Amanda Takes Off...

I'm back at my own studio! 행복해요! This is a long post because I am so excited to be "home!"

On the way to the studio, I passed Studious, who was running a tray of delivered food back to a restaurant (the boys end up doing this for Master sometimes). He didn't notice me, so I said, "[Studious]! 안녕하새요!"

"Oh! Oh! Amanda! 안녕하새요!" He bowed as best he could with the tray of food.

I walked in, everyone was there (including some black belt kids I've never seen before). Master and I bowed to each other and he said in English, "Um...welcome back!" Then he noticed my Dokdo socks. "Oh! Oh! Amanda! Nice!"

My boys were funny. "Hi, Amanda! Hi! Hi! Amanda!" The older boys were more formal, pretending to meet me for the first time. In Korean, "Hello, how are you? My name is such-and-such. Nice to meet you." It was cute.

There's a tournament sometime in March, so he had the students doing tournament related drills while we reviewed my poomse backwards. Same thing I got at TempStudio: watch my back stances and long stances. Afterwards, I asked some questions about things that I wasn't sure of.

During Yuk Jang was I supposed to get back into starting position by moving my left foot forward or by moving my right food backward? Left foot forward and right away he said, "Oh, Seoul...right foot." Yep, that had been confusing me at the TempStudio. I did it correctly for my studio on the first try, which is good considering I've been doing it the Seoul way for a month.

During Oh Jang how was I supposed to do palkup dollyochigi? Again, he understood immediately. At the TempStudio they put their fist into their palm, knuckles to palm. At our studio we put the side of the fist (the curled pinky fingers side) into the flat side of our palm. He showed me the difference in the way you hit your chest if your opponent hits you with your hand the Seoul way and our way.

And where, exactly, were my body punches supposed to be? Exactly where I was doing them before, not two inches lower.

He set me up in front of the mirror in horse riding stance and we went over nine blocks and strikes. I was happy because I knew the names of eight of them. He asked why I was grinning and I said in Korean, "In January I studied Korean." Hey, I even used the past tense. Wha-hoo! We reviewed some of the finer points of blocking and the first hour of class was over.

During our break, I looked at the whiteboard and saw a list of names for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd poom tests (poom is the junior black belt, the Kukkiwon won't award black belts to people under a certain age). Master said, "Amanda!" and wrote "1단: 아만다." I so appreciate that he always writes my name in Korean. I laughed because I am the only person able to test for dan.

I said, "관장님, 심사 목요일이에요. 알아요." Kwanjangnim, the test is Thursday. I know. I explained that TempMaster kept saying it couldn't be right. Master said that in Seoul and at the Kukkiwon and in Gyeonggido (the province our studio is in) it's always Saturday and Sunday, but the city of Gwangmyeong for whatever reason, tests during the week.

I asked how all of the students could test during the week and he explained that it's their spring break. Now. They just got five weeks off, they're back in school for two, and then they get a two week break? OK. We also chatted briefly about Lunar New Year. The Monday of that weekend there's no class, but the Friday of that weekend we're having a big soccer game. I don't work Friday, so I'm coming to play soccer!

We went down to the office to register me for my black belt test. His wife greeted me kindly and his daughter ran over to me. "Amanda!" We registered me for the test, which including taking a head shot. He lined me up against the wall in their bedroom and his poor wife was running around trying to pick up the (spotless) room. He said, "Oh, my wife..." in English. In Korean I said, "I'm not looking." She smiled. He said he didn't need copies of my passport because he wrote the information down. I hope he's right. I paid for the test.

That's it. I'm registered. The test is paid for. In 17 days I'm testing.

After the break, Master told me to do the nine blocks and strikes in front of the mirror, ten times to each side. When I finished, I said in Korean, "I practiced." (I love knowing the past tense!) He had me work on doing junbi stance the way he wants it, and that got us talking about 단전 (the lower part of the abdomen) and wearing the belt (띠). He drew a figure on the whiteboard, marking the head, feet, and middle. He draw horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines on the board, pointing out that they all cross at the 단전 point. He said that 기 (energy, spirit, vigor) is there. I learned the word 모이다 (to center on/in/at, to concentrate, to gather together).

I said, "미국에 없어요." In America we don't have this.

"Da Vinci?"

"That was not 기. 우리는 기를 없어요. 아시아 있어요." We don't have 기. Asia has 기. He agreed and I said, "숨쉬기, 가듬, 아니요. 배, 배." Come up for air, chest, no. Stomach, stomach. (I don't know the word for "to breathe," so I figured using the word he uses when he's telling us to breathe would work!)

He said I was right and then started kiyaping from his chest versus his stomach to show the difference.

See, I can learn the art part from him. Yes, we used my digital dictionary because I didn't know those words, but none of my previous Masters have discussed this with me. That could have been for a host of reasons, not the least being that I wasn't ready, but I do appreciate that Master works through language barriers to teach me this stuff. The taekwon- part (hand foot), where to put a wrist, how to do a kick, fine. You watch, you do, your body gets adjusted and moved, you do again. The -do part (way, the "art part")? This you can't learn just by watching.

The rest of the class was some kicking practice. It went well.

