Forms Class

Class last week was devoted to forms.  I had a great time, even though I can really feel the difference in my lung capacity now.  I tried to do everything a little slower than normal and paid extra attention to my breathing.  But I was still panting at the end of the longer forms.

The method for learning forms at my school is that you have to do ten push-ups every time you make a mistake. I think it is supposed to encourage upper body strength, since almost everyone messes up here and there.  But I hate doing push-ups so much that I always make it a huge priority to memorize my form as quickly as possible, just so I can avoid them.  It's probably why I can still hardly do ten push-ups.

At the end of class, the black belts did Kum Gong form.  I love this form.  It contains no kicks, but it manages to be very powerful all the same.

You can see a video of a black belt doing it here:
Kum Gang Video

The part where I'm supposed to balance on one leg?  Not really going so well.  I'm kind of tipping over a lot.  Let's blame the baby.

Back to Class!

Last night, I finally made it back to the dojang for class.  I had been skipping lately, mostly due to the morning-all-day-all-night sickness.  When I have been in the past, it felt like working out on a stomach full of bad tacos -- everything would get all shook up and I would be on the verge of puking within about 20 minutes.  Good times.

But last night was different.  For one thing, since Wednesday night is Forms Night at my school, I was able to participate with the rest of the class instead of working out on my own.  I guess I forgot that the peer pressure of working out in a group is one of the reasons why I prefer martial arts to, say, an eliptical machine.  I give up when I'm on my own, but I'm too proud to quit when other people are doing it with me.

I felt pretty good during class.  Now that I am four months pregnant, I noticed that I got winded more quickly than usual, but I also recovered pretty quickly, so it didn't seem too bad.  Stretching felt good and was also harder than it used to be, but that may just be because I have been absent from class.  I know I am supposed to be doing yoga at home, but that hurts, so I have been avoiding it.

For part of the class, I took a new girl aside and showed her tae geuk Il Jang (yellow belt form).  She is transferring from another school where they learned some other kind of forms, so she has to learn the ones we do before she is allowed to promote.  The first three forms are all very similar to each other and I warned her that even those of us who have been doing them forever get them confused, so I told her to practice a lot over the holiday break.

At the end of the hour, our instructor asked the black belts to perform Koryo and Tae Bek.  Nothing like a double side kick to make a girl feel like a giant whale.  I remembered all the steps, but my moves are not as crisp as I want them to be.  Sigh.  Always something to work on.

Walking The Dog

Mornig sickness is making trips to the dojang inconvenient, so I've been trying to walk the dog every day instead.  I have to admit that one of the very best things about being home all day is that I can get outside on nice afternoons (and cold, soggy ones) to take him out.  The only downside is that I am frequently reminded on our walks that I'm going to need to get a stroller soon.  I don't want to shop for that.  They are all so ugly.

Martials Arts While Pregnant

Because taekwondo includes a wide variety of exercises, I figured it would be pretty easy to modify it for the pregnant body.  Even though my body doesn't look pregnant yet.  It just looks like I gained fifteen pounds.  Fun.

In general, it's really just a matter of avoiding getting kicked in the baby area.  And not falling down.  I hear us pregnant ladies fall dwn a lot.  I haven't fallen down yet, but I have walked into the coffee table at least half a dozen times.  Does that count?

For the kind of taekwondo I practice (WTF/Olympic style), this boils down to:

• No sparring, not even light contact or no contact, because accidents can happen.  I mean, I was sparring a six year old over the summer and he managed to punch me in the eye.  At least I think that was an accident.
• No self-defense practice.  It's the whole "don't fall down" thing, I guess.
• No jumping techniques.  Cuz I might fall!
• Limited or no sit-ups, ab workouts, or strength training that requires me to be on my back.  Sit ups have been feeling funny lately anyway.  I don't think that part of me is in the same place as it was three months ago.
• Lots of forms.  These are my favorite anyway, so yay!
• Lots of stretching.
• Lots of kicking and punching.

I think I will be able to modify most of the training exercises on the spot during class.  I also plan to work out on my own when necessary.  And, perhaps most importantly, I'm going to give myself a break when I feel like it.  It should help that the weather is a lot cooler now and I won't have to work out in hundred-degree-plus temps anymore (last summer was a tough one).

Exercising While Pregnant

I hope this can become a theme of this blog, because I am discovering that working out while pregnant is a little trickier than I originally thoughtit would be.  I belong to a dojang where I study taekwondo, and since I started seven or so years ago, I have worked out with one woman who was pregnant and heard rumors that there had been another one before I arrived -- so I didn't think it would be a big deal to keep doing martial arts when I got pregnant.  Yes, there are modifications to make, and I will probably go into those in another post, but a lot of it can transfer quite easily.  Forms, my favorite part of taekwondo, are just fine.

However.

A few weeks ago, I went to the doctor to confirm my pregnancy and had an unpleasant conversation with the nurse.  There were about a million forms to fill out and I had to check off all kinds of boxes about my own medical history and that of my family.  One of the questions: what kind of exercise do you do?

I put down everything: martial arts, cycling, walking, jogging, swimming.  The nurse went over my forms with me and when we got to that question, she told me that walking and swimming were just fine.  Martial arts and jogging would need to be modified (I was expecting that).  And then she told me I had to quit riding my bike.  I was shocked, and then she gave me her explanation:

"You don't want to get hit by a car, do you?"

Now, I'll admit that she was right.  I don't want to get hit by a car.  In fact, I would include that item pretty high on a list of things I never want to happen to me.  But what does it have to do with being pregnant?  I mean, let's face it -- I would rather not get hit by a car even when I'm not with child.

My husband helped me buy my first bike shortly before we got married, about three or four years ago.  He loves to bike around town, and we made a habit of biking to dinner, to the movies, downtown, to the bar, anywhere we wanted to go.  I commuted to work by bike about twice a week when I had a job and it was about eight miles each direction.  In all this time -- riding on the road with traffic, riding at night, riding out in the country, riding downtown at rush hour -- I have been hit by a car exactly zero times.

I was a little upset at the nurse's answer, because it was so obviously bullsh*t.  And if she was feeding me garbage about cycling, then I had to face the possibility that everything she told me during that meeting was garbage.  (And since one of the other things she said was that I would "never remember anything" from that meeting, and I can still recall most of it, I don't think I actually believe anything she told me.  I switched to a different practice.)

But dealing with this nurse throws into high relief something I'm learning about being pregnant: there's no way to make everyone happy.  Most non-pregnant people seem to think you should be on the couch with your feet up most of the time, except then you read in all the books about how fat you are going to get if you don't start working out more.  But don't work out too much or you are going to faint and/or end up with a stupid baby or something.  So.  I can't make everyone happy.  I can just do a little research on the things I like to do and try to keep myself and my unborn kid safe.

Whatever I find out in my search, I'll put it here.