Ghostwood Farm

I had I have been learning tae kwon do for almost two years now, and hapkido for several months. Most people are familiar with tae kwon do–if you took martial arts as a kid, it was probably tae kwon do. Hapkido is a very different kind of martial art. It is, as is tae kwon do, Korean in origin. However, where tae kwon do is fairly formal and structured, hapkido is more about flow: Less about striking (though there is certainly a large component of striking) and more about redirection, joint locks, throws. I think of hapkido as a more practical defensive martial art, and tae kwon do as more of a sport. Many of the techniques translate, of course, and tae kwon do can be formidable. But everything in hapkido is designed to protect the practitioner and neutralize the attacker.

At our school, belt progression is as follows:

White
Yellow
Orange
Green
Purple
Blue
Brown
Red
Red/Black
Black

The time spent at each rank increases past green, as techniques and forms become more difficult. I earned my brown belt in tae kwon do on 9 June, and I anticipate, if all goes well, earning my red belt in October. In hapkido, I earned my orange belt in June.

II.

I have had a recurring nightmare for as long as I have been an adult. In it, a “bad guy” or guys are chasing me and/or my family. Best I can remember, in this dream I am always armed with my S&W 4006 pistol–never a shotgun, never a rifle, never a revolver, and never, best as I can remember, unarmed. The location frequently changes, though it is often the house where I grew up. I shoot the bad guys, I hit the bad guys, but they don’t stop coming. In the most recent iteration (before Tuesday night), the single chaser would go down, dead, and then come back to life.

I have recently come to believe that this dream reflects a general lack of confidence on my part. No matter what I do, no matter how proficient I am, I can’t do the thing I most need to do. I came to this realization because in the past few months, the dream has changed.

III.

The hapkido classes are much smaller than the tae kwon do classes. The school only allows adults to participate, since it can be so dangerous in the hands of those with less self-control (as well as being dangerous to developing joints). In the classes I typically attend, there are usually only 2-4 students, and sometimes it is just the instructor and me. My most common training partner is a 2nd dan black belt who is a bit larger than me. He is…intimidating. He is also extremely knowledgeable and generous with his knowledge and kind and genuinely, I think, wants to see me succeed. But it hurts training with him!

Keep in mind that, in hapkido, virtually everything is trained with a partner. Frequently we form a circle. The instructor illustrates a technique on the student to his left, who then practices it on the student to his/her left, and so on. Techniques hurt. Many of them are joint locks that can cause severe pain and damage, if pushed too far, so the student getting “locked” taps when it hurts so his partner lets up. One can tap on one’s self, the partner, the floor, or yell, “TAAAAAP!”. Joints are sore afterward, we get taken to the ground or are thrown, so rolling and falling techniques are important. But still, it’s a rare class when I don’t come home sore, and rarer still if I’m not sore the following day.

The other aspect of hapkido that I love and that I also find incredibly frustrating is that it is far more subjective, far less rigorous in terms of technique than tae kwon do. The flow is important: Try a technique, and if you miss or it doesn’t work, move into another. This is very different from the precise methods used in tae kwon do. It’s more practical, but I find it much more difficult to learn. How do I flow into another technique when I barely know the first one I tried? And I find myself being tentative in class because I am not confident. I told my wife that, “After a tae kwon do class, I feel like one of the best students in the class. After a hapkido class, I feel like the remedial kid that can’t get anything right.”

IV.

A few months ago, after earning my blue belt in tae kwon do, I started regularly attending hapkido class. I soon noticed that my conflict dreams were changing. Now, instead of getting into a position where my actions were useless, I found my dream-self addressing conflict with confidence and newly-learned (mostly hapkido) techniques. It was an abrupt change and definitely noticeable: rather than shooting bad guys that won’t die, I found myself manipulating bad guys who were rendered impotent themselves.

My dreams stayed that way for a while, but lately I notice that the seem to go back and forth. I had a particularly nasty one Tuesday night.

V.

For the first month or so, I was only able to attend one hapkido class a week. It’s just not enough to get a grasp of techniques, particularly since I don’t have anyone to practice with at home. So I have been trying to go twice a week now. I just got home from the Thursday evening class, and I went on Tuesday. Tuesday’s class focused on the flow of hapkido, and we primarily worked on defenses against getting punched.

I felt like a complete failure throughout class. I’m a low belt, no doubt, and I shouldn’t know this stuff that well, but I feel like I should be getting it more thoroughly than I am and I am frustrated. One thing in particular stuck with me, was that my partner came in super close to throw punches, like a real fighting distance. It was nearly overwhelming, and in hindsight, I would never let someone actually get that close to me. But it drove home the point that I am nowhere near capable of using any of the techniques that I’m learning in hapkido in a real conflict situation yet, and I think it affected me that night.

VI.

So, Tuesday night’s dream? The house I grew up in was here at the farm, instead of our house. Four trucks full of people pulled up at night, and the leader barged into the house. I had my S&W as usual, but he just kept telling me he wanted me to shoot him. So I didn’t. And he kept getting really, really close to me, and I kept pushing back, keeping a little more range between us. See how that ties in with class?

