Formal Training Week Seven Part Two

On Wednesday Aug 31, 2011 I again went to Equa Do. It was my birthday, and since nobody I live with would have been home and I knew there was nothing they had planned for me, I chose to spend it with Sensei, the other instructors and my classmates. I had gotten permission to do so from Master Eric at Gurnee Days

Despite it being a very special day, I opted to participate in class, as my birthday is generally not an occasion that has gone smoothly or pleasantly in the past. Just a side note: Wednesday was no exception. By the time I got to Equa Do I had already fought with both my parents, and had my mother wish me a happy birthday only because my dad insisted she do so. In addition, I received very grave news from my sister's doctors about her prognosis as she battles cancer. They were none too pleased after I processed all of what they were saying, and still told them I was still going to Equa Do. But, so be it. I needed to be around my surrogate family.

Anthony was not there to lead class, and so that meant it was really up to Sensei to do so. The two Combat Hapkido classes are intended to be kept mostly in sync with each other so most of what was covered I had already done the day before. However, there is that saying that practice makes perfect, and as I went through the drills, we actually discovered that I was making several errors.

Part of this has to do with who was teaching me. Much as I care about Brandon, his Aspbergers puts certain limitations on him. One of the main things that disorder affects is processing information, so it is very possible that he didn't clearly understand the technique before he began attempting to teach me. Sensei agrees that this is probably the case. And before anyone reading this goes off on me for being disrespectful toward a higher belt...I mean no disrespect. He just may not be capable of teaching this particular skill coherently yet.

So in any case, most of the night was spent polishing those techniques along with others, learned earlier in my training. This is because I am so close to testing for white belt. All too soon we were told to line up and given our end of class announcements, but dismissal was held...

Misha