Elite Team .....Day 5 and 6

Elite Team Blog Day 5 and 6
 
Day 5 –

The kids graduated to 400 kicks non-stop per leg.  They must do both legs before they let their partner have a turn.  I thought that would slow them down…but it didn’t.  Altogether, the kids did 1600 kicks each leg.  That means they did 3200 kicks total for the day.  They didn’t even bat an eye.  It was no trouble at all for them. 

Their minds have gotten stronger.  I pointed this out to them by saying, ‘ you did 1600 kicks tonight.  The first night of Elite Team you did 100 and 4 of you cried like babies.  Look at how strong your mind has become.  What else can you do?  Aren’t you a little curious about how awesome you could really be?  Let’s find out!’.  That’s called planting seeds.  A ‘seed’ is a thought process that gets people to move in a different direction…..a better direction….a more beneficial direction.  At no point do I ever remember someone telling me ‘Let’s found out how awesome you can be’.   I have only found the planting of seeds to work when there is some sort of emotional attachment to the seed.  For instance, I made them feel pretty good about how many kicks they did…they were all smiles.  When I saw that sense of pride and accomplishment, I planted the seed of new possibilities.

The kids did:  130 push ups, 50 sit ups, and 50 jumping jacks.  You can see that they are improving.  Last week, on Friday, they did 130 push ups, 108 sit ups and 330 jumping jacks.  Last Saturday, they did 134 push ups, 60 sit ups and 171 jumping jacks.  When there is no interruption in the Elite Team training, you can see the improvement.

I added a new rule:  The last group finished with kicks on the wall does it twice.  Kaitlyn and Akshay won that!  They did double the kicks that everyone else did.  I do this to motivate the kids to get their work done quickly.  They don’t have time to whine or complain.  They just have to get it done.  I set the rules up so that the most important thing is the task at hand.  When the rules are synergistic with result that I want, it puts the students in a position where THEIR goals are the same as my goals.  So, we pull the cart in the same direction.  The kids start forming what seem to be their own goals….but they are goals that I set and they are motivated to achieve.  I put them in a position where they WANT to perform not because I said so…but because they WANT to.  Over time, this concept gets linked up in their minds and becomes part of their character.  We all want our kids to WANT to do well. 
I had one kid throw up during the class.  He had eaten too close to the start of the class.  He did NOT want to sit out.  I wound up getting him to contact his mom and dad and inform them of what had happened.

We talked about partner responsibility.  It is your job to get your partner to do things right.  You are their accountability partner.  You can yell at them, talk to them or slap their hand or foot…just keep them moving and keep reminding them to be strong and keep going NO MATTER WHAT!

We went over hitting with the first 2 knuckles.  Then we tested it on our partner with a game I call ‘Frog’.
We went over the back fist and the punch combination. 
 
Day 6-

The kids graduated to 500 kicks per leg.  The have to do both legs before their partner gets a turn.  They did 1000 kicks today.
The kids did 74 push ups….50 sit ups….and 100 jumping jacks.  They finished the 50-50-50 drill in 20 minutes.  So, I let them out of a lot of kicks on the wall. 

Kaitlyn and Akshay were the last ones finished with the kicks so they did them twice.  That’s right…they did double what everyone else did.

I took the kids over backfist, punch and ridgehand.  Those 3 techniques comprise their own hand fighting system.  I took them over ways to cheat to make the techniques work better.  My techniques are not your average Tae kwon Do techniques.  I modify them to make them work whenever students want them to work.  I teach the kids to modify the techniques.  The definition of ‘correct’ in the study of combat is ‘whatever works’.  I drill this concept home by saying, ‘correct is whatever works’.

We played Dynamic Frog.  That is where the both partners can hit each other.  The original form of ‘Frog’ is to stand there and get hit and take turns doing it.

I told the kids that there are distraction techniques and ‘Kill’ techniques.  “Kill’ doesn’t mean you can kill anyone….it just means that it is designed to cause an ‘ouchy’ on your partner.   I told them that we NEVER want to hit anyone with our first hit.  We want to hit them on the second one.  The first one is ALWAYS a distraction move so that their partner will attempt to block it so that there will be an opening created for a ‘kill’ shot…or an ‘ouchy’ shot.

The Team is picking up the information at a fast pace.   This next week we will move even faster.  They are motivated to do the splits to get out of kicks on the wall.  More and more kids are asking me to check them for full splits so they can get out of kicks.  I am seeing ‘fear’ leaving their little bodies.  They are starting to get that they are much tougher than they thought.  They are kicking higher and are getting stronger with every class. 

This next week we start Phase 2 – More information and more contact.  I have a few kids that keep backing up when they are sparring.  That means that there is ‘fear’ there.  I have some special drills that will help them to face that fear and eliminate it.  Hopefully, there won’t be much more backing up.  We are the Elite Team….we don’t back up.  We go forward....into the fray. 
We will start the ‘Top Dawg’ competitions and I will give the kids more opportunities to get out of kicks on the wall.  Your kids are awesome!  Thanks for giving me the opportunity to work with them.

See you soon!
Scott Wilkinson