Achievement Unlocked: Blue Belt! in New Beginnings

I tested for my blue belt yesterday. Nope, I didn’t make a 100. As a matter of fact, I barely passed. I was kind of shocked to say the least. When I had my review class a week ago, I thought I did really well. My instructor only offered a few corrections. On the plus side, I don’t think I repeated any of my mistakes from my review during the test, but I apparently didn’t do every technique perfectly, and all those mistakes added up.

I’m excited and nervous of going through the blue belt rank. I get to start attending the advanced classes and learning advanced techniques, but I’m also being thrown in the deepend to swim with the sharks. Come Monday’s class, I’ll effectively be a punching bag for the purple and brown belts. I think this will also be the rank where I start seeing traction. One of the black belts explained that first you must learn the techniques, then you must learn to perform the techniques on people who are resisting you, and finally you must learn to perform the techniques on people who are better than you. Blue belt seems to be the level at which I’ll be able to start performing escapes and submissions on people who are resisting me, granted I’ll only be able to do them on people below my rank. It’ll be nice to not get pummelled every single time.

In other news, I’m considering changing gyms. I like working out at LA Fitness, but I have a pet peeve with the floor. I like to do my old TKD work out in the aerobics room when the group classes are finished for the day. However, sometimes the floor provides no traction. The floor in that room is similar to an indoor basketball court. I have no idea what causes this problem. Maybe it needs to be waxed or polished more frequently. In either case, sometimes my feet won’t stick to the floor. I can’t hold any sort of stance; my feet just slide out from under me. If I’ve already worked up a sweat, as soon as my sweat drips on the floor, all hope is lost. What’s most maddening is that I have no idea when this problem will occur. It’s endlessly irritating when I sacrifice an evening trying to be disciplined, and I have to quit my work out before I’ve received any benefit of it. I might as well have stayed home.

I’m trying a sample membership at a boutique style gym called Fitness 1440. That gym actually had a location in Atlanta, and I exercised there when I worked in mid town years ago. It’s smaller, but it’s no where near as crowded even during peak hours. Most importantly, the floor in the aerobics room is covered with a polyethelene mat, so traction is never an issue. What is an issue is the fencers. One slightly eldertly gentleman also likes to use that room when classes are over to give fencing lessons. Usually, he only has two other students, and we can split the room evenly, but sometimes he’ll have like ten kids in class along with their spectating parents. Keep in mind that his class isn’t a class the gym actually provides. He’s just a gym member commandeering the entire room for his own personal endeavor. A part of me thinks he should rent a store space of his own if he wants to give fencing lessons, but another part of me likes that he’s providing a cool, unique activity for kids to learn, so I opt not to complain. I guess I’ll have to keep looking.