Amanda Takes Off...

I said that I was wrong about Cocky Two. I take it all back and offer my apologies to the one and only Cocky, who doesn't speak English and doesn't even know this website exists, but who deserves an apology nonetheless.

We were freesparring tonight. Sabumnim was the only instructor there and the boys were riled up. (Kids don't come to Tuesday or Friday classes.) I'll now call this guy by his initials of HR. Sabumnim asked HR to stand up and he started squealing and whining like a stuck pig. He was arguing with Sabumnim, and refused to freespar the guy closest to his own size. When she threw a head guard for him to catch, he yelled that he needed a larger one. That shocked me. Cocky can get riled up with the guys in our studio, true, but I have never, ever seen anyone talk to Master that way. Not even as a joke, and we can joke with Master.

He ended up freesparring this kid they call Ace. He's called Ace because he's very, very good, but he's also about 2/3rds HR's height and probably half his weight. I was trained with a strong sense of "don't harm children, no matter their skill or rank" in my Atlanta studio. And Master mostly keeps us together by height and weight but when we're not, he makes it very clear that while you don't go soft on anyone smaller than you, you also do NOT harm anyone smaller than you. Part of the point of freesparing is to show control of your movements. Sure, people will get injured and injure each other, but that's not supposed to be your goal.

Well HR was going out way too hard from the beginning. He was obviously using his size to his advantage. Finally, he did a side kick that hit Ace square on. Ace was knocked to the ground, the wind was knocked out of him, and he was gulping in air and starting crying. I have to hand it to him, he was up nearly as quickly as he was down. But when he started crying, HR started mocking him and making fun of him. I understand that laughing when someone gets injured, or laughing when you've screwed up, is part of Korean culture, it saves face. I also understand that when someone is obviously hurt, you act honorably, humbly, and you apologize, even if they are younger than you and thus inferior to you in this neo-Confucian society. He was doing none of that.

And that's when I decided that he was simply a jerk.

Two more guys went up to freespar. The guy who was supposed to be Ace's partner vs the guy who was supposed to be HR's partner. Not HR's first kick was to Not Ace's head and his foot got caught behind his neck. Not Ace had to lower his head before No HR could remove his foot. That made me uneasy. There was no reason he should not have been able to remove his leg since he got it up there. At least he apologized, got Not Ace some water, and rubbed his neck and shoulders.

The next two guys up were mostly fine, but these plastic balls that are constantly rolling around the studio were rolling around the mats and I thought that someone might break an ankle.

I was sitting there, watching, thinking, I don't like the way this studio spars. My American studio was very much about all out sparring. No feinting, no point scoring, just hitting each other as much as possible. With control. Switching to this Olympic style (point scoring) of sparring has been a change that I—admittedly—have not handled well. Still, I feel like the boys in my studio don't go easy on me, yet they show control in their movements. I was feeling like these students were showing very little control and I didn't like it.

Then I was up, going against a purple belt (5th gup) who seems very shy and forgets every other poomse movement. I don't know what rank she is. She wears a 5th gup belt, but the 5th, 7th, and 8th gups in this studio know every tae guek form. So I have no idea what's going on with them.

She is younger than me (everyone is) and about my height though I have weight on her (I have an American frame, and hence I have weight on most Koreans). Sabumnim asked me to take off my glasses. I said, "I can't see." I got 10 cm from her face, said, "OK," moved back 5 cm and said, "말랑말랑해요." (It's soft and squashy.) She burst out laughing as did the boys. I said, "I have four pairs of glasses" in Korean and she let me keep them on. But then my opponent had a hard time with her glasses and her head guard, so we were told not to strike the head. No problem.

We sparred. Damn, this girl was good. I mean it. She had very strong movements. I was shocked. I've never seen her do poomse movements like that, nor have I seen her kick that well doing drills. But every time I blocked her, she stopped and complained that she hurt. I don't understand it. Blocking happens. Sometimes we'd both attack at the same time and our legs would hit each other. That happens. And then she'd whine. We were finally stopped when she refused to restart the match. She didn't say anything, she just stood there. I don't think I was using my weight to my advantage. If I was, it wasn't working. But she just whined! She was much better than I was, despite our belt and weight differences. I don't know why she kept whining.

After class, Sabumnim said I did a good job, but that's face saving on her part. The fact is, freesparring is my weakness and had this girl not whined, she would have won, despite our belt differences. I know it shouldn't be that way due to our different ranks, but...

I always freespar as best I can, I never ask to sit out when we're sparring in pairs, and I'll volunteer to come in if they need to even up numbers. But I hate doing it. I know that sparring improves your ability in taekwondo, so I do it the best that I can, but I see it as my weakest area in taekwondo and thus I hate doing it.

Sometimes I get sucked into reading website and forums that turn into "my martial art is better than your martial art" arguments. A lot of martial arts posturing comes down to "taekwondo sparring wouldn't save your butt. You need to do [insert-blank, often mixed martial arts] instead to be able to really beat someone up." Call me crazy, but I hope on my taekwondo textbooks that I never have to fight anyone outside of the studio!

