Taekwondo Training

[EliGirl]

I've had a terrible day (and am hoping for some comfort)

I woke up with a cold. Just the usual; a stuffy nose, sore throat, headache (but not a bad one), and LOTS of sneezing. Unfortunately, though I usually welcome a cold, I didn't want to be sick as I was going to Taekwondo training for the first time in a week because I'd been in England. (I have a second degree black belt in Taekwondo. It's something I really enjoy doing. It's also pretty cool. I can, like, beat people up and stuff. This is me , haha).

I've known my Taekwondo coach for a long time, and while she's kind of a strange person and a really tough coach, she's great. She really cares about all of us. Unfortunately, that means she always notices when someone is sick and makes a big deal out of it. This is a bad thing, because in among the older students there's a kind of hierarchy, and I've worked pretty hard to get to where I am: near the top. As there aren't many girls who are in to Taekwondo and I didn't want to lose face in front of the guys, I resolved to hide it from her and them. This was difficult as I had to endure an hour long bus ride from the suburb where my coach and I live into the city, but I managed to swallow my sneezes. (I've taught myself how to do that to avoid embarrassing situations. Like the one I'm telling you about.)

When we finally got there I escaped into the bathroom and had a fit of about twenty sneezes. When I was sure the tickle was gone I changed into my dobok (those white clothes people wear for martial) and tied my belt around my waist. While I was tying my belt I sneezed again, "heh-KSHHT!" There was no warning, and this worried me, because if another one like that came I wouldn't have time to swallow it.

Before the training for the older students (fourteen and up) most of us come to help out with the younger ones. Our coach assigned each of us some kids and told us to work on fast kicks with them. I was gratified to see how many of them wanted to be assigned to me. I guess I have a reputation. While I enjoy thrashing my peers, with the younger kids I'm much more gentle. While I'm demonstrating that kicking with your front leg is much faster than kicking with your back leg, another sneeze hits. I manage to swallow this one too, but I'm getting tired of it.

After the younger kids leave we have our training. During warm-up (which is another word for our coach mercilessly draining every last drop of energy and sweat out of our bodies through extreme physical exertion) I swallowed a few more sneezes. Swallowing sneezes hurts more every time you do it, so between that and the warm-up (see above description) I was in an extremely bad mood.

After warm-up we have a chance to go drink and stuff, then it's time for sparring.

A word about sparring: It's not an actual fight, it's more like a game. We wear protectors on our forearms, shins and feet. We also wear body protectors and helmets, and the boys wear protectors for certain other body parts as well. The object of the game is to hit the body protector or helmet of your opponent and not to let him hit yours. Hitting the body protector with a regular kick or a hard punch is worth one point. Hitting it with a spinning kick is worth two. A kick to the head is worth four.

Although the guys are stronger, I'm the only one who can hit the helmet with any kind of regularity, while they can only hit it about once a month. I also have the best endurance and speed, and the highest pain threshold (even with all the protectors, it still hurts when someone kicks you in the stomach as hard as he can), so I usually manage to thrash anyone our coach puts against me.

As we put on our protectors, I hoped that our coach would put me against someone fun. I felt like slamming someone into a wall. Fortunately for my bad mood, she put me against D, a cocky red belt who I don't like because he needs some sense knocked into him (and he beat me in our last match. He's good when he's on form).

As we took up our fighting stances, I felt a tickle in my nose again. No, not now, I thought desperately, but it didn't go away. As the fight started, I jumped past him and kicked him in the back before he could see where I'd gone. It knocked him down, and as he lay there for a second I had time to swallow two sneezes.

He jumped up again and aimed a kick at my stomach. I leaped toward him diagonally in the opposite direction from his kick. Not expecting to see me standing right next to him, he didn't even have time to move as I shot a lightning fast kick to his head, my trademark move. He grunted in pain and lashed out angrily with a side kick to my stomach. As it connected, I saw stars and pain exploded in my stomach. I shoved the pain out of my head and dodged as he aimed another kick in my direction.

Suddenly the tickle made it's appearance again. I fought it and aimed for his head again as a distraction as I focused on my next move. To my surprise, it hit, giving me time to swallow another sneeze. Then I made my next move: a spinning fly kick that I just learned and had been dying to try out on someone. That one hit him in the chest, and now I let myself go on the defensive and rest a bit. I dodged and blocked but didn't kick him so much, saving that last energy for the end of the fight.

