Dedication, and effort paves the way.

Woot! Good day for this little lady! For the first time in all of my efforts of stretching, I lowered my head down to my knee while in the splits, and my forehead TOUCHED my knee. Now.. that might not be a big thing for many people.. but for me, it's a milestone! When your warm up and stretching starts off with such a wonderful surprise, you just KNOW that the rest of the class is gonna go great. It did too.. :-D Although, I'm having a dilly of a time adjusting my targeting. I've only lately realized that punching with the first two knuckles involved not bending the wrist... oh oh.. I haven't been keeping my wrist straight? Oh geez! Gotta fix that! So.. now I'm keeping it straight.. but what is happening is my targeting got affected and I'm punching lower than I should. It takes a strong mental effort to almost punch above what I'm aiming at to be able to keep my wrist straight, and end up where I want to be in the first place. When the pressure is on, and I'm thinking of speed, or my feet, or something else.. my fist will pop down below target again. YEESH! So many aspects to try to pull together at once. Feet, ankles, knees, hips, weight distribution, tension, relaxation, kiai, kime, target, head, eyes, breathing.. but it doesn't end there.. because I'm not supposed to be thinking about it.. It's supposed to happen automatically with a calm mind. AARGH! But then.. I touched my forehead to my knee today.. and I wasn't able to do that since I started karate. WOOT! I can have the hope that one day I'll get all the rest of the expectations happening smooth, and easy. Dedication, and effort will get me there.