Keeping up with the Joneses

Wednesday is always a busy TKD for us. It's the day that Drew has class, and I get a little bit of training, and then I have Leadership class later that night. Today was no different. Drew seemed to be having fun in class, and I like how he's much more apt to want to talk to the teachers, especially Mr. Anderson, now. He's not shy, and will ask them things, like today he was asking Mr. A if he ever watched the Doodlebops (a Disney Channel preschool show that Drew loves, for those not in the know), and he admitted (not surprisingly) that he didn't know about them, and Drew went on to explain about them happily, and Mr. A listened intently (and politely!). He seems to do well with Mr. A, so I hope he sees him as the role model that Mr. A is. Mr. A is a very good instructor, probably the highest ranking one after Ma'am at our school, and I have definitely benefitted from his direction myself.

While Drew was doing his thing in class, I was helping Nancy, and I got to put in the cards for attendence and learn some of Nancy's methodology, which worked for me. I got a lot of good info without it being overwhelming, since I'm doing bits of it at a time. So I felt that went well.

Class for tonight wasn't too bad. Even though I'd seen Ma'am earlier in the day during Drew's class for a little bit, she wasn't teaching my leadership class tonight-- she seemed to be long gone when I had gotten there early. So, those people who were testing for an upgrade soon were practicing with us as a warmup. There were a few problems with that. First, Penna (who has now joined the Leadership ranks) was next to me, and she couldn't move out of the way with her wheelchair fast enough. It really wasn't a problem, because of other issues. Namely, the instructors who were testing had to go through Songham #1 through Choong Jung Ee-Jang#2 and give the directions. They kinda glazed through them as everyone except Penna and I had done the forms before. Just to put it in perspective, this was pretty much all the forms from white belt through red belt (red belt being the next to last belt before becoming a black belt). I haven't done all the Songham forms, and I certainly haven't done the Choong Jung forms, so I was winging it, and going solely by the directions of the instructor trainees. I had to, and I also followed along with others. I lost my place, and in some cases, I could only mark through, so it really wasn't that much of a problem that Penna was in the way. I assured her not to worry about it, as I wouldn't kick or hit her and I didn't know what I was doing anyway. After that long exercise and pretty much keeping up for the most part, considering I didn't have a clue what I was doing, we stretched and then we had the option of working on our own forms and stuff, or helping the instructor trainees some more. I chose the former, and fortunately Alex V. did too. Since I've had to cram the whole form in the span of less than a week, I knew he knew it, and so he could help me get through. I know I need practice, but between him mostly and a little help from Em, it was starting to click a little more, so I was happy about that. If I can just get the sequence down, then I can fine tune it, then add the appropriate ki-haps (that's my last concern!). Doing better still with the board break. Did the elbow break on the 2nd try, so I was happy. I think I have a MUCH better handle on that one. :-) Did only one round of sparring as I was tired and not enough people, but do you hear me complaining? The kid I went against I think was happy that I was pretty easy tonight, as I think he was tired too.

So, all in all, not a bad night. It's still a little overwhelming, in retrospect, that I will eventually have to know ALL these forms and one-steps in order to get my instructor certification eventually, but until I'm told otherwise, I'm just going to take in as much as I can, and not try to worry about it too much.

I have a break until Saturday, but I have a feeling that I will be put to the challenge on Saturday in class.