Perfectly Timed Thunderstorms

 I mysteriously hurt my wrist two days ago, so I opted to stay home from tonight's class since I had a sneaking suspicion we would be practicing the dragon again. I did not have a sneaking suspicion that we would be throwing flying kicks against the hanging bags. 

I. Love. Flying. Kicks. 

All the jealously at not being able to do them with the class got directly funneled into excitement to do my practice kicks à la the fitness test. 

Now normally I do these kicks at the end of the night, and more often than not, quite late at night, (see my last blog post) so I'm normally pretty tired before I even start. (I try to rationalize this by saying, I'd be tired from the rest of the fitness test at that point to so this just adds a layer of realism to the practice). But tonight, I was amped up from the start and I noticed something.

1) I went into the kicks with the mindset of "I saw people throwing some good kicks tonight, I want to throw really good kicks tonight too" so that even when I got tired towards the end of the minute, I was cheering myself on and reminding myself "keep throwing clean, fast, powerful kicks!!! Don't just try to survive till the end of the minute, go faster, go harder"

2) I tried to maintain this mindset in the rest periods between kicks too. "ok the roundhouse is up next, that's your favorite kick, you better make em' extra nice, catch your breath, stay calm, but amp up that fire inside you"

3) A thunderstorm rolled in right in the middle of the kicks; this significantly helped that "fanning the flames" mindset I had during, and in-between kicks. It was almost as though right as the exhaustion was becoming louder than the intent, the external environment was saying "hello! remember, kicks faster than lightning!!!, hit the bag so hard it thunders!!! you seem to be forgetting where you are and what you're doing!"

And at the end all of these things made "External AND Internal Harmonies" flash in glowing neon letters in my brain, reminding me that I need to be practicing consistently reaching and maintaining a level 10 intensity while I do my kicks, and not just the physical techniques and stamina associated with them. 

That, and also that the kwoon needs to be run like a Rainforest Café, with simulated thunderstorms running every 30 minutes or so. You know, flashing lights, playing wind, rain and, thunder sounds, I think it would really help everyone. 😅

Kayley Burke