Another session of enthralling Tae kwon do training! Arriving late, partly because of Usman’s incessant delays, partly because of own tiredness after yesterday’s marathon essay writing endeavour. Of course Shakila’s insistence on escorting Nakeeeba back from mosque also played it’s part. However, Usman and I were here now. Briskly getting changed into our respective TKD uniforms we proceeded towards our already in session class. Bowing in respect to Master Esrar, we were motioned to move to the back to join the class.
No two successive weeks of exercise were ever the same. Master Esrar expertly took us through exercise after exercise, demonstrating then monitoring our progress. Where he spotted issues with execution of his instruction he would either swoop in himself or allow one his ever growing team of black-belts to swoop in and assist. Help was always at hand. What was required was to follow his instructions and to put in some effort. Any technical hitches were promptly put right.
Master Esrar instilled so much self-belief in us that everything he presented as a challenge seemed to possible to achieve. His words were: “everyone here can kick above the height of their own head, if anything prevents you then it would be your mind”.
Yes indeed it was the mind! Words of a mentor rang in my mind like alarm bells in a church on Sunday. “All problems are problems of imagination and all solutions were solutions of imagination”. Another mentor put it like this “what the mind of man can conceive and believe, he can achieve”. So any problems any of us could encounter would only exist in our imagination. As our imagination is in our control at any given moment in time we can overcome our problems by imagining the solution equally as easily. So the obstacle in our paths would be the obstacles we put there. If we put them there then we can remove them as well.
We paired up and a hand held pad was given to us. The objective; to practice a variety of different kicking techniques. The pad would be the target held by one us whilst the other would kick it ten times with the right leg then ten times with the left with the two sets of ten kicks. Completed, the other partner would hold the pad allowing the first partner to perform his or her kicks. Low section kick, high section kick, chopping kick, pushing kick all were practised in turn.
Master Esrar had remembered the point I had made to him about the benefits of pad holding and explained that whilst holding the pad we should be actively involving our mind to think about counter-measures to the incoming kicks as holding the pad provided us the opportunity to observe the kick being delivered. Master stroke! Every endeavour instruct us was serving to teach us something about the art we were learning.
The finale – light sparring, we were separate into age categories and called to take centre stage and engage in a one-one combat with a partner. The objective to put into play all we have learned so far and see if we can score points against our opponents. Body armour adorned we stood to attention facing our opponents. First bowing in respect to our opponent we were signalled to adopt fighting stance and then commence battle. Sharply at the end of a period of a minute the bout was stopped. We changed partners and engaged in battle again. Everyone had the opportunity to partake in at least two bouts. I was fortunate to face 4 different partners, one of whom was a blackbelt. From him I took the biggest beating however, it was from him I also took the biggest lessons as well. Whilst I toiled and strategised to find some way past his defence, he just watched and countered remarkably easily. He seemed to have so much time. My frantic movements to hit him were easily side stepped and dealt with. The only comfort in this encounter was I too one day will engage with an opponent and be able to counter and side step just like Amjad had done to me today. Remarkably, he had done it without hurting me.
It is my belief that any martial arts encounter, be it competitive or be it in a training session both the victor and the defeated are winners. Each gains something, the victor delivers a lesson and the defeated learns a lesson. Both are winners!
