The last furlong

It's been a little while since the last update. Things have been unbelievably busy. It's hard to think in two weeks we'll be off to Korea, the whole thing has been a blur, a blink of an eye.

In terms of my own training, it's been a real pain for the past three weeks, I've picked up silly little injuries through my own fault and my own need to keep sparring. The injuries aren't life threatening by any means, just annoying.
I was sparring Néidín last week without shin pads, and clobbard her on the elbows with a dollyo chagi and now there's a nice little chunk gone out of my right shin. At squad training last week I threw a high turning kick to Willy Maloney, he covered well but my foot got pushed off in an awkward direction, I strained the ligament. It's not too bad today. And then there is the ongoing tight hip flexors, although I think I have that under control now.

I spent the weekend with Master Dalton last week. It was a great few days training. On the Saturday we covered the third degree patterns. He was happy with the performances and offered a couple a small changes. I was happy he was happy, he will be on the panel!
The movement he made me drill over and over was the 'W' shape block in Sam Il, I'm chambering that one a tad bit wrong, I've been looking at that since, so it should be ok.

Yoo Sin and Choi Yong were fine, he emphasised the need to perform the guarding blocks with a bit more prominence. I needed the pressure of performing in front of him, it settled my nerves some what.

On the Sunday we did more patterns training and then the senior team did their team pattern training. Then it was straight into a squad session. For anyone that's done a squad, well you'll know what I mean when I say it was business as usual!
The new full time place in Tralee is great, nice a bright with plenty of space. I didn't get to finish the sparring due to my foot injury, but I got stuck into the fitness work. I was happy to keep up with the guys who are super fighting fit.

In terms of the other busy-ness, I've been working on the new ITF Ireland website and in turn my own new website. The ITF Ireland site is www.itfireland.net and of course our own website is www.redstar-tkd.com .

The preparations for the world championships have been taking up most of my time. We're training very hard. Three mornings a week at 6am and four evenings, well three with a Sunday morning. I've seen such a huge improvement in the lads. They are savagely fit at the moment. Alvy, Néídín and Adam are moving better than I've ever seen them. I wouldn't feel too comfortable myself lining out against any of them. Alvy and Néídín are now into their Leaving certs so the pressure is off them for a little bit, well the physical pressure, I'm sure the leaving brings its own amount of mental pressure... I wouldn't know!

Win, lose or draw I'd be confident that they will make a good impression and perform out of their skins, of this there will be no doubt.

So we're nearly there.