& that's the way life goes » tae kwon do

taekwondo sweeps me off my feet – literally

ria — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 15:57:00 +0000

When I recapped my belt promotion pretest awhile ago I conveniently forgot to mention that I fell on my ass. Even after watching it I’m not exactly sure what happened. My foot literally flew out from under me. I’m blaming the plague I had and all the cold medicine I was on. Yeah….

Because I love you and you could probably use a laugh I am sharing it with you.

oops – board breaking fail from rialeilani on Vimeo.

*if you can’t see the video pop out of your reader*

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black belt pretest #3

ria — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 15:45:10 +0000

A year ago I survived my black belt testing for taekwondo. In addition to 2 hours of class testing it also included:

150 pushups, 50 situps
50 roundhouse kicks (50 each side)
5 instances of self defense
One-Step demonstration
Poomsaes
Questions
Board Breaking

Saturday while nursing a pulled hamstring and fighting off a nasty cold I went to yoga hoping to ease the pressure in my chest, as well as the pain in my leg. I came home and sat on the couch counting down the hours until my third pre-test, I have at most 6 pretests before I can test for my 2nd degree. With no relief from the 500lbs of weight on my chest and insistent coughing, I called my dad and told him I didn’t think I was going to make it. He sounded so disappointed I knew in my heart I couldn’t not go. So I sucked it up, got up off my ass and went to testing. My intention was to show support for the other students testing but I was talked into testing myself with the promise I could forgo the first half of class testing by helping out holding hand targets.

waiting for testing to start

When Grand Master came in I had to line up. I still ended up exerting a lot of energy for someone coughing up a lung, including…

120 pushups
2 poomsaes
Self Defense
Board Breaking

I will say that before every testing I will be going to yoga, it helps immensely. I felt limber and the push ups felt a lot easier to do after all those downward dogs.

It was good that I went, my dad had finally received my official paperwork from Korea and wanted to present it to me at the end of belt promotions in front of all the parents. One mom told me afterward that he had gotten it the day before and was so excited to give it to me.

demonstration of how i pulled my hamstring in my right leg

elbow strike 2 1in boards

demonstration sidekick

tips from the Grand Master

*all photos courtesy of A.F.*

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gilmore girls, yoga, testing, babies

ria — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:19:42 +0000

The past weekend was both long and short. It was one of those weekends that bends time. It was packed with events and errands that made me feel like I was constantly running around, yet I had time to park myself on the couch and mindlessly watch half of Gilmore Girls season 1.

After plans changed multiple times on Friday, Jenni and I went to yin yoga. The best idea ever because my legs and hips have been bothering me lately. Maybe I’m getting old. I didn’t want to overstretch anything because I had my first pretest for my 2nd degree blackbelt on Saturday. After laughing because one of the poses hurt so bad my hip was dying in agony, but I woke up Saturday feeling better than I had all week. YES!

Testing went pretty well. The kids were so cute and couldn’t wait to start. It’s amazing how much and fast they learn.

One of my oldest friends baby shower was on Sunday. She is one of those friends that I do love because I’ve known her so long but we aren’t very close. This is the type of event that makes me miss my mom immensely. I must have done something right because karma was nice to me and I ended up sitting with a couple girls from her work that were easy to talk to.

When I got home C was back from up north and he made me dinner. It was delicious and we finished off the weekend by watching Rescue Me.

Now I’m just counting days until Thursday, when my LONG weekend begins. Starting off with Eminem and Jay-Z!

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bring on the bleach

ria — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:42:15 +0000

Last night at tkd my dad told me he was leaving and I needed to teach class. When I asked why he said it was because he pulled an all nighter. Yes people, my dad can hang better than me and pull all nighters.

When FPD asked why he was leaving he told him because he pulled an all nighter and FPD proceeded to ask if it was with his girlfriend.

Um hello…I’m sitting right there. I DO NOT need to know this.

My dad laughs and says it’s because he was up all night finishing painting but wishes it would have been with his girlfriend.

Bleach. I need bleach for my ears, eyes and mind. Seriously.