They drove their trucks through the farm, tearing everything up, and dumping a bunch of abused animals here. That aspect was really weird. I finally shot at their tires while they were driving over my vegetables–go ahead and guess if it did any good.

VII.

What I have put together from this is, on evenings where classes go well, I feel good about myself and have dreams where the bastards can’t get me. On nights when I feel that I trained badly, I lack confidence and have really unfortunate dreams.

Let’s see how tonight goes. Class went all right, though my frequent partner is really excellent at picking apart my techniques. That is emphatically NOT a complaint. It’s incredibly valuable to have someone give that sort of feedback. I hope it will reduce the frustration in the long run by driving my development as a martial artist more quickly.

My goal is to learn both tae kwon do and hapkido. I’m 46. My goal is to reach at least second dan in both, and teach them to others. I am afraid that hapkido is going to take me a very long time, but if I keep learning throughout, I don’t mind. I hope my wrists forgive me. In the meantime, I just got a book on staff fighting, so stay tuned for that…

EDIT:

This is one of those endings that is too perfect, but I swear it’s true: In last night’s dream, I went to a party and got into two different fights with the same guy (who was somehow related to me?). In both cases, I barely won. The first time, I used facial pressure points taught to me by my 2nd dan training partner, and in the second fight, I had an open elbow strike to the groin that I pointed out, so he relented (I guess I didn’t take the strike because he was related to me). Interestingly, in both conflicts I had my holstered sidearm that I never drew but was very aware of protecting from my opponent.

So that’s it. As of right now, I’m confident enough to take a beating but scrape out a victory. Ha!

I like music.

“Like” is such a terrible word.

I WANT music. I REQUIRE music.

I find myself thinking about the idiosyncratic preferences I have in music, the details I hone in on. What do I want in music?

I want a ride cymbal that’s huge, a cymbal that sounds less like hitting a cymbal than hitting a shovel. The ride at 2:40 here is perfect.

I want aggression. Even in quiet songs. But yeah, in loud songs, too.

I want passion. I would much rather hear a vocalist that can’t sing well but means it than someone who sings well but sounds unconnected to the music. I once burst into tears while driving when I was hit with the beauty and majesty of…fIREHOSE’s cover of “Slack Motherfucker.” Really. That guitar, Ed’s voice…at that moment, the power was overwhelming.

I prefer unique voices to good voices. I prefer Guy to Ian. I prefer Billie to Ella.

If it’s loud, I want overdrive, but not usually fuzz or distortion as one might think of it. Overdrive is shouting to make sure you’re heard; distortion is a loud drunk belaboring the point. Distortion is typing in ALL CAPS. Distortion is riding the crash.

I hear the bass guitar first. I think it’s from listening to fIREHOSE. Even when it’s boring and subdued, I hear it first. I want the bass defined, a good balance of treble and bass. Watt’s bass sound is perfect (imagine that).

I want a brutal snare. When I was in college, the drummer in the band I was in broke the bottom head on his snare and replaced it with a tom head. It sounded perfect; it sounded like Jimmy Chamberlain’s on Gish. He swapped it out with another one that sounded more traditional, that had more snap, but the guitarist and I would switch it back whenever he wasn’t looking.

I don’t generally like female vocalists but I’ve never been sure why. The two big exceptions, Fiona Apple and Neko Case, have low voices for women, and are very powerful. I could listen to Neko sing a damn phone book.

I want dynamics, but not artificial dynamics, and not dynamics that make a record difficult to listen to. I tend to think Steve Albini ruins records.

I want bands that get better with each release, or at least that don’t peak with their first record. Crooked Fingers. Archers of Loaf. fIREHOSE. Dinosaur Jr. Fugazi. The Beatles (who didn’t even get GOOD till Rubber Soul or so). The Police. Elvis Costello. Tom Waits. Love and Rockets’ next-to-last record was their masterpiece. The Pixies best two records are their first two; each after that is good, but slightly less good than the previous one. That makes me sad.

I want music I can enjoy with my kids that isn’t kid music. My kids love Elvis Costello and Billy Bragg.

I want singers who sing the songs they write, even if they aren’t the best singer. There isn’t a Dylan, Neil Young, or Springsteen cover I prefer to the original.

I want music that sounds like I can play it. Simple but effective.

I want jazz that’s melodic, but in which the melody is a bit fast and loose. Mingus is the best at this. I also love mid to  late-period Coltrane. I used to really get into old bebop, but now, it kind of reminds me of Steve Vai–technically impressive, but not as enjoyable as Blue Train. or Mingus Ah Um. Or even Kind of Blue.

I want noise, but controlled noise. It may not seem controlled at the moment, but then, suddenly, they come out of it and move on together, with precision. Fugazi and Archers are both really good at this. Sonic Youth noise bores me. Noise for noise’s sake isn’t interesting.

Music is life, but it’s subjective, innit? There is a lot of music out there not worth your time, but much more than you’ll ever hear that is. Judge music by your tastes; don’t judge people for theirs.

Happy listening.