare for the test, but I should have skipped it today because I attended my first Black Belt weekday class tonight.  I found it to be a little more intense than our regular classes on Tuesday and Thursdays.  After finishing the class with 90 seconds of burpees, I feel like I've been beaten with a baseball bat.  I probably would have been ok if I was 23, 33, or even 43 years old (I can't even remember when I was 13), but when you're a member of the AARP crowd, recovery takes a little longer.  I'll figure it out though.

My mentor is out of town for the week, so I was able to work with two other seniors before and after today's practice.  They showed me exactly how the gap between ranks isn't just about remembering the moves of poomsaes and self-defenses.  The gap between Bocho Dan, 2nd Dan and 3rd Dan aren’t just separated by 2 and 1 belt each, respectively.” They’re separated by constant repetition and practice to the point where everything up to that point is 2nd nature, almost like breathing.  Where I'm still trying to remember everything, they just know it.

Today, as with every morning, I began by going over the Instructor's Manual and the Black Belt test questions we were given last week. This afternoon, I worked with two of my mentees (a Red Belt and Blue Belt) on their poomsaes and self-defenses in preparation for their exam on July 30th. They are making good progress because they have been practicing on their own at home. After that, I went to the Harrisburg YMCA for an hour and worked out with with thoughts of September 26th constantly on my mind.