Crazy with a purple belt

My girls and I are now officially halfway to our black belts in Taekwondo.

I thought it would be fun to jazz up our testing and surprise Sensei by counting off our 25 warm up jumping jacks in Korean instead of English.

I can’t tell you how excited I was to see his face when we began: “Hana, dhul, set, net, daseot…” I imagined him, eyebrows raised, failing to fight down a smile.

And how did he respond?

With nary a flinch. When we finished, he said, “Okay, next drill…”

Zero acknowledgement whatsoever!

I was so disappointed.

My purple belt.

During testing of the form itself, two people test at once. Because it’s always been my style to mess something up, I turned right when I was supposed to turn left. Fortunately, I had the sense of mind to course correct and continue unfazed.

On the way out, I said to Sensei, “I trust you were looking at the other person when I messed up?”

“Yes. I didn’t see your 17 mistakes.”

So he CAN still be funny.

“Furthermore,” I continued, “how can we count in Korean and you not react at all?”

“I can react with my ears. I heard you. And was that to earn bonus points?”

“Well, if it helps.”

“Do you know the next number, or did you only learn what you needed?”

“Sumul yeoseot.”

He nodded. “Good.”

If anything, I earned points in that moment.

The YouTube video that helped us learn.

BTW, I was out of town for several days. You know how when you board a plane, there’s that patch of walkway from airport to airplane where there’s no AC? When I stood in that spot, waiting my turn to board, I thought, “Whew! What is this heat?!” So I checked my phone.

No thank you!

On my return trip, the pilot said, “For those of you not from Houston, it gets a little warm here. Current temperature is 100 degrees. Our destination city of San Diego is 71 degrees.”

Home sweet home!

I returned to Jiu-Jitsu after a week away. I could feel the absence. My fingers were itching to get back in there and start throwing grown men around. (Honestly, why does this not appeal to more women?)

Anyhow, Instructor greeted me warmly, and I told him this:

“I was on one of those airport trams that take you from one concourse to another. People who weren’t seated took hold of a pole to steady themselves. I thought, ‘Here’s a chance to work on my base,’ so I took my stance, dug my feet in, and was fine. I don’t need to hold onto a pole! I know Jiu-Jitsu!”

Instructor smiled and nodded, “Nice. I like it. That’s great.”

At least HE knows how to react properly! 😉

In the next post, I’ll show you the food we concocted for the purple belt ceremony. It’s not going to be pretty. 😉