Thursday, November 02, 2006

Plans for a Tournament

When I looked at my November calendar, I noticed that the Ankeny Tournament was not written in. I'd been planning to go, and had even discussed it with Justin, who'd also like to go. The Gaylords are intersted, too.

But I hadn't written it down yet.

I think that was to give me an "out" if I wasn't ready. I don't think I was completely ready to commit.

We just started learning our new forms after the October test and promotions. My new form, Hwa Rang, is awesome, but I'm still learning it. There are several times during the form when I have to stop and think. Plus I was sick for a couple weeks, which slowed me down, and I missed Wednesday class and will miss next Wednesday's . . .

Will I be ready for a tournament November 11?

I contacted Justin againa to make sure he still wanted to go. He hasn't been down from the University in time to practice with us much, though he's come back for some visits.

But Justin, unlike me, was ready to compete. And he encouraged me to learn Hwa Rang: "It's a good tournament form, so I suggest you do it." He suggested I go to the forms class on Friday and get in extra workouts.

OK. I'll go to the tournament. That means I need to work extra hard. Maybe I can get over for the Friday forms class--I'll have to take the kids with me, but that might not be too bad.

This performance/competition opportunity might be just what I need to turn the heat up!

2 comments:

Miss Chris said...

Whe my daughter has a tournament comng up it seems to churn up my insides.

Anonymous said...

Oh, I hope you do go! It'd be nice to see more senior women again! I'm planning on going, although I'm still stuck doing the same form (our school doesn't test as often as others do, apparently, because we only have access to two classes a week). The funny bit is that I test for 3rd permanent brown the weekend after the tournament.

*sigh*

For me, the big worry is that my form will be...stale, I guess (for lack of a better word). I've been doing it for so long now (comparatively)that it just doesn't feel very exciting for me anymore. Up 'til now, almost every time I've taken a form to tournament, it's been at the right time -- that time in my learning when the form has just begun to fall perfectly into place and feel really good (exciting, interesting, powerful etc.). The one time I repeated a form at a later tournament (Won Hyo -- at Ankeny last year, actually!), it just...didn't work. I couldn't make it all fit the way I had before. Right now, Chung-gun just isn't snapping for me the way it did a month ago.

Ah, well. It's going to be fun just to be there, so I'll just have to live with my lack of enthusiasm for my form for another couple of weeks. Heh.