Monday 27 August 2012

Countdown is progressing

Only a few weeks to go until the grading and things are slowly coming together. My thesis is put to bed and ready for printing, just need to type out my pattern breakdown and set out a précis of the blog posts and forum entries. This grading cycle has proved really tricky with so many things competing for my attention that sometimes I've just ended up like a rabbit in the headlights, frozen, not knowing where to go and what to do. You would have thought the second time around that things would be easier, but to me this has been much harder than my first BB grading cycle. I thought work was demanding then but in the last 18 months it has dominated my week, leaving little time for family and training, coupled with the need to keep a fitness regime going (don't forget one of my goals is to complete a half marathon)it sometimes just got too much and I needed to just sit down and relax. Last night my wife asked me if I was ready for the grading and my response was a qualified 'Yes' I think my thesis is really good, my pattern breakdown could be better, my personal demo is not great due to numerous set backs with training partners and my personal bug bear, theory, is a constant battle. When you write it down like that I'm not sure I am ready! For me it's about giving it the best attempt you can, I have slowly accepted the fact that I cannot devote the time to training that I used to do as personal time is squeezed by work and family commitments have to take precedence. The school has a good mix of students but most fall into the category of young enough to not have the same personal responsibilities and commitments or old enough that they have moved past that into a time of maximising their free time to pursue what they want to do. If I was to put my pre BB head on from 3 years ago I would be stinging in my criticism of myself and would definately say I was not ready, had not prepared enough and not deserving of a 2nd Dan. Today I have to look at the last 6 months and reflect upon it with a different eye. I can't be as uncompromising now as I was then, I was in a different space, time has moved on, and me with it. With an older and hopefully wiser head I am accepting of the fact I have done, what I feel, as much as I was able to do, in the time given. This is different to saying 'I did all I could do' as there is always more I could have done. I could have gone to training more when I came home late, but then I wouldn't have seen the kids or had time to relax with my wife. I could have devoted more of my weekends to study and practice, but again do I not take the family out or simply veg out in front of the TV watching a film cuddled up to my daughters? On the day of the grading I don't think I am going to be crossing the threshold with the levels of confidence I had at 1st Dan, I am simply going to bow, enter the Dojang and 'show what I know' if that isn't good enough, then so be it, MA training isn't a turn up and get your belt affair. If I don't get promoted then I will just keep on doing what I am doing, accepting of the fact that, with current circumstances as they are, I have reached a plateau in my training. There is still some time to go before the grading and rather than stressing about it I want to look forward to some of the goals yet to attain, my half marathon is in a months time and I have already started to look forward to 2013 with some personal goals in mind. Today was going to be a day where I was going to give some focus on theory, but I have been asked by my youngest daughter to help her with some coursework that she needs to complete before her return to school, so again, life takes me in a different direction.

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