As I counted down the time in my head, I felt the urge to sneeze again. I fought it for a while, then, as it became too strong, swallowed three sneezes. I dodged a kick to my head, the first he'd tried, and then, as the time was starting to run out, took up the offensive position again. He was tired from being on offensive for most of the fight, and I managed to land five more kicks easily before our coach signaled the end of the fight.

My mood now worse than ever due to a blossoming pain in my wrist, which had born the brunt of blocking a particularly hard kick, I felt a savage pleasure as I heard the score: Me-21, him-3. That would show him.

After training I escaped to the bathroom again, where I sneezed at least thirty times. Then I examined my wrist. It didn't seemed to be broken or sprained. I'd probably just cracked or bruised another bone. I'd put an Ace bandage on it when I got home.

The bus back was terrible. I was in a bad mood, in pain, and my cold was definitely getting worse. I managed to hide those facts from my coach until we got off the bus and went our separate ways.

Now I'm finally home after a long shower and am looking forward to tomorrow, when I don't have to anything, so I can nurse my cold and wrist in the privacy of my bedroom.

_________________________________________

By the way, sorry if this is long, I've been told I run on a bit when I'm talking about Taekwondo.

[Hankysneeze]

Bless you lots hope you feel better soon, your cold and your wrist

[sneezes]

bless you feel better soon x

[Honkytonklagoon]

That was awesome. Thank you for all the detail. It read vividly, all that trying to bury the sneezes between hits. I'm sorry you were hurt -- and in a bad mood. I'm left with trying to imagine how you swallow your sneezes.

[Tracy]

I loved this!

I, for one, am a big fan of long stories. It really makes the whole scenario play out it my head better.

Feel better and take care of that wrist!

[elements]

This was an awesome obs. you kick butt I hope you feel better now. Would you mind explaining the sneeze swallowing thing?

I was confused as well.

[NoV]

Wow - great obs! It would have been amazing if you had managed to use a sneeze to distract him before landing a killer blow

[Pilgrim]

Wow, you landed a spinning fly kick in the first match you tried it? You are good. I'm also impressed you actually managed to hide a cold that bad from everyone under those conditions (the stuff we do to avoid embarrassment huh?) Thanks so much for sharing this story, it was just like an anime lol! I hope your cold gets better soon, and that you suffer the rest of it out of public so you don't have to swallow so many sneezes and add more pain on top of that wrist.

FEEL BETTER

[Cashewnut]

I thought martial arts involved an element of screaming / shrieking aggressively to intimidate your opponents. I second NoV's suggestion that you could have sneezed to distract him.

BTW, do you mean stifling, when you talk about swallowing sneezes? I just wondered, because my limited self-stifling expertise (or lack of) usually results in a "ball of air" sensation going down my throat, and requires a certain level of concentration to achieve.

Anyway, thanks for posting a very unique self-obs.

[EliGirl]

To everyone who asked, no, swallowing sneezes is definitely not them same as stifling. It's more like you sneeze but then you do something kind of like a swallow with your mouth (hence the wording) and kind of hold it inside your head. The pressure is insane, which is why it hurts

Actually, my wrist is feeling way better (mostly it's just sore, like a bruise) so I went to training again, but not my training, the younger kids' training. The higher ranking older students sometimes show up to help out. This guy B also showed up. I like him because he actually respects me for being a girl instead of the opposite, so I don't have to act tough around him. He wasn't at training last time, and I found out that this was because he was home with a bad cold (which is probably where I got mine).

So we were both recovering from colds, and he was at this stage where his nose was really tickly, so he sneezed a lot (you can all see where this is going ) Anyway, he sneezed several times during the training. He has this really loud sneeze that sounds like "HURESHOO!" and everyone jumped every time he sneezed. I teased him about it a bit .

At one point we got up in front of the class to demonstrate a cool kick that's really fast, and he sneezed and I jumped backwards, so I guess using a sneeze in a fight is a good tactic .

[cheetah]

Great obs! I'm not usually into that but I loved this!

I know what you mean by how sparring hurts. Trust me, it's way more painful down here in the lower part of the hierarchy. Kudos to you for keeping control the whole time!