Observation Day

I was able to meet Master Miller and observer my first Tang Soo Do class today. I was slightly nervous at first. I was worried Master Miller would be intimidating or that others in the class would have an intimidating air, but I was very wrong. I was warmly welcomed in the Dojang and did not feel uncomfortable at all. A good sign! Master Miller and I discussed the philosophy of Tang Soo Do for a bit before his class began. From the way he was speaking the philosophy behind Tang Soo Do seems to be of Confuscian and Daoist descent, which doesn't suprise me since this is a Korean art. There were moments when he was explained how movements should feel and his explanation was very reminicent of wu-wei (if you don't know what wu-wei is I have a short paper that explains at www.kejarboe.blogspot.com).

There are eight people in the class, three midnight-blue, one red, three green, and one orange. The class is mainly comprised of gentlemen between the ages of 30 and 40, with one female in her 40's and one younger male probably the same age or younger than me (22). I enjoy the small class size.

While observing I noticed a few things that I have experience with or at least knowledge of. The first being the stretches. Some are actual yoga stretches such as the plow and the crow. They were also working on wrist grabs, which I remember doing in my self-defense class. Also some of the kicks are familiar, but Master Miller used Korean to refer to them, which is foreign to me. The flow of the class was also similar to Tai-Chi.

I realized that I need to work on a few things to make my life less painful while I'm there. The first is flexibility. While I've been doing Yoga for two years, I'm still not very flexible. Alot of the stretches will be difficult for me at first. So, I think I need some more yoga in my diet. Secondly, I think I'm going to need more abdominal and upper body strength. There were some things I saw during the warmup that I wasn't quite sure I could do for lack of enough upper-body strength. The gym will help with that though. I have more upper-body than the average female, but that's not saying much.

After watching the class I decided that this is definately what I want to do. I got a good vibe and believe Master Miller will be the right teacher. Tomorrow I begin my first personal training session at my new gym. Now I know what I need to focus on. But in anitcipation of all this new physical activity that I'll be doing I think I need to retreat to my bedroom and do some pushups and some yoga. I'll be back to write some more Thursday evening.