Despite my feminist upbringing, women's college education, and feminist beliefs, I still think that most untrained men would have a size advantage over me. If I'm ever in a situation where I have to physically defend myself, I will break every rule of TKD sparring. I will kick the person below the belt, bite, scratch, poke eyes, pull hair, use the palm of my hand against his face (nose especially) and I will run away. As quickly as possible.

Whenever I read those "take another art" arguments, I have to wonder if I'm the only one interested in poomse, striking, and the etiquette and art and history of taekwondo more than sparring.

I started studying taekwondo in college because I needed to get rid of the PE requirement. It was listed as "self-defense" at my college (as well as "karate"). Most of the self-defense we learned was stuff you'd never use in sparring. That Master's biggest points were to avoid bad situations (which was not said to blame anyone who got caught up in one), trust your intuition, do whatever it takes to stay alive, and get away as quickly as possible. A few years later, when I restarted taekwondo, it was for physical fitness reasons (I couldn't run anymore) and because I remembered that I liked doing the forms.

Another argument used against taekwondo is that the forms pit you against imaginary opponents and you'd never fight like that in real life. I never thought that was the primary (or even ultimate) goal of learning poomse. To me, at first it's about learning timing, self-control, the "line," and technique. At some point those concerns shift to breathing, the flow of the movement, the hardness or softness with which you move, technical details, feeling the joints of the body working together, focusing your attention (and eyes).

And then, somehow and somewhere, it becomes a thinking exercise. When I know a poomse, I can do it while thinking about the form, my figure, my techniques. When I know a poomse, I can mull (not fret) over a problem while practicing it. When I know a poomse, I can listen to my breathing, look at a point beyond my fist, and end the form having felt every movement, knowing I did every part of it correctly, but unaware of having been thinking while doing it.

When I was a little girl, usually while I was in bed trying to fall asleep, I'd try to stop thinking. I'm not thinking, it worked, it worked, it—gosh, that's a thought, isn't it? Gah, try again... The closest I've gotten to this not-thinking state is doing poomse that I know well. Ending a form with a very calm, clear, focused mind.

I chose to come to Korea over China or Japan because of taekwondo, but I still wasn't very serious about it. Somehow, when I wasn't looking, taekwondo became less about not getting homesick here and more about the actual taekwondo. I became much more interested in the philosophy behind it.

I remember Master explaining that "do/도" meant "way" by bowing to me. I thought that our language differences would hinder me learning about the more philosophical aspects of 태권도 from him. That's why I was so excited when Master tricked me. But tonight I realized that I've been learning the 도 part the whole time I've been here.

After we sparred, Ace and this white belt that I think has had training elsewhere sparred. At the end of their match, Sabumnim told them to shake hands. Ace refused, offering his head gear instead. Sabumnim scolded him, but he just laughed. Again, I was shocked.

I had thought this studio was a bit more formal than my own. They bow in and out more formally than we do, and there are a few other things they do that make them seem more formal.

But tonight changed my mind.

I will take myself out of the equation, since sparring is what I see as my weakest point: at my studio, when the boys spar, they do so with honor. One kid once hit another kid on the nose by accident; he cleaned up the other kid's blood, apologized profusely, and did the push-ups he was assigned without whining. We shake hands and bow at the end of a session. We thank each other. We compliment good strikes and shake things off when we get hit. I have never seen anyone refuse to spar anyone else at our studio. (Hey, looked, I tried to take myself out of it and still ended up with "we...")

Wednesday, when we were doing poomse practice, three high school black belt students of various ranks, including HR himself, walked off the mats in the middle of their forms because they forgot them. Sabumnim was leading the poomse with count and they walked off!

They grumbled, muttered under their breath and walked off the mats. Maybe this is the way this studio does it if you forget a form, but the looks on the teens' faces when they walked off, the tittering and "oohing" of the other students, and Sabumnim's surprise and scolding when she turned around to see them not there all make me think that they were not supposed to do that.

Tonight the students fought over who would clean the studio (they do this every night by playing 가위바위보). At my studio, everyone cleans without complaint (except the women, he doesn't make us clean).

I really am trying to have an open mind while I'm at this studio, but tonight disappointed me. I like Sabumnim, and it's nice that she speaks English, but I miss my studio. I miss my boys. I miss Master's friendly, respected control over the class. I miss speaking bad Korean with them—I miss the boys speaking Korean to me rather than speaking Korean about me. I miss Master understanding my mental state with one or two questions. I miss "the way" at my studio. I realized tonight that much of the 도 has been ingrained in me. And I didn't even know I was studying it.

I was feeling disappointed, wanting to tell Master to cancel my test since I basically lost to a 5th gup, thinking that obviously I don't deserve to test. But I didn't call him or Cyworld him. First, I would have no way of explaining everything that was upsetting me. Second, I don't want him to think I'm not working hard when I am, especially since he went out of his way to figure out how I could get training this month. Third, he'd say, "Someone has to lose, Amanda." Fourth, he won't cancel this test unless I drop dead or quit. He'd say, "Amanda, 화이팅!" and tell me to work hard.

In short: I'll never be ready for this. I trust Master. If he thinks I'm ready, I am.