New here!

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-02-2003
New here!
17
Fri, 01-14-2005 - 11:50am

Hello, I'm Melissa living with dh Ron who is active duty Air Force. I live on the central coast of California, so have no excuse to be overweight! Other than I love food! I have a great gym and other outlets to work out and all for free thanks to our base facilities. But, I also work and have 2 kids to keep going. Oh yeah, and the husband too! I would like to say hello to you all, and also suggest for some of you maybe to try Curves for Women. I did it for a year, til I finally started going to the gym on base. It is not too expensive, and works great. It is full of supportive friends and just women. And no mirrors. I miss it, but had to cut out some money spending.

Anyway, I hope to get some good advice and meet similar ladies to myself. Course, I am getting ready to turn 39 next month so in about a year I'll have to go on to the 40's board! Sheesh, where does the time go?

Take care!
Melissa

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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-26-2004
In reply to: cheyennemom
Fri, 01-14-2005 - 4:48pm

Oh yes, I've tested, but our tests are less formal than even the Taekwon Do tests. They have group gup test on scheduled days. I haven't seen a test in TKD.

The belt progression for both of these Korean disciplines is white belt, yellow belt, yellow belt/green stripe, green belt, green belt/blue stripe, blue belt (this is the tough one. It's where people quit or stick with it.), blue belt/red stripe, red belt, red belt black stripe (where I must test soon), then one more black stripe on red belt, then black belt.

In my discipline, we test with a black belt during class before we are awarded each stripe or belt. The test takes anywhere from 5 minutes, like you said about white belt, to most of the class as one reaches higher ranks. Master Jamie watches our progress and then mentions to us that she believes we are ready to test. If we concure, she gives us a test date. And I am always nervous when getting ready for a class in which I am testing. I often fear that I'll mess up the opening forms (we do as a class after warm ups) that I've been doing since white belt on that day because I'm nervous about testing.

The other thing is that we don't know with whom we will test. It's usually been Jeff for me, but we could test with any of the black belts. It's not like I dislike any of them. they're all good, but all just a bit different.

Black belt testing is scheduled months in advance and is a closed testing session. The other black belts and Master Jamie, our instructor, and Master Johnson, the owner of the school, attend along with those testing. And sometimes, the Grand Master from Korea is in the country and he attends. I so hope that's not the case when we test, more added stress.
But then, I guess if you're ready, you're ready no matter who's there.

Oh we do have to present like a research paper for black belt testing as well.

Sounds like your test are a bit more intense than are ours. But when you get down to it, we all earn those black belts don't we though.

Lor

lorie6-26-09.png Lorie 6-26-09 picture by runningwomen

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-04-2003
In reply to: cheyennemom
Fri, 01-14-2005 - 5:16pm

Welcome to the board!!

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-17-2004
In reply to: cheyennemom
Sun, 01-16-2005 - 10:38am

Hello Melissa and welcome!


I agree that Curves really does work if you are dedicated to it.

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Fear

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-18-2003
In reply to: cheyennemom
Mon, 01-17-2005 - 10:48am

Thanks for the rundown.

~~ Steffy ~~
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-26-2004
In reply to: cheyennemom
Mon, 01-17-2005 - 4:46pm

I too am interested in the traditions involved in other martial arts. Your testings seem to be very formal.

Was upper body strength a problem for you in your training? The reason I ask is, two things really, the big one is that we are working on some break falls, front rolls and back rolls, and with the more difficult ones we are supposed to learn from kinda a handstnad position. I'm having difficulty with that even though I do a bit of weight work. The second thing is that my punches seem to lack power. That could be technique, ugh I hope not though.

I'm going to try to find a spotter when I get to class early and see if I can work on the handstand against the wall kinda see if that helps.

lorie6-26-09.png Lorie 6-26-09 picture by runningwomen

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-04-2000
In reply to: cheyennemom
Tue, 01-18-2005 - 7:48am
Welcome, Melissa!
sig-winter10

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-30-2003
In reply to: cheyennemom
Tue, 01-18-2005 - 10:03am

Hey Melissa,

Welcome to the gang from Freezing (but loving it) NYC.

Robyn

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