Blue Stripe

After 8 months and who knows how many classes, I finally bit the bullet and signed up to do my Blue stripe TKD test. I spent the month of January focusing more on TKD and less on running to help ensure that I was ready. I had notes on my patterns pinned up in my cubicle at work, I watched YouTube videos whenever I could. I tried to get to classes early so that I could practice or ask one of the Black Belts for help with a particularly difficult area.

All that and I still didn’t feel ready.

The whole testing took just over 2 hours for all 14 of us. The little kids always go first. They are so cute, but watching them do their patterns – often messing up their lefts and rights – was making confused about my own upcoming testing moment. After the 5 year old crowd and the 2 adult White belts all passed their tests it was my group’s turn. There were 4 of us ranging from a Yellow Belt to my Green belt. I made it through the 6 patterns that I needed to know with a few minor issues, including stepping on the kid next to me! Every time I would try to move over before we started a pattern to give myself more room, he would move towards me again! Eventually the tester pointed out that I was moving to give us more space and that it might work better if he stopped following me.

Following patterns we had to demonstrate our techniques in both 3-step non-traditional sparring and fundamental movements. From there we moved on to 1-step and 2-step traditional sparring – usually the hardest area for me as we don’t often cover this in class and you are expected to learn it on your own from the book, or before/after class from a more senior belt.

I then had a breather while the last group went through their paces before I had to do a 2 minute round of contact sparring. Ooof. That was a long and hard 2 minutes! The woman I was sparring against is …. how should I put it…. Intense? Rough? Mean? Powerful? One of the parents even mentioned afterward that I had my hands full with that sparring match. I’ve been paired up with her in class before and I often end up covered in bruises from blocking her kicks or not blocking one of her punches. She is not malicious about it, but doesn’t always recognize her own strength, and never holds back, even when it’s a teaching/learning moment. I may invest in shin guards just because of her.

The last part of my test came as a surprise, as I didn’t realize that it was required for my Blue stripe. I had to break a 3/8” thick board with a front snap kick. Luckily I have done this break before, and it is one of the easiest breaks to do. You get 2 tries on your test – I broke it on my first kick.

After all of that – I passed!

Teaching English

There is a small convenience store at our local mall that we frequent quite regularly. It's run by a Korean family that up until recently we only shared a passing acquaintance with.  That all changed one day when the husband mentioned to Hilary that he was trying to improve his English, but found it hard because, while he can read English, some of the words are not easily found in an English-Korean dictionary, and he's never sure on how to pronounce things.

Hilary came home and hatched a plan to help him out.  We love listening to audio books, so she figured, what better way to help learn English then to listen to an unabridged audio book while following along with the hard copy.   We even had a little iPod shuffle that didn't sell at our last yard sale that we could download a copy of one of our books onto.

The only problem was that the best book choice that we had in both unabridged audio and hard copy was Twilight.  We also have all the Harry Potter's, but if someone was going to use this to learn English, we figured they didn't need made up words like Quidditch, Daigon Alley or Avada Kedavra.  So Twilight it was.

While not exactly the best subject to keep a 50 year old Korean man interested, he has persevered with it and almost seems to be enjoying it.   Every few days either Hilary or I will go in and sit behind the counter with him and help him out with any words or phrases that have stumped both him and his translator apps.   He bought his own copy of the book because he didn't want to mark up ours and he underlines anything he doesn't understand and makes notes in Korean in the margins once he has the definition or explanation of a word.

Having read Twilight several times myself, I would have characterized it as having fairly simple and easy language to understand.  I realize now that I thought that because I'm a native English speaker/reader.  To someone who is new to the language, there are a lot of colloquial sayings and downright slang that can easily trip you up.  I'm sure we are very comical looking when we are trying to pantomime the description of a word while crammed into the tight space behind the cash register.

Some recent things that we've struggled to explain:

• If someone can drive UP to Forks or DOWN to California, why can you only show UP for work but not show DOWN?
• What is the difference between "every day I....." and "every single day I......"?
• Ditching school has nothing to do with actual ditches. And why is ditching healthy?
• Explaining "hand-eye coordination" nearly had us knocking over displays of gum.
• Trying to  explain "kicked up a tantrum" without using the word fuss, because how do you explain what a FUSS is?
• What exactly is an understatement?
• Trying to explain to someone who has no cultural reference to Spiderman, what a radioactive spider has to do with anything.

This teaching relationship also works both ways.  Both the husband and wife will quiz me on the Korean terms and numbers that I need to learn for Tae Kwon Do.

Win-Win!

Double Bronze

I had a fantastic time at the tournament today.  Even though I didn't win my sparring match, I felt that it was one of my best bouts yet.  It does make me realize that I need to practice a lot more with other adults, and not just the little kids in the family class.

I'm sore and tired, but very glad that I went.  This is so far out of what I used to consider my comfort zone, that I still shake my head in wonder that I really did this.

Green

Someone else got their Green belt tonight too but doesn't want to be in pictures anymore.

Bronze

I entered the Hiltz Tae Kwon Do Open Championship tournament again this year.  While I really enjoy TKD, I'm not really a competition kinda gal.  But it's good to step out of my comfort zone and give it a go.  I didn't place in patterns and got a bronze medal in sparring.  Something tells me I need to train with the adults more then with the little kids!

We passed!

There are 2 new green stripes in our house tonight!

Silver!

On Saturday I entered my first ever  Tae Kwon-Do tournament.  Liam had been in this same tournament last year, so I had an idea of how it would run and what to expect.  Liam had no desire to enter it this year. He did come along and helped carry my gear, cheer me on and took some pictures for me on the Ipod.  I also ran into a co-worker from years ago who borrowed my camera to take pictures of his kids and also got some great shots of me.

The tournament consisted of 2 competitions - patterns and sparring and I took Silver in both.  There were only 3 adult women in my division, so we only had to compete against each other.  We did patterns in the morning.  I wasn't at all nervous until I finished my pattern and was waiting for the judges decision.  Then my legs started to shake.  Luckily, they didn't take long and I was able to hold it together.

For my first sparring round I went up against Ashley who was a powerhouse! She came out swinging and I have the bruises to show for it today.  Unfortunately she seriously hurt her wrist blocking one of my kicks and had to withdraw from the match.  It turned out to be just a bad sprain and not broken.  I then sparred against Amanda, who I often practice with at my Dojang, so it made for a pretty even match, but she took the gold.  The fact that both of these women are 20 years my junior made me feel pretty dang good about myself.

All in all I'm glad I went and I'm pretty sure I'll do it again.  Here are some shots from the day.

Patterns

 Sparring

Movin' on up

We have 2 new yellow belts in the house.

This is getting serious!

Not only do Liam and I go to 3 TaeKwon-do classes a week, we can now practice at home whenever we want!

Tae Kwon Do

Liam and I have started Tae Kwon Do.  Liam was very excited to get his uniform this morning, especially his belt.   This is the first sport/activity that he has done that he is excited to go to every time, and genuinely disappointed when it's cancelled.  I think we might be in for the long haul with this one.

Ahn Young Hee Kah Say Yo