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...By some standards, perhaps I'm completely unqualified to remark upon the last episode in Season 5 of Supernatural, "Swan Song". In October of last year I got frustrated with the online fandom and aspects of the storyline and, without making any particular decision about it, quietly stopped watching. The last episode I saw before tonight was 5x04, "The End", which I enjoyed a great deal.

So I've missed whatever problems that I've heard the edges of, that fandom had with the rest of the season. Monster-of-the-week hunts in the middle of the Apocalypse, too much heated strife between the brothers, the twists and turns and reveals of the myth-arc, etc. I also missed the impassioned, highly polarized, and by turns euphoric and venomous opinions of the individual fans as the episodes aired. Their understandable preoccupations with certain characters, the squeeing, the dissecting of every scene.

And, naturally, the details of what happened.

However. By and large, I consider this to be a good thing, and regardless of my own qualification to speak on the matter, I'm going to say a few words about "Swan Song", having watched it clear-eyed, blank of the layers of bright colors and emotions of immediate context, save for a quick Wikipedia look-up for the episode summaries of the span that I'd missed. I went into it with no expectations on my mind other than, "I want to see how this ends. I want to see what the boys do. I want to see who they are, at the end of this."

That said.

( SPN 5x22 )

Holy crap, the test for advanced-yellow-belt (Taekwondo Club) is way harder than the one to move up to yellow belt! Man, I'm going to be feeling it for days. And I know I did so many things wrong! Allow me to elaborate at great length ALSK;SKJD.

I'm still way too inflexible so I have trouble turning my hip over completely to get a properly formed round kick; especially embarrassing when I'm instructed to do a high roundkick to the face and it still ends up being belt level. (Injuries over the past months which have further damaged my flexibility have not helped.) I'm way out of shape so I was dying 5-10 minutes into the test, (unlike normal class, which has natural little breaks for instruction, etc., the test is just GO - GO - GO) and it affected everything onward from the attacking demonstration. Speaking of, I need to whinge about that for a second.

ARGH I was totally crap and unimaginative during the attacking and counterattacking demos, way too much roundkick and fastkick, too many single moves, kept forgetting to include combos and slides and steps and checks, too tentative with ax-kick because I was sure I would hit my blackbelt partner in the unprotected face, (HAH like I can even get my freaking leg up that high, silly me!), my back-kick was gawky and kept glancing off my partner's chest-protector, waaaahhhhhh (WHINGE WHINGE WHINGE).

Oh, and I just had to fall on my ass (OK more like my side) for the first time ever during the belt test. I was moving forward with one leg coming up for a round kick, and my back leg kind of just - followed and slipped and BAM; I'm glad the floors are so padded and I hopped right up but oh my god so embarrassing! I could just imagine the blackbelts thinking, fwahaha, n00b. Not that they would, because they're pretty awesome and supportive, but urrrgh.

And the sparring portion, oh Christ, I should just skip it, I've already unloaded too much of my self-pity. BUT NO, I WILL TYPE ON. Definitely need more practice at sparring (total understatement). It was completely obvious how amateur we were when it was two yellowbelts sparring each other because we kept running into each other and the people behind us in the course of attacking too vigorously and not knowing how to back off when we got too close together or close the distance when we were too far apart. Also, by that time I was so tired that I sometimes couldn't muster the energy to move as I should. It would be like, "Oh, there is her leg coming, it is lifting, I see it, hm, now is the point at which I should be sliding or stepping back out of range - " and then it would hit me in the side and I would attempt a feeble counterkick.

Sighhhhhh. At least I'm good at the kiap (Spirit Yell, like when you think of "HIYAH!" except mine is more just "HAH!"). (sulk, sulk, sulk.)

OK, so I'm sure I did plenty of things just fine, and I was trying my best, so they're obviously not going to laugh me out of the club with a big FAIL stamped on my forehead, but I'm not sure I'll actually pass on to advanced yellow, which is a bit depressing. I'll know in a week or so, I think.

After being beat up at my own test, though, it was kind of fun, commiserating (moaning about how much we sucked) with the other yellow-belt girls -  found out that one of the girls is actually all of 14 years old (0_0) and the other is getting married this summer; she's a doctoral student, I think - and watching the higher belts test, which was much more impressive and hardcore than our test. It was fun cheering on this really nice middle-aged redbelt (only red who was testing); poor man was so exhausted by the time he got to the sparring demonstration, which is even more intense than the rest of it (he had to spar with three different blackbelts in a row, OMG! With them actually trying instead of just being like test-dummies like they were for us!) I felt stupid for feeling so tired myself. One poor blackbelt who was partnering in a sparring test got kicked in the neck and then the crotch/groin area by a slightly overenthusiastic and control-needing advanced-yellow guy, and went down, which was not, actually, funny to watch.

Ack, I'm not really still as upset as I probably sound, it's just kind of embarrassing and frustrating to think about it all again, haha.