Day 1 - Saturday - November 22

Showed up for class today, ready and pretty excited to get started. I have wanted to study KM for a couple of years and had been too busy to do it.

Here is how class went today. Went in and met the instructors Gail and Dante both licensed by the IKMF. They wanted to know my back ground in martial arts, which wasn't much just some Kung Fu, and some Tung Soo Do, I also wrestled for 5 years. (My junior year I captained the wrestling team, but we weren't all that good.) Dante took me aside and worked with me to understand what I knew, just the basics front kick, side kick, jab, cross, hook, uppercut, combinations, etc.

Class starts and we are doing warm ups. I am 38 years old and 40 pounds over weight. I almost puked in my first class. About 15 minutes in we started the actual class. First of all, we had a student lay on their back with all the other students holding on to pads and attempting to hold them down. The student had to fight their way out. Everyone was encouraging each other to get out, to push harder. It kind of got you into the mindset that this class in not for you to learn how to sing kumbaya, but instead how to fight for your life if need be.

Soon the other students were learning how to defend against a headlock and I was going over the basics with Gail. Gail is about 49 years old and looks like she could be 40. Very fit. She is a G2 and really seems to enjoy what she does. We work on the 360 defense and inside defense, as well as defending yourself against a choke. All of these movements demand that you really really work at it. No laziness. You learn to block and immediately counter. With all of them she kept getting faster and faster. It was really cool. The another student came over - Dwan - and he went even faster. Everything was cool until I accidentally caught Dwan in the face. I apologized and he was like, "don't worry about it". Very nice guy.

So, while I am very pragmatic and tend to not sign up for things until I have really thought about them.....I broke down and signed up for 2 classes a week.

Any questions about KM I probably don't have the answer but you can ask.