This is the Official excellent class thread. If you have had an excellent Gumdo class, one that is so good that something of its equivalent only happens once every few weeks or more then post here about it. Say what day it happened on and talk about a few things that contributed to it being such a good class and one that’s better than normal.


I’ll Lead off,

It was Tuesday May 17th. The class was fantastic. Basics were a little thick and long, but I felt that I needed the extra workout and I embraced it as much as I could. The class was nonstop. We had perhaps a 30 second breather and it was straight into forms, we went through all of the SSGB forms that I knew and we learned and were told something new about each form that we could use to improve and grow stronger upon. Everything from Ki-yups, to stances, to practical application and what direction we were looking in was drilled into us and it was wonderful. It has been along time since I’ve been told some of the thing I was told tonight, things that I was growing uncertain about and needed to be re-focused on. All in all the class was a fantastic workout and I got a chance to have a lot of concepts and basic sequences of many forms freshly re-taught and re-defined to me so that I might better be able to understand them using things I was not taught since I first learned the forms when I was a little too overwhelmed to absorb everything.

Granted my knee was acting up a lot, especially towards the end and I was not able to take Tang Soo Do class afterwards because the joint was giving me too much grief and swelling but I left the Dojang feeling excellent, even more so than normal, I just felt like I had had a fantastic class and was feeling 100% mentally good even if the physical side couldn’t catch up.

We had an excellent class last thursday. Master Smith wanted to get rid of his aging bamboo stalks so he showedus how to cut bamboo that evening. We cut about 6 each, it was a great experience and a little nerve racking as this was my first real use a live sword and one that was very expensive and not mine!!! So I was nervious because I wanted to do well, not cut off a body part by accident, and not wreck Master Smith's tiger sword!!! But we did quite well....I want to do more...

see ya,
d.

Today I might have experienced the two most physically demanding hours of my life. Nothing short of Playoff Hockey is really able to hold a candle let alone contest the kind of exertion of tonight’s back to back HDGD and Tang Soo Do classes. I thought Tuesday was a good day for martial arts, well, today was completely blew Tuesday away…

I can’t even really get into the details, it was simply a nonstop period of physical exertion that slowly and continually escalated to a point of blissful enduring. It was even more intense for me because I’ve been missing quite a few Tang Soo Do classes lately because of my hurt knee so I was pretty far off as far as being in good shape is concerned, couple that with the fact that I am still sore from earlier in the week and the combination is either devastating or enlightening. Tonight it was the second.

I was gobbling it all up, loving almost every minute of it. The more it hurt, the more I wanted to push harder, the harder it was to breathe, the more powerful my techniques got. I’m glad that class isn’t like this everyday, because my frame of mind isn’t always as strong as it was tonight, but I am really glad that we got a good chance to push it so hard today.

I am going to be so sore for the next few days, it is such a good feeling. I’ve almost always worn soreness like a medal. To me it is a sign of accomplishment and the longer the soreness lasts the greater the accomplishment was. Wow did I need a day like this, I never would have thought or said it, but it really helped me put things into perspective.

I will put out a big thank you to Master Jenko, the cause and answer to all of this weeks physical pain and mental growth

Haidong!!





You know, if i could post something in this thread every week or twice a week then my training would be benefiting by leaps and bounds continuously, I think that i and everyone else should try and post in this thread as much as reasonably possible. Sometimes you might notice or learning something about your training just by writing about it that you would have overlooked or not thought of if you just took every class in stride. Be PROUD of your training, and when it makes a significant emotional, physical or spiritual impact in your life, day, week or month then share it. It’s good for you, the art and the community as a whole to really talk about our training in general.

Haha, I just remembered that I was promoted at the end of TSD class tonight. You would think that something of that kind of significance would be right at the top of my thoughts, but in reality tonights training had very much more significance in my eyes than the new colors around my waist.

The best class I had was my last offical pratice as a Salisbury University HDGD club student. Its hard todescribe the feeling I had seeing how far the students I had worked with had come. And when it came for final good byes the club gave me a goign away card and their paraises and best wishes. It made me realize i had made a diffrence and that was the best feeling of all. That made all the hard work and training worth it and then some.


Joe Kupina
Salisbury Universty HDGD club

correction on my best class as my master reminded me that his sword is a dragon sword...not a tigar sword... sorry master smith!!!!

I enjoyed my class this morning, although I was there by myself - or perhaps because I was there by myself. I felt free to experiment with rhythm and timing today and broke with my normal custom by setting some music playing.

As I got down to business with Bonguk Gumbub, I started feeling pretty good and was definitely enjoying the exercise. As I reached BG5 I was pleased to hear "You can't bring me down" by Suicidal Tendencies... The frenetic pace and violence inherent in Bonguk gumbub took on a whole new meaning with that song as its backdrop...


I probably find exploring rhythm to be the most challenging part of my forms study so it was nice to have the energy, attentiveness, and ability to generate variation that I had this morning.

If I ever have to do a demo in a strip mall or some other location as intrinsically opposed to personal development, I think I will use that song... as long as no innocents are about.


"...crazy? You wouldn't know what crazy was if Charles Manson was eating Froot Loops on your front porch..."