I didn't mention this on my earlier post because I wasn't sure they would fit, but they did... I bought Master's children (he has a girl and a boy) some clothing as a small gift. Heidi was a whiz at bargaining, so I got these for a steal. I didn't realize until I was putting them in a gift box today that the dress size 8 and boy's suit size 4 were nearly the same size. Oh well. The boy's jacket is reversible.

During our break, I mentioned to Master that I'd visited Hong Kong and I had a gift for him. (To my immense relief, he didn't ask why I went or if I visited Heidi or anything like that.) He sort of shook his head, and smiled, "Oh, Amanda. Gift?" I don't think I have given him too many gifts—some food for Chuseok, a small gift from Japan, so I wasn't worried. And I've never just given him a gift, it's always been something edible for the family. This was for the children, so I figured it would be alright. I gave it to him during the break and went back upstairs so he could open it.

We did sprints and several minutes later Master's son staggered into the room.The outfit was folded up a bit at the cuffs, but that's OK! Better to be too large than too small! Everyone stopped and greeted his son in Mandarin. Ni hao. In Korean, Master thanked me and said, "Amanda was in Hong Kong." Several seconds later his wife walked in with their daughter. She mouthed "thank you" in English and their daughter twirled around. Some of the students doted on the kids for a while while Master and I worked together on blocks. His daughter ran over and bowed deeply, "Amanda! Kamsahamnida!"

His kids and wife stayed around for about half an hour, then his wife took their son downstairs. His daughter stuck around, and I got this picture of her and Cocky together after class. She was killing him or mountain-climbing him. I'm not sure which.

Well. I went to Hong Kong to visit Heidi. Everyone's got to have one screaming disaster of a vacation/international trip. Until this weekend, I had lucked out. Who knew that such a short trip could go so wrong?

Reasons This Trip Was a Screaming Disaster
1) I spent twice as much money as needed on a room because my "friend" didn't tell me that where I was staying was very, very dangerous until after I got there. Gee, couldn't've told me that beforehand?
2) Trying to find a new room at 1 am was exciting.
3) Going back to the first place and finding myself locked out of my room (and thus only in possession of my passport, wallet, camera, and clothes on my back) was nice.
4) Being followed by a creepy guy in the middle of the day was freaky.
5) Being followed to the 14th floor of a building at 2:30 am by another scary guy, who then stands behind some doors at the elevator, thus necessitating a stair escape...that was terrifying.
6) Being seen with a woman dropping the f-bomb left and right in public was embarrassing.
7) Being accused of flirting with one of the guys your friend is dating is ridiculous when a) your friend is too sloppy drunk to be kind to the guy and b) you're just making ex-pat fellow-nationality small talk with said guy.
8) Getting yelled at—in the middle of the street—by a drunken 25 year old woman who was having a temper tantrum was...amusing, actually. I had to wonder, "am I in a movie?" as well as, "now I know what dating her must feel like." I haven't seen a girl act like that since I was in seventh grade. And I went to a women's college! And I teach kindergarten students!

Cool Things About the Screaming Disaster Trip to Hong Kong
1) Eating a bird's nest fruit jelly drink thing. Yep, now I can say I've had bird's nest! (Nope, I didn't know about all of the bad politics behind it when I ate it.)
2) Hong Kong at night was gorgeous when seen from The Peak. The view was clear, the weather was nice, and the moon (although you can't see it in this photo) was a flaming red-orange.

3) Clothing was cheap, and usually-expensive Jurlique makeup was a steal. Hello, Arnica Cream for my taekwondo bruises.
4) Being the only Western guest and speaking Korean with the ajumma at my Korean-owned hotel was most amusing! "You speak Korean! Where did you learn Korean?" (I had said, "This is my friend's bag. She got sick last night. She lives in Hong Kong. I don't know where her house is and I am going to this airport. This is her phone number.")
5) The food was a delicious change from Korean food.
6) Passing Elyse Sewell, second-runner up (and my personal fave) from America's Next Top Model: Season One on the streets of Hong Kong was neat. (Having to stop Heidi from running up to her and asking to take a picture was not neat.)

Related Thoughts
1) I was rocking my purple framed glasses. And look! My hair is just long enough to pull back into an octopus clip!

2) Forgetting to order vegetarian meals on the airplane stinks.
3) Better to find out now rather than later what kind of person Heidi is.
4) She claims she's going to come back to the studio to practice taekwondo. I certainly hope not.
5) I have no idea what I'm going to say to Master when he asks how the trip was. Perhaps I'll simply say, "interesting."
6) I still want to go to mainland China. I wasn't going to count this as a trip to China, but it was such a memorable trip that it's going to count.
7) For a few weeks, I've been thinking about my breathing more. I realized, while falling asleep in my clothes, that I'm breathing from the diaphragm rather than the chest. Good.
8) It amuses airline check-in people when your response to "window or aisle?" is "I don't want to sit next to anyone."
9) I don't like pretentious, over-priced, snooty bars no matter which country they're in.
10) The number of used passport pages PLUS the number of varied countries and continents marked MULTIPLIED by the number of visas DIVIDED by some (unknown to Traveler) risk-factor based on number of bags Traveler has EQUALS the amount of hassling Traveler get at the airport.
11) Traveling solo (or with Mark) is best for me.