Nothin' Like Being Dumped on Your Butt Over and Over Again

First of all, big hello to Erik and Jason! Hope you enjoy your visits to SMHland!

BTW Mr. Mann (I can't help but give proper respect), yes, I'm under contract, and I'm over 30, but I'm pretty happy with my dojang and my overall experience there. Maybe I'll go into it in a little detail at some point if you are interested. I fully support your martial arts philosophy though - your ideas are unique and well-considered. Now you can jump all over the rest of this post. LOL

I got my third tip (for self-defense) in tae kwon do class Saturday, so it looks like I will definitely test for red belt at the end of this month. Actually, I haven't had much doubt that I was going to test, but I thought it was a little strange to get my tip Saturday because I didn't feel like I was quite ready yet. Make no mistake, I'm almost there, but usually Master Chong (the younger, not the Grandmaster) isn't the type to rush the promotions.

Through practice I am starting to get used to having my legs swept, and most of the time I'm falling more-or-less correctly, but on Saturday I was working with a fellow red stripe who used to be a black belt at a different school. At one point in the drill he grabbed my upper arm near the underarm and dug in really hard as he swept me. It left one hell of a bruise. So I repaid him by dumping him hard on the mat on my turn. :-)

Hey, it's not any fun if you don't get bumps and bruises once in a while!

Now if I could only get that spinning kick down (back to the barre again for me)...