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holding steady, smiling

ria — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:33:10 +0000

I have a lot of likes right now so here we go:

† I like, love more accurately, spending time with some of my favorite bloggers friends: Sarah, Mandy, Jenni, Supergirl. I like it even more that we shared pain relaxed at Yin Yoga and then chilled with wine on Sarah’s awesome deck with her homemade Pita bread and pasta salad. ps – your house is so cute, I love the colors! And I also ♥ Slayer!
† I like bike rides – especially when they involve touring Southwest Detroit with Jenni and Mallory. I could have done without the helmets though. Knock 3 times!
† I like that I got my bracelet I bought from TheShagBag on Etsy
† I like sparring and getting 2 headshots on my Dad last night. 4 points! He was surprised the first time and stunned the next. They were pretty shots too. He gave me a hug afterward and told me, “It’s about time.”
† I like that I get to hang out with The Watson. She always makes me laugh so hard. Whenever we hang out I always feel a billion times lighter. I just hope I don’t forget my credit card at the restaurant again.
† I like having friends that have turned into sisters because I don’t have worry about losing our friendship, I know she will be there no matter what.
† I like that I’m designing my next tattoo!

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weekend lessons

ria — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 17:20:28 +0000

This weekend was a filled with life lessons:

{via ♥}

When you have something in your head for a very long time that you can’t let go of, Write It Down. Get it out on paper email. It doesn’t matter if you’ve written pieces of it before, put it all together in one sitting. And then send it to a super sweet, awesome friend (you know who you are, words can’t describe how thankful I am to you for making me do it!). Your heart will be lighter, I promise.

Children are not always the devil. I kid, I knew this, but I had a great Saturday with some taekwondo kids. I also found that I enjoy coaching tournaments.
{via ♥}

I love taking pictures. One of the mom’s has a Canon Rebel. It’s fancy and awesome. I spent the other portion of my time not coaching taking pictures. Love. I think I missed my calling :-/
It takes me almost 24 hours to recover from all the commotion of tournaments. Large groups of people, no matter how much I enjoy them, wear me out. I came home after dinner on Saturday with JP and literally soaked up the silence. No irritated parents, no yelling coaches (who take 6-yr-old sparring and losing by a point to a whole new level, hello they are 6 – get over it) just silence. Well with the exception of dog nails on the tile. I then crashed on the couch until C got home from hockey. He was way too hyper so after an hour I laid on my bed in the dark with Liko and Scooby. I fell asleep and got up at midnight to go to the bathroom. I talked to C for a minute, grabbed a granola bar and went back to bed.
{via ♥}

Apparently, I was scaring C. He couldn’t understand what I was doing. He came into the bedroom and asked if I was eating the granola bar in the dark. I was. He then called me a rat, to which I replied I’m more of a raccoon.

{via ♥}

Sunday I was still in recovery mode. We went to the grocery store and then I came home and took a nap on the couch. I think I’m fully recharged now.

How was your weekend?

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yep, i totally did that

ria — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 21:35:10 +0000

One of the most exciting parts of testing, board breaking. I’m not going to lie, watching this is kind of a rush because sometimes I don’t believe I can actually do this shit.

Spin hook kick – 1 1in board, Side kick – 2 1in boards, Elbow Strike – 1 1in board, Axe kick – 1 1in board

Stike – 2 1in boards

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i survived tkd testing – 1st degree!

ria — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 01:40:47 +0000

Surviving Taekwondo Testing 101

I get performance anxiety BAD. (you need an example?) Like I want to throw up or curl up into the fetal position and suck my thumb. Having gone through multiple testing sessions now I’ve learned some tricks on keeping the panic under control.

Deep Breaths – Since I was last to go at everything today I spent a lot of time sitting in lotus position inhaling and exhaling deeply

Observe – While lower belts are demonstrating their poomsaes I quietly whisper each move they are making

Focus – The kids are adorable and it’s amazing how much they learn in a matter of months

Zone the Fuck Out – C told me afterward that he wasn’t sure if even he (the extrovert) would be able to stand in front of all the Masters and parents/families that make up the audience. He also said that while I was standing in front of the Masters answering questions I looked like I was zoned out or stoned on Xanax. Whatever works kids, you better believe I’m going to do it.

I did have a slight mess up on the last poomsae* they asked me to perform, but after 150 pushups, 50 situps, 50 roundhouse kicks (50 each side) on my dad’s back, 5 instances of self defense, One-Steps* and question answering I’m not going to beat myself up over it.

All that was on top of the 2 hours of warm ups and combination kicks that I had done with the class.

My blackbelt will come from Korea, embroidered with my name with one gold strip on the tip to represent 1st dan. You bet you will see a picture! When I get the pictures from KW from her Canon Rebel I’ll be putting some up. C took a few but he didn’t change the setting and they didn’t come out very well.

And this happens to be a pretty good shot of my first tattoo I got on my 25th birthday in Honolulu.

