(Friday night class) “I did my second graduate degree while I was working full time,” I said with a yawn over my young instructor and the three teen boys who were arguing over who was the most tired by rattling off their AP classs and hours devoted to homework. They dropped that subject and then circled each other asking their ages.
Continue reading “Naproxen, take me away…”
This blog has started to take a self-development/self-help/change-yourself-change-your-life vibe, which was part of the package, but it’s starting to overshadow my taekwondo journey other than my weekly Poomsae Series. It’s starting to lose its story arc and the context behind the life lessons. I’m going to make a better effort to tell stories from the dojang on a more regular basis.
By day I am an organizational development consultant for a large healthcare system. That means that among other things, I practice the art and science of adult learning. Meanwhile as I advance in my taekwondo career I am asked to help with warm-up exercises, teaching forms, and coaching lower ranking belts. At times my two worlds of facilitation and instruction collide. I’ve learned that asking seven-year-olds about the finer points of blocking usually results in blank stares. I do however find that threatening my professional adult learners with push-ups fills me with sadistic glee.
So if I followed the rules of adult learning what would a taekwondo class look like?
Continue reading “How I Would Teach a Taekwondo Class – A Parody”
White belt is probably the most trying time for most students even though the upper belts are full of complicated techniques and memorization. It’s doubly trying if you’re an adult in a class full of spazzy little kids and awkward teenagers who actually say “ki-yahp” when they ki-yahp. Being a white belt is like being a freshman in high school or college. Everything is new, the instructors are intimidating, and your body behaves like a clumsy newborn calf. You’re on information overload, and it takes months or even years for the muscle memory of your body to catch up with the cognitive understanding of your mind. Doing the same basic movements over again can be pretty boring, so it’s up to the student to dig deeper and find ways to improve and refine them.
My introduction to yoga was a class called “Get Centered” during my first semester as a college freshman. The instructor was a tiny bird of a woman with hippie white girl dreadlocks and a voice like a dark, cool, quiet bedroom. I was hooked. Yoga has accompanied me through years of education, career growth, relationship struggles and joys, financial independence, and emotional maturity. Even when I skipped class for months and didn’t give yoga much thought it was always in the background patiently waiting for me to come back.
In a previous post I zeroed in on one adult who is braving the taekwondo waters. This time I’d like to share some of the most useful things I’ve learned along my martial arts journey and can hopefully provide some guidance to other adults tkd students.
My favorite student in the dojang is Thomas*, an orange-soon-to-be yellow belt. I haven’t had a chance to train with or coach him but I’ve been quietly watching his progress over the past few months. I’ve watched his eyes squint and his brows furrow in concentration as he performs blocks and strikes. Last night I smiled to myself when he breathed a sigh of determination before sparring with one of our black belt instructors.
Any intense sport is not without its risks, especially when you’re not a spring chicken anymore, but this is ridiculous. Since I started back to taekwondo in April of 2013 I have had the following health problems that I’d never experienced before. Coincidence??