Tuesday 25th May

It's another lovely day. The sun makes it all the more worth while when you're up the same time it is. Headed down to the dojang for more work, similar to yesterday went through 3x2 mins of skipping as a warm up and then into some bag work followed by stretching. Then into the three bad boys, Sam Il, Choi Yong and Yoo Sin. They feel like shadows at this stage!

I managed to squeeze in some bench pressing and core work afterwards. I'm back to the physio on Monday next so hopefully there will be some progress there.

Enjoy the sun!

May 23rd / 24th

Just back from a morning session, if haven't noticed already I love the early morning starts. Three rounds of skipping to warm up, four rounds of sparring topped off by Sam Il, Yoo Sin and Choi Yong. Some stretching followed that and then some core work. Plenty of planks!

Yesterdays Sunday session also followed a similar trend. I brought the 1st kups through their syllabus material and then I did some tul work myself along with Jim Faulkner.

Tonight it will be more of the same, a two hour class followed by more stretching.

The theory work is going well. Just finished the section on the theory of power and sine wave motion. The next section I'm aiming for will be the cycle of Taekwon-Do. I may just have Master Gallaraga on the panel so the theory will have to be top notch.

We're off to the ITA open next weekend so we're all looking forward to that. It will be a big test for the black belts as the standard is really high at these guys tournaments. No point in shying away from the lime light!

Stay tuned.

A well timed Master class

On the 16th May we headed off to the sunny south east to attend a master class being hosted by Westpoint TKD Academy. Master Trevor Nicholls was over from England for the class which was well timed as this blogs preparations kick up a gear.

The class was excellent, very enjoyable with plenty of technical detail and he covered the 3rd degree patterns especially. Apart from the technical detail the class was a high tempo and was a super work out at the same time. Today my legs are feeling it, we must have done 1.5 hours of kicking.

Doing Yoo Sin and Choi Yong for Master Nicholls I was able to pick up on a few little gems of info that I needed so all in all it was a trip well worth taking.

Over all the preparations are going well now. I am happy with the patterns over all at this stage. The core development work is also paying off as I am starting to feel stronger on kicking.

I have my step sparring sorted out I have three step organised and one step, I just to put some two step together and I got my wood sorted. So that big digital clock gets closer and closer and now I'm starting to get nervous!

May 9th

Another Sunday and another technical session.

Today's session was the most enjoyable to date. Things are starting to come together, progress is being made. We did a good amount of step sparring, pad work (isolated reverse turning kick and spinning reverse turning kick) plenty of fundamental movements and every pattern right form Chon Ji to Choi Yong and they all felt good.

Three hours later and I finished off with some breaking, some speed breaks - fore fist punch and knife hands for the crack. I'm considering doing the punch on a brick, it's been a while since I've hit stuff harder than parana pine. The brick would be a nice addition so I'm going to try get some sorted and see how I get on.

The core work is really paying off, the side kicks carry a lot more precision at the moment as do the reverse turning kicks in Eui Am, you need a wash board core to stop them bad boys in mid flight. Thanks to Orlagh for the improvements there. So much for informed performance, they never replied. Sure they probably only train with real athletes...

Next week we're off to train with Master Nicholls. He will be visiting Mick Flaherty's dojang for a master class. It's nice to get some master classes in before any big test. I did two with GM Choi before my third in 07, so I'm looking forward to this one.

There was a degree test today in Kerry, my friends Jim Faulkner, Sandra Doyle, Mary Mannion and Shane Fitzgibbon all tested and were all successful after what I believe was a brutally hard test. There's nothing like success after a grueling test.

Well done to them all.

Also recently promoted my Taekwon-Do brother in arms, or is it legs? - Paul O'Brien promoted to 4th by GM Willy Lim. They've all baked a lovely cake, I hope I can put the icing on it in July.

May 3rd

Lovely morning this morning, I was up at 6. Time to change to routine slightly to tighten up that core area.

I came across some excellent core exercise workouts from a guy called Andy McDermott. You can see what he does on YouTube, if you visit our website - www.redstar-tkd.com and click on our YouTube channel and then subscriptions, you'll see his channel there. It's really tough stuff.

I've also put an email into Informed Performance gym. They specialise in core strength and conditioning. If I can get a few classes there in the day time I'll be a happy bunny. We will see.

You'd be amazed at how quick the heart rate goes up when you are doing core work, after about five minutes you could feel like you are out on a run. I'm going to miss the morning runs for the time being, but the core is where it's at for now.

I'll keep everyone posted, hopefully improvements won't take too long.

May 2nd

We are into the last 8 weeks now. This last stretch is the most important. I've spent the last 3 weeks with the head in the books. Updating myself on step sparring, theory, theory of power, sine wave motion and all applications. I've also started the visualisations, I have Jaroslaw Suska on my Ipod. He's a good man to model, having won several world championships in patterns.

My only niggle is my hip. No point in lying about it, I got some news at the physio last week. Orlagh Sampson knows her stuff. She's being the physio to the Irish boxing team and the high performance training gym for years, she also physio'd for world level rowers and kayakers.

She identified a key issue for me. No lateral core strength. She gave me some pretty simple core exercises to do, and I couldn't do them. Therefore, when I use lateral movement with my legs, side kick for example, my core doesn't fire leaving the small hip muscles to take all the weight which in turn aggravates them and wears them out. So I've a pile of core building exercises that I have to do now for the next two weeks. She says it will build up in no time as I am 'hyper-mobile' - apparently!

The next few weeks will see an increase in aerobic training and a pile more studying. I will also have to press on with the thesis. I will also be doing patterns everyday, even if they are just in the kitchen. The next two months will fly by!

I'm getting nervous now!