& More Trophies

Oh yeah. This time I've got the good stuff. Well, some of it (mostly the stuff I didn't do) more than others. Let's go through these from worst and/or least interesting to best.

First up, a demonstration of a basic step sparring combination - StepSparring.avi

Next, me breaking four boards with a jump side kick - Break2.avi; I actually was expecting to have to do five boards with a step-behind side kick, but this is what they wanted, instead. When I was getting this off the video camera, I was pretty depressed about my obvious grace (or lack thereof), until I saw that neither of the two instructors did it that much more elegantly than I did :P

Me breaking three boards with a turning kick - Break3.avi

Me breaking three boards with a punch - Break1.avi. Looking at the video, I don't use my waist as much as I should, so there's some extra power to be gained, there.

My instructor breaking four brickish things with a side kick - 4BrickBreak.avi. This would technically be considered a speed break (which is harder than other types of breaks for the same number of boards/hard objects), as neither end of the bricks is really secured. This requires dramatically greater speed to do than normal breaks, because the thing you're attacking is free to move away from you, distributing the impact over time; the only thing holding it in place for you to break is inertia. This instructor is a fourth degree black belt; he was planning on testing for fifth degree this test, but his wife wasn't ready to test for fifth degree, and asked him to wait for her.

The aforementioned master instructor (or is seventh degree considered low grand master? I'm not sure) breaking seven boards with a back kick - 7BoardBreak.avi. It wasn't caught on camera, but if you'd been at the test, you would have seen me rapidly back away from the breaking area when he got up and started walking in that direction :P