It's a matter of smoothing out the bumps now, so to speak. Yesterday's class ended up being a private lesson. Ma'am apologized for really putting me through the paces, but I didn't mind-- I actually preferred it. I wish I could always get a private lesson! We worked on the forms some more, seeing where I'm making mistakes, etc. One of my main problems is my stances, namely my front and back ones. First of all, I tend to turn my feet, especially my back foot out. Secondly, I don't have a wide enough stance. I think that comes from many years of dancing, where legs and feet were usually kept closer to the body and you had to balance. To have the wide stances that Ma'am is trying to teach me is a little difficult, as I feel like I'm squatting instead of open with knees bent. It'll just take practice. I'm still getting some of the arm stuff down too. I was also having a hard time making the transition between the first section and the middle section, and the middle section to the end section. It's not that I can't do them, but I would just stop and have to think for a minute, and it will start to come. I just need to practice more. I was making the transition more smoothly after I did it several times. The more I did it, the transition got better, so I just have to keep going. I think I also need to review the DVD a few times to get a better idea of overall smoothness and flow of both the one steps and the form. Yes, even in my one-steps, I have to get better with my stances. Ma'am had me do this exercise where I had to do the new middle segment of my form across the room, with these dividers between each step to ensure that I would keep that wide stance. Part of what made it a little hard was that I was doing jump-kicks in the process! It's hard to land in a wide stance from a jump. But I managed. Ma'am does like my kicks, but I think that's due to my years of dancing.

In the meantime, Drew has his class today too. He was doing a little better, as he was yelling more, so the noise didn't bother him as much. It's a really large class, and I think what's noisier sometimes is the peanut gallery, aka the moms and dads waiting. They are all yacking away, and I'm sitting there, doing my knitting or watching Drew, and *I* can hardly hear the instructors. He was a little distracted watching some of his peers with the sparring while he and some others were still using the noodle to get that stuff down. That's fine. He's still wanting to get a star or something after every class, but I have to remind him that he doesn't get a turn each week. However, he still managed to hold his own overall in class, and Miss Nicki gave him an extra star for good behavior, so he managed to pull in 5 paper stars, so he can get an extra star for his uniform next week. He'll be happy. He's the youngest in the class by far, yet he's getting the hang of it, and I'm sure he's not completely held to the same standard as, say, the 7-9 year olds in the class. But he's doing well, and he likes TKD now. For a while he was resistant, but he does like it.

Well, until Saturday's class-- I need to work on this. I want my stripes, darn it!