30.12.2011 / 2nd Christmas camp for red & black belts2 coments

Snow? Not available :-)

And it´s here again. Man who had problem with every school essay was assigned to write for this website again. Me!
I don´t know how to start so I will write down everything I think about and what I remember after New years´ party.
So...when Ondra sent us email about second Christmas camp I did not
think even for a minute and signed in. I knew from last year´s that it is great opportunity to get to know each other better, get some new motivation and also leave Prague for few days (and all the nasty food and "have to lazily watch TV whole day" mood).



Now a bit about how this event is organized. In the morning Martin Svitek´s "itsoldbutworksperfect" car again got lazy, so we waited about an hour on Černý Most until he got other car, but still we arrived to Malé Svatoňovice at noon. I was a bit sad that weather is the same like in Prague, no snow, just fog and rain. It was time of lunch so we ate some pasta Ondra prepared and I have to say his cooking skills are improving year after year (Ondra: my mother did it, not me). Most of us spent time before training playing BANG card game - what a surprise. Then we moved to budohall which is perfect - judo tatami, punching bags, makiwara. First training was led by Ondra (Vrábel) who explained some applications from patterns up to Kwang-gae and we also practiced it in pairs. I have to say it was hard for me to change from creature lying in sofa watching TV to taekwondist, my patterns were awful, no power, but slowly it changed and I´ve enjoyed it. We did some wrestling and grappling after training so we were tired but happy.
We finished pasta for dinner, but our stomachs were bottomless so we ate all christmas candies, salami and everything else we found. We also listened to Svíťa´s (Martin Svitek) short 3 hours talk about posture, streghtening, conditioning and avoiding injuries which was pretty interesting for me and I think for everyone, because we all practice for many years and don´t want to be crippled in age of 40 racing on wheelchair. After this we had enough time and power to drink a bit, play Activities (which I consider a perfect game for all training camps if some people won´t be shy...but we will force them :o) )



We went to Adršpach rock next morning just after breakfast. It was not so romantic without snow, at the other hand we walk through them (last year snow and sunset stopped us). Prague people got starving quickly in the forest so we went to Salamandr restaurant, ate like pigs and had to sleep mroe than hour before training. Of course we weren´t very attentive at the beggining of training so Svíťa started with some perception games and posture corrections in strenghtening exercises, than we practiced lowkicks to bags and matsogi (sparring) without sport rules which I consider useful for self defence and we are working on it during Saturday seminars.


After dinner there were another lecture, this time by Ondra. He talked about terminology, deeper understanding of techniques, history of Taekwon-do etc. You probably understand that this also wasn´t short at all...but interesting. Loosers went to bed, strong guys (and lady) watched british sitcom Black Books.



Strong guys (and lady) were very tired in the morning and went to bed again after breakfast (and of course we said to the rest that it is because ugly weather). But all of us went for training which was led by Píďa (Pavel Zavadil). We did some freestyle techniques. Most of us probably considered these as never to be accomplished, but after a while we found how to improve and managed to do some basics. It was the gretest motivation for me, because I felt that even after so many years of practicing there is a lot of work ahead of me to control my body. I will try to learn them once. Píďa of course added some killing workout for abdomen....I´ve nearly died!


We packed our things, ate all the rest of food we found and went for another hike. We went to czechoslovakian border´s concrete fortress and then to Ostaš rock. These rocks are smaller than Adršpach but much more funny. There is plenty of holes, caves, stairs and you feel like children in jungle gym. It ended at woderful viewpoint. It was getting dark so we ran (really some of us ran...for fun probably..). and drove home. Of course we took some meal in restaurant of uncle Mac. I came home tired, but before falling asleep I was thinking about what I want to improve in next year.



I think that this camp was worth of coming and accomplished its purpose. Well spent days with friends, Taekwon-do, nature...all of it inspired me for my future practicing.