Eh. The less said about days 38-50, the better. Not that I did too poorly, although days 38 and 39 were bad food days for me (I let other peoples' eating habits influence mine, and made poor choices in what to eat). The past two weeks have been very busy at work, and fast foods worked their way back into the rotation. At my worst over the past 14 days, I was only up to 319, and I've managed to work myself back down to even losing a pound from my day 37 low point. The rubber's meeting the road, though. It's now exactly one month before I head back home for Thanksgiving, and 33 days until the reunion. Thanksgiving will be an interesting test. I tried staying on Medifast while I was home for the 4th of July, and pretty much totally failed. However, I'd only just started Tae Kwon Do, and wasn't seeing much in the way of results yet. Now there's more at stake. I'm 26 pounds lighter than I was almost 2 months ago. My gi fits better, I'm better able to participate in the calisthenics, and I feel better. Preserving that is a motivator.
Speaking of Tae Kwon Do, at the in-school tournament (just a competition between the three schools owned by our Master) I took first in my ring for both weapons and one-step sparring. I totally rocked the weapons form, though I felt bad for R. He could have competed with either Bahng Mahng Ee (stick) or Ssahng Jeol Bong (nunchucks). We'd spent the testing cycle working on a Bahng Mahng Ee form, but he'd been praticing with the chucks. He ended up doing the Bahng Mahng Ee form at the tournament, but decided to embellish it with some hand moves that weren't part of the form we learned. Specifically, he was moving his hand with the strokes at the beginning of the form, where we were taught to keep the empty hand up in a guard position. I think he probably got downscored for the improv, because the rest of his form looked pretty good. About the only thing I did that others didn't was to really emphasize the four slow strikes at the start of the form, trying to demonstrate strength and control. There was also a part of the form most people forgot (rolling the BME backward right after the round kick before rolling it forward, kneeling and smacking the mat with it). So, I'm thinking my pathological attention to detail probably got me the win, because everyone else is much more physically capable (more difficult "special moves", more fluid motion). I guess it's kinda like gymnastics. My program was a 9.6 program, and I nailed it...the others tried 9.8 and 9.9 programs, and flubbed some portion of them, resulting in lost score.
I did okay in the one-steps, but my footwork sucked. Since it was organized more like a full-up sparring competition (each match, the winner goes on to compete with others, loser is eliminated), I had to compete against several people. The final match was against S, who's technique was very strong. He's aggressive, but mostly controlled. In his first match, he ended up misjudging a kick and caught J (yet another J) in the chest with a kick. I don't think it was a damaging kick, just enough to startle J, but I believe S got a little rattled by it (he's aggressive, but he's not out to hurt people). It's worth noting that our ring had 7 competitors, 6 of which were from my school, and one from one of the other schools (there are three in the "chain"). S and J and I (me, not someone whose name starts with 'i') all have a good deal of experience with each others' styles, and we practice against each other all the time. So I know what S is capable of, and the kicks he was throwing at me for the win were not nearly as close as he normally likes to get. Meanwhile, not having hit anyone recently, I was trying to get S to "feel the wind" (which is what we've taken to saying when a punch or kick comes particularly close), and succeeding. My back-fists and punches were coming within a centimeter or two of his face, where his kicks were stopping several inches from my chest. As I said, S' technique was much better, his kicks higher and his footwork surer. If I'd been judging, overall I think he deserved the win. But if the judges were looking for "control" (defined as how quick and strong your move is combined with how close you can get without actually contacting your opponent), then I probably benefitted from S kicking J.
Ironically, I've also accidentally hit J. We're going to give him a complex. :-)
Thanks for putting up with the blather. More blather at some point in the future, but I'm going to try to keep up with the weight log.
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