The Halfway Point

We're halfway through the Olympics, and I am halfway to my goal of turning four UFOs into FOs! One is in the wash and the other is drying on the blocking board covered with a towel (Teddie seems to have decided the wet yarn is his perfect soulmate, which necessitates the secrecy). I'll try to get pics up tomorrow or Sunday (tomorrow might be a little crazy), and you'll have to find out which ones hit the finish line then! Muha! (Okay, so Ravelers can probably figure it out, but the pics still aren't up there yet either.)

I've also hit the halfway point in learning my new regular form. The form isn't really all THAT much longer than any of my previous forms (81 moves), but Sir (who was back in class Wednesday night) and Mr. R have only been adding five or six moves, if that, per class. It's definitely the slowest pace I've ever gone on formwork, and it's taking some getting used to. I'm used to having to learn an entire form and get it to testing level in eight or nine weeks, which means that normally at this point I'd've learned the whole thing and would be starting to clean it up, really drilling stances and chambers and that sort of thing. It's like we've suddenly hit the brakes and the new pace is throwing me just a little. My life runs in rush mode; bad habits are hard to break.

We are going to keep up with the instructor class being half colorbelt forms and training drills, and the other half is going to be our (Ma'am, Mr. R, and Jorge, another second degree) time to work on our own forms and drills. (I also work on my new form during regular class, but I don't get anything new added to it until later in instructor class. Sometimes I help the lower belts with their forms and other black belts with the self defense in regular class, too.) We go a little longer at night now, but I like it. It's neat and kind of inspiring to see the teachers learning new things. Apparently I can do all the colorbelt forms just fine, unless Sir is in the room. I was nailing them with Mr. R, Ma'am and Jorge, but Sir comes back and I got stuck in both the camo form AND the green belt form. Bah! I am, however, actually helping out with a Day in the Park kids' event on Sunday morning, which I think will be fun. I'm a little nervous about it, though. I think it will be Sir, Mrs. S, Mr. R, Ma'am, and me, and I'm DEFINITELY the lowest and most inexperienced out of that bunch. But, on the other hand, how am going to learn if I just stay in class the whole time? I just hope I'm at least useful to them.

I did get to go to kickboxing on Monday (the routine hasn't changed that much) and my hamstrings kept reminding me of it on Tuesday. It was really nice to get back into the swing of it, but it was a little hard to realize that I'm not in the shape that I need to be in order to do that classload. I did want to make it again on Thursday (Wednesday is just too soon after rehearsal), but I got stuck at work with new interns and was only able to make it to FIGHT - just in time to get more bruises on my arms from knife sparring. Shane has really sharp fingernails, btw. I know. He dug them into my wrist and I still have the marks today!

Anyway, meeting for Midsummer tomorrow morning and then lunch with Cute Guy and the girl who is taking over his internship for this coming year before rehearsal tomorrow. Might go see Ragtime tomorrow night with her, too.

Go Phelps!