{Malia is Maria in Hawaiian}

*I realize you have no idea what some of these things are, all you need to know is that it’s work. lol

© ria for & that's the way life goes, 2010. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: hawaii, neurosis, omg i might panic, tattoo

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mitten bloggers & yoga are awesomeness

ria — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:04:32 +0000

I had a love/hate affair with this weekend. The LOVES were the best of the best and the HATES well, you know.

The SUPER FUN FANTASTIC

– The mitten blogger meet up, skillfully arranged by Sillygrrl. She planned a great night of dinner and bowling in Midtown Detroit. I haven’t been to the Majestic since I saw Treble Charger play there in 2001!

(Ginger Mandy, JenRem, Maeko, LauReality, Sillygrrl, Supergirl)

Strikes!

This is an awesome group of ladies! I’m so glad I finally got to meet all of you in person. Supergirl (along with Sillygrrl) was one of my first Michigan bloggers in my reader. It was nice to see her face

(Missed you Mel!)

– Hanging out with Maeko before the meetup. I <3 her. She helped me with my makeup and I might have spilled some secrets on the way to the meetup. Afterwards we drove around looking for a grocery store open to buy mac and cheese. But our mac and cheese eating and glee watching plan came apart because of her sick doggie. She also let me borrow socks to wear with the cute bowling shoes they make you wear. It should be said that I was quite bratty about it, but I think I’m ok since she’s family and she can’t exactly get rid of me. Haha.

– Aerial Yoga – I got up on the high trapeze!! And I flipped upside down on the fabric. I don’t have any photographic evidence, but I think Ginger Mandy will vouch for me

– Sparring on Saturday morning. I got Master J in the head. He even stopped to give me a high five. Don’t worry, I didn’t have time to be excited about it because the next round I got a foot, firmly planted in my face.

The CRAPTASTIC

– Going to lunch with my great Aunt who is in her late 70′s who became faint after lunch. I’m the last person you want around when you aren’t feeling well. It was also reminiscent of my mom and completely got under my skin.

– Sunday I got up feeling quite emotional because these past couple of weeks have been really wearing on me. I’ve had a lot of stuff going on. Some really great, some not so fun but things that needed to be done. I’m stressing about my black belt testing and yada, yada. Bottom line I tried to get some errands out of the way Sunday before aerial yoga. I was running late but thought I had enough time time get in and out of CVS. Um no, they’ve only been filling my birth control pills for years now. They took Sunday to mess it up and instead of spending 2 minutes in the store it was more like 15. I might have bawled my eyes out on the way to yoga.

– When I got to yoga I was split up from Sillygrrl and Ginger Mandy. Ok, totally not the day for that, I almost started crying again. Yeah, I was that girl. What a big baby. It turned out ok. I totally saw Ginger Mandy kick ass on the trapeze (you go girl!) and I heard that Sillygrrl was totally climbing the fabric to the moon. I have no doubt, she’s inspirational on the fabric.

– I got home from the grocery store to find Scooby chewed more of the couch cushion we haven’t started paying on.

– I had just made some tea, the dvd ready to play Crouching Tiger Hidden dragon, and made a comforting grilled cheese when someone knocked on my door. My friend AP stopped by with her 2 kids (ages 1 and 3) and husband. While I was happy to see them because it’s been so long, last night was not the perfect night.

How was your weekend?

© ria for & that's the way life goes, 2010. | Permalink | 17 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: aerial yoga, mitten blogger meet up, super fun fantastic

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work it out weekends – 1

ria — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:32:37 +0000

Because Wishcake is so inspiring and because I hate when I’m all emo about my body, I’ve decided to join in Work It Out Weekends

The Hell Yes!

Monday – 10 minutes on the god-awful treadmill and 30 minutes of the 30 day shred

Tuesday – 1.5 hours of taekwondo (including stretching, warm-ups, sit-ups and testing preparation)

Wednesday – 1.5 hours of taekwondo (including stretching, warm-ups, sit-ups and testing preparation)

Friday - 1.5 hours of taekwondo (including stretching, warm-ups, sit-ups and testing preparation)

Saturday – 45 minutes intense sparring (taekwondo fighting). I left the dojo literally dripping (dripping! sick) in sweat and with bruises in places they shouldn’t exist.

Sunday – 1.5 hours of aerial yoga with Sarah and Mandy (which will get it’s own post!)

The Hell No!

The box of Candy Cane Joe Joe’s that are sitting on top of my fridge

Being so hungry when I got home from sparring on Saturday that i had a muffin and then went out for a calorie filled breakfast with C.

The stuffing my face with the pumpkin oatmeal muffins i made

Cannolis

*do you notice that I can’t resist sweets, candy, chocolate and cheese? mmmmmm

I think that I’m off to a good start, I just need to keep at it

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