Fun night.

[Professor Smooth]

Last night I was training two students for an upcoming Tae Kwon Do tournament. They had the speed, but needed that added aggression that would help them score points in the tournament. So, being the nice guy that I am, I decided that I would basically act as a moving punching bag for these guys. When not fighting back a whole lot didn't spur them on, I decided to try a new tactic. I told one of them to hit me in the chest with the hardest roundhouse kick he could muster. After making sure I hadn't suffered a head injury or something, he relented. Spectacular roundhouse kick. Sounded like thunder. I stood there like a mosquito had just bit me. "There," I said, "Now you know that you can't hurt me. Don't worry about it. Throw some kicks." (In reality, it was incredibly painful, but we don't let them see that.) With their care for their fellow man out of the way, the two were able to muster up some aggression. Granted, they still weren't able to land any kicks on me, but that's to be expected. Against people at similar skill levels, they'll do fine. The side-effect of their not landing any kicks on me was that they did a real number on my arms and legs (that I use for blocking.) In the last couple of minutes of our practice, in keeping with the martial arts tradition of instilling the fear of god into your students, I started fighting back and beat the holy hell out of these two. Not out of rage, or revenge; just to show them that I could fight back and to show them that they should not be overconfident. When they could walk again, they thanked me for the lesson and limped home.

Enter today: My arms and legs are killing me. That unprotected kick to the chest didn't do me any favors either. But tonight is the night where we all practice sparring. After a five-mile bike ride (light excercise), I showed up to practice and noticed that the two students I'd trained weren't in class (guess I got them better than they'd got me). Unfortunately, they'd gotten me pretty good. Every block wound up aggrivating bruises on my arms and legs and one guy actually landed a kick to my chest. We were doing marathon sparring today so we were going, non-stop, for over an hour. By the forty-five minute mark, nearly half of the participants were nursing various injuries in the corner. I kept going until I made a really stupid mistake. I assumed that the person I was sparring was not injured. He was. He did a flailing kick that managed to completely miss it's targed, my chest. Unfortunately, because of the manner of which he threw the kick (and it was a one-in-a-million shot) and it landed right on the side of my head. The blow knocked me unconcious for a second. I got back up, assured everyone that I was alright. Then I looked at him.

Never have you seen such fear in a person's eyes.

Wham. Wham. Wham. Match is over.

We bow out, everyone leaves, and I wind up biking back to my place. Taking a cold shower (don't have an icepack here), and being quite glad that nobody knows just how badly I got hurt over the last couple days.

Like I said. Fun night.

[IronHide]

Yes sir. Been there before.

9 years i devoted to that, it was awesome.

In recent news, tried to do a round-kick a few days ago, almost pulled my groin.

[Eline]

Wow. Can you even move today?

[Optimus Prime Rib]

Ive been pulling my groin for at least 15 years.. no worries about walking there

[saysadie]

Yeah, I had a similar experience a few days ago at work. I was all full of energy because it was a reeeallly slow day so I started attacking boxes full of stuff, just for fun. One of my friends came in the back and started making fun of my 'girl punches', but he changed his tune when I hit the thing so hard my knuckle started to bleed, it was funny. Nothing to it after that... Band-aided up, rubber gloves on, good to go. Sore hand for awhile though...