Lots of Little Pieces

The Break-a-thon is over. 1000 boards have been demolished. It took about 40 people 19.5 minutes to do the deed. We raised somewhere around 2500 dollars for the National MS Society (The final tallies aren't in yet, but we were at $2325 when I left, without counting concessions or on-the-spot donations.)

I'm a bit the worse for wear. We'll see how bad it is tomorrow and Monday. On one side-kick break, my holder, apparently unused to seeing his breaker charging him, backed away just slightly, and I over-stretched into the kick. I made the break, but pulled my left adductor (inner thigh muscle). The TKD people make their side-kick breaks by using what we would call a spinning side-kick, while I used a step-behind side-kick that covers a good deal of ground. Other than the pull, I'm pleased with the day. I broke about twenty boards - knife-hand both left and right, palm-heel, stomp, front snap and side-thrust kicks, most were 9" boards, but the organizers overestimated how many small boards we'd need vs. large ones, so by the end the adults were breaking the kids' 3 and 4" boards.

On the slightly intimidating side, Sensei took me aside shortly before the breaking started and told me that his special project for the next three months is getting me ready for the Lennox Legacy tournament. Meaning, apparently, that he intends to work my butt into the ground, and expects me to win kumite and possibly kata as well. My tournament performance so far has been highly mixed. I won the Grand Champion beginner's woman trophy at our local tournament last year, and even beat out the intermediate Grand Champion in the fighting ring - but that's a very small tournament. At last year's Lennox, however, I placed last in both categories, albeit not by very much. That's been my performance pretty consistently so far. Local tournaments, I do very well. In away tournaments, even fairly small ones, I place nowhere. I don't know if its a mental problem, or a statement on the quality of our local dojos.

I look forward to the intensive course anyway. I always love being pushed.