grading

I had my TKD grading last Saturday. I was gutted I didn't get to spar or break, but only a couple of weeks til the competition anyway.

And I just found out on Monday that I passed - B+...woohoo, no longer a white belt :D Hope I get it through in time for the fight.

2 weeks today!

Not a lot happened last week out of the ordinary. The standard weights/tkd/running combo.

Had some fun practicing sparring the last few sessions at taekwondo though, then today we did some board breaking as well.

About 5 or 6 months ago we were doing some breaking in class and, if you're punching, the rule is to punch with your first 2 knuckles; it spreads the impact.  It makes sense. However, despite this advice, I still just went ahead and punched square on with just the middle knuckle.  The board broke, but it felt like that wasn't the only thing.  My knuckle swelled up like I'd superglued a golf ball to it and even up to today, there was quite a big lump with a bit that moved around...not so good.

So when today we were doing more breaking I thought..."Ha, I have learned my lesson, no longer will I just use one knuckle for I have experienced the downfall of this strategy..." Unfortunately, mainly down to sheer incompetence, but partly due to the fact that; with my knuckle being quite a bit bigger than it used to be, in order to punch with 2 knuckles I would need to turn my wrist almost 45 degrees off to the side, I proceeded to use almost entirely my middle knuckle...again...and...once again the board broke.  But...once again my knuckle swelled up like I had pumped it full of helium.

And now it looks a bit like this:

And that's after icing it for half almost half an hour...
I could have someone's eye out with that if I punched them!

I'll be wrapping my knuckles carefully in Doncaster I think!...

Had a decent run on Wednesday as well.  Just over 3 miles at a steadyish pace.  I think I'm going to start increasing the distance in a couple of weeks time, this time though I'd done a few sprints along the way and I was totally ready to come in after 3 miles.

Indoor football starts again tomorrow as well, so weights at 3, football at 6...let's see how that one goes!