I’m a gold belt now. I’m still in the Beginner class, but we’ll be moving on to Phase 2 of the material, so there should be lots of fun new stuff to learn. If the material we saw the higher ranking people cover during their test was any indication, we’ll be covering breathing techniques, crescent kicks, axe kicks, and a bunch of chin na techniques, and I’m sure there will be quite a bit of stuff that isn’t on the formal test.

The belt ceremony wasn’t anything unusual. Certificates for the new rank, a new belt, people clap, etc. This time, though, I got recognized for a couple of other things: Black Belt Club and tournament competition. That felt pretty good. I got a couple of patches to put on my uniform, and soon I should be getting a cool red-trimmed new uniform jacket to put them on.

Sifu mentioned that he’s got some new stretching and exercise routines worked up, so there will be some new variety in what we do at the beginning of each class. Also, we’re going to start off class with Yun Tung to get warmed up before we stretch. Sounds fun. He also said that there’s a new school opening in Lucedale, MS, and that hopefully soon we’ll be able to have an inter-school tournament. I’m really looking forward to that. Going to the SMAC tournament was fun, but it felt really impersonal. I felt kinda like an outsider surrounded by all those TKD and Karate schools. It should be interesting to meet up with more folks from our style.

The new version of Wordpress is out, and since I’ve been experimenting with the release candidate for it, I’m probably going to upgrade soon. It’s got some pretty awesome new features.

I was in a wedding last weekend and somebody took a picture. As you can see by my right hand, I was thinking, “If this chick trips on her hem and makes me look bad, I’m going to dragon-claw her jaw right off her head.”

Congratulations PJ & Jennifer.

Had a lot of fun at this. We started out by listening to Sifu talk about how an attacker chooses a victim, and what can be done to avoid being chosen. From there we worked a bunch of different techniques with partners and against targets. Finger-thrust, knifehand, elbow strike, palm strike, knee strike, headbutt, groin kick, and bite were the ones we were primarily concerned with, but Sifu also demonstrated using the forearm bone, the ulna, as a club. We did the wrist-grab break with that as well. He spent a lot of time demonstrating why and how you should keep your hands up and moving, how to feign submission while buying yourself time to formulate a defense, how to prepare yourself against an attacker, the mindset to maintain, things like that. It was an excellent seminar. I especially enjoyed the elbow strike. There’s a crapload of power there.

Needs attention:
CSB+sidekicks
SSB+roundhouses
back kicks
sidekicks
sink-and-turn with bicep bottomfist, vertical punch, palm strike
Plum Blossom A & B
all openhand strikes, both sides, with blocking
back twisted with spinning backfist against the bag
kick combo: front kick, front at 45 degrees, side, side at 45 degrees back,
tuck and back kick, front kick.
wide on-guard stance, front stance