the week in taekwondo

firstly, i'm stupid. i didnt realize blogger had a photo uploader. i wonder whether there's a size limit?

my message to ucsd: Welcome back from spring break! Now stop slacking and come kick! i'm fresh out of collegiate nationals, and this time i videotaped a ton of awesome finals matches. so i'm going to kick like it's the only thing in the world. (it is.)

but also, SORRY about monday practice. lol. this is what happens when dojang and collegiate club mix, when korean tradition and western customs mix, when spring break and competition mix (or collide head on.)

master baik from oceanside studio will most likely be our coach this quarter. and he will most likely be our instructor in the future, when i leave the school. however, with nothing but respect, at the moment he is neither, and UCSD taekwondo is not oceanside studio #2.

i sympathize with his eagerness, however. when i arrived at ucsd all i wanted was to whip the competition program into shape. because i wanted something like CW boston - i hadn't found oceanside studio yet. but eventually i've come to realize that a collegiate club is about having fun, learning taekwondo, and being part of a social scene, much more than about training for competition. and the fluctuation of attendance, and the rise and fall of membership on our facebook group, reflects popularity of our club.

so basically i've come to realize that we NEED regular curriculum - we need demo teams, traditional forms and practices, lower key workouts, as well as high energy competition workouts.

of course you can't blame master baik. the workout we ran was like 1/3 of the tiredness i feel at a regular oceanside workout. but i think for so many people freshly back from spring break (annie, craig, michelle, jessica) and who we REALLY need to stick around this quarter, i'm afraid that it would scare them away. what's the balance between going easy and keeping a workout challenging? i may not be an expert but i think i have a better feeling about it, and i know monday was too hard.

well anyways. i know my time at ucsd will be limited. i almost regret having to leave the club next year or two, without having really established it under a model that our current generation would like. i have a feeling that eventually the club will either die or become oceanside studio #2. but hopefully we can work something permanent out...we've already started creating belt test curriculum, and it's just up to the future leaders to be able to enforce it and keep it up.

well, here are some cool images from nationals.