Road to Zordon 2 (Patreon)

Good news everyone! 

One week ago, I went to my class and was double tested for my yellow belt. I was unaware that I was being double tested, thinking I was just going for a yellow stripe. It was rough. Not the test itself, which was challenging but not overly so, but I was rough. I had learned most of my patterns but had to continue to ask for demonstrations to make sure the moves I had in my head matched the moves they were asking me to do. 

By the end of the night I was sweating pretty heavily. I’ve said before that I have an active job, so I’m used to heavy exertion, but this was hitting muscle groups I don’t usually push. I stumbled and screwed up more times than I care to count. In my head, I was sure that I had failed. I don’t mind being a white belt, but I was hoping I could do better during this test. Something I learned at the following class is that my perfectionist streak kind of takes over in these classes. I want to be a Power Ranger; how can I achieve that without getting these moves perfect? But I digress.

It turns out that the practice I’ve been doing at home, with my wife’s direction, paid off! I am now a low gold belt. Apparently, moving up to that rank is not as hard as I thought, and I may have been too hard on myself. 

Last class was all about learning my new move sets. We focused mainly on Dan-Gun, a pattern I ended up repeating around 30 times within an hour. Watching it done, it seems like a pretty standard set of moves, something that should be pretty easy. To some extent it is, but I was surprised at how much my body just wanted to do its own thing. I would envision the move I wanted to do next and then end up doing something that looked similar but was entirely different. Part of the learning process, I am finding, is getting your body to do exactly what you want it to. You think your body obeys your commands but that’s not always the case.

Unfortunately, I’ve not been able to get a good exercise regiment worked out yet. I’ve just been too busy with Lasers & Liches work, my real job, and home life. Once I do have something solid, I’ll let you know what it is. I guess this is a good enough time as any to say that I am no professional. I am just figuring out what I am doing and so some of the things I share may be old hat to you. This point of this whole series is not to be self-indulgent and talk about how cool I am. It’s to show that even a skinny nerd such as myself can do this. That even if your goal is to be a Power Ranger, you can start improving somewhere. It does not matter how silly or out of reach your goal is. I want to encourage you to take that first step towards that thing you’ve always wanted. It’s going to suck, a lot, but we’re on this long road together. 

You teach me, and I’ll teach you. 

-Chris