Amanda Takes Off...

A good class, even if it was only 90 mins. The bloody toe is still ugly but doesn't hurt.

Before class started I got Grin to help me with some Korean homework. I had seven fill-in-the-blank exercises. Every other option had been used, so I knew I was right, but I didn't know why. "Right now Andy is at the library. Therefore, Andy is going to the library to find." Grin was nodding. He couldn't understand my confusion.

I said, "누구, 누구?" Who, who?

Grin started trying to help me, pointing to himself, and I suddenly saw the object marker. "Ahh! Ahh! 나는! Andy를!" Koreans drop subjects and objects a lot as they aren't needed to make a complete sentence. I'd missed the object marker. "Right now Andy (subject marker) is at the library. Therefore [I, implied] am going to the library to find Andy (object marker)."

Of course, I'm still not used to the sentence order, which would literally read as:

Despite that, I understood the listening exercise pretty easily tonight, which is nice, because the last few were really hard.

We did lots of kicking practice without Master there. After doing more than a half dozen different kicks, I asked Grin what to practice next, because Handphone Girl (I found out, much to my surprise, that she's 18) and I were certainly the only ones really, truly practicing.

He said we were free to do whatever kicks we wanted. She did roundhouses. I went crazy with jumping front kicks. She was surprised by my height.

That is, by far, my favorite kick. Ever.

When Master got there, he worked with me on poomse. We were fine-tuning the first four forms tonight. I had to unlearn some thing I'd learned at Bangi studio, primarily in Il Jang. After doing the low blocks, I was lifting the blocking arm up for "support" before punching. After the high blocks, I was bringing my blocking arm down for the front kicks.

He said, "Amanda, no."

I said, "Ah, Bangi."

He said, "시범. You know?"

"No."

"Um...demon—demon—"

"Demonstration?"

"Yes! Demonstration style." He illustrated some differences in the styles.

I said, "시 like in 시간 and 범 like in 범서기?" 시간 means time and 범서기 is tiger stance, 범 coming from Chinese.

He started at me blankly. I spelled "시범" in the air, backwards so he could read it more easily.

"Oh! Yes! 시범!" Well, I'll never forget that it means "showing an example; a model for others." I'll just think "tiger time!"

He said Il Jang looked good and I said, "I hope so, I learned it in 1999."

He laughed. "I learned Il Jang in..."

I took a guess, "1984?"

"Yes! 1984!"

Sa Jang is the one I needed the most work on. I find Sa Jang to be one of the more difficult forms. I know that sounds silly since it's the fourth of eight forms, but something about all of the back stances and knifehands. On the return, you turn 90 degrees to the left, left hand body block, right punch. Turn 180 degrees, right body block, left punch. Turn 90 degress to the left, left body block, double punch (right-left), walk forward, right body block, double punch (left-right).

I've had problems figuring out how to use the non-blocking arm as support. I asked him to show me exactly how to turn to get my arms to be the support he wants them to be. He demonstrated and it looked so easy.

I said, "It's like magic!"

"Magic?" He laughed, "I not magician. Magician?"

"Right, magician." In Korean I said, "I am first gup. You are fifth dan." I switched to English, "Magician!"

Ten minutes later, he was watching me practice from across the room, "Amanda! Magician!"