I love one hour classes

Over the years, I've attended regular classes that lasted 2 hours, and some that lasted 1.5, and some of a single hour. Always liked the longer ones best.

Now I'm an old fart, and I find a single hour just dandy. I really like to push myself, and if the time were longer, I'd find myself holding back.

During warmup, doing standing exercises, I'm in horse stance. Nobody else is. During basics, I try and move fast. When punching, I punch full speed.

By class end, I'm tired, but it's a good tired. Can't do this in a longer class. Did I mention that I'm an old fart? If I was younger, I'd prefer longer classes.

I learned about the joys of pushing myself from a student of mine. His name is Raymond Kim. He told me that he noticed that he sometimes held back. He'd end a class having put in a reasonable effort, but that he could have done more. He decided never to settle for this, and switched to 100% all the time. He said that he knew he could complete anything we threw at him during a class, and could do so more fulfilled and better trained. I agreed. Why save anything? Did I need it for the trip home? Hardly.

Now I like classes of a length I know I can easily finish, even at a hard pace. I like to make it harder on myself than the instructor is asking.

Now if I could just remember Soichin.....