Taekwondo Is Always There

Due to feeling ill, work deadlines, the inevitable siren song of TV and wine, and most recently heavy downpours, I’ve been out of taekwondo for about two weeks. Perhaps it’s for the best as I’ve needed some time off to sort out my feelings. After my last post I received a wonderful, heartfelt comment on my last post from a reader with the recommendation to take a little break (Thanks, Toby!). I always feel refreshed after a break from intense activities in my life whether it’s my job, exercise, taekwondo, or lately my efforts to secure a literary agent for my memoir. Soon I’ll return to class to see if it’s done me some good.

I’m in taekwondo limbo right now. I don’t want to be one of those people who did taekwondo for a while and then quit, leaving it in a compartmentalized box of my past. I don’t see myself stopping at second degree although that seems to be a typical pausing point for many black belts. I’m not sure how long my current training situation will continue or how I would adjust to something new. What I do know is that I can’t let go entirely, nor do I want to. I can’t get back what I had with my former school, but I can adjust and adapt and be creative about keeping taekwondo top of mind and an important part of my life.

That’s why after my ballet barre class at the gym, I did all my color belt through black belt forms. Quick reminder—my school does Palgwe forms rather than Taeguk, and you can read a description about each one in The Poomsae Series. We also have the rarely practiced “Koryo One,” which is learned at bo dan and “No Pae,” which is learned at fourth Dan (I talked my Master into teaching it to me last year.)

I kinda didn’t want to. It was raining outside, and I wasn’t looking forward to the drive home. I had to go to the bathroom. I was hungry. But I knew I needed to run through my forms to keep my mental and physical memory fresh. I knew I needed to do my forms just because.

As I moved through my stances, blocks, kicks, and strikes, I had an odd sense of both feeling something that was deeply ingrained and familiar and also a little shaky and unusual. I move in a very particular way when I do forms. It comes out when I’m striking, sparring, doing self-defense, etc., but that essence is more detailed and prominent when I’m doing a form. I’m certainly not used to doing these movements while I teach a class at work (I’m a corporate trainer), when I torture my core and legs in ballet barre class, and not really even in Body Combat class even thought I use that class as way to tweak my technique. The mindset is different. The mental presence is different.

I only spent about 15-20 minutes in the darkened gym aerobics room practicing my forms, but I felt reconnected to something that has been slipping away these past few months. I could see the way my body moved in clinging gym clothes as opposed to my loose doboks and was able to pick up on small details. I had quiet time to correct myself and refresh my memory. I stored away little nuggets of how I would teach (or more often than not, re-teach) these forms to my students.

I was doing taekwondo, and I didn’t need a school or a uniform or a belt to make it so. Running through my forms was a quick but powerful reminder that I may not practice and train taekwondo as frequently as I used to, but I can always keep it alive and thriving within me.