Brown & Blackbelt class, 2nd class. Basics again. Yep, this will be 2 straight hours of basics. We started off running 6 laps. Then did plyo box jumps. I’m decent at these so it wasn’t too bad on me. We then dug into the 5th set of Self Defense like we’ve been doing. Drilling it nice and slow and deliberate.

The second half of class got interesting. We did 4th set of Basics. Yop Chun Gin, Yop Chun Don, San Sun Yop Chun Don, and Yak Su. I know these pretty well but have practiced them the least. So the movements aren’t burned into my brain very well. But we drilled these up and down the floor going into and out of horse stance over and over. I struggled but didn’t quit. It was so painful but I kept going. I feel like this was a pretty good wake up call for me as to remember what to expect during Blackbelt test. At some point my legs literally went to sleep and I was able to kind of sit down into the horse stance, but then when we lined up for Yak Su, I almost fell over a couple times. It felt pretty weak but I feel stronger for having stuck out class to see what I was made of mentally. I mentally didn’t quit, even if my legs wanted to run home.

We pushed right up to my metabolic threshold tonight. I went out into the parking lot and dry heaved a couple times, thought I was going to lose it but I held it down. I said “Hooyah” when Sensei asked us for any feedback at the end of class and I meant every syllable of it.