Amanda Takes Off...

It's cold. Snowing all day but not cold enough to stick. It was cold, windy, and raining yesterday. This after being beautiful, mid-50s weather last week and much of the week before. The sudden cold snap makes it feel even colder than it really is.

Hustling through the market, passing dead fish and dried squid and fake Nike shoes and kimchi pots and twigs for sale, I thought I do not want to go to class tonight. I don't know why, I just don't want to go.

It was cold, so when we lined up, I had my arms folded across my chest. Crybaby Gold Medal Girl copied me and smiled at me. I raised my eyebrow. She tried to do with same. This was the beginning of some silliness. During drills we started racing each other. She was in front of me in line, but Master realized what we were doing, so he moved her next to me so we could really race. Then we started cheating, blocking each other, grabbing onto the other's dobok to slow them down, kiyapping in funny voices. I guess we kept it in check enough, because Master didn't stop us. After class she was hugging me, whining about something or other. I grabbed her and started spinning her around until we were both so dizzy we couldn't stand. She's light enough that her legs were flailing about in the air. When we stopped and stumbled to the ground, she smacked me, "Amanda!"

"What?"

"I like you."

I like her, too, even though she's mercurial. She's a teenager. They're all mercurial.

We worked on more demonstration style kicks. Master corrected a turning jumping roundhouse kick that we were doing as part of our running drills. I was taking three steps when I needed to take two and jump. He stood next to me and counted for me and thwap! I kicked him in the shins, hard.

Everyone else was watching, so I was especially horrified.

He just grimaced and said, "천. 천. 히." Slo. Ow. Ly.

As I was running back he started rubbing his leg and scolding me in his good-natured way. I did feel bad about it though. I need a lot more practice, but I'm beginning to understand what he wants.

And in Master-acts-as-my-Korean-Teacher category: Ask a question about Korean...get a Chinese lesson!

Several days ago, Language Partner H sent me a message, "잘 쉬어요." I had to look up "쉬다," and it means, among other things "to rest" or "to breathe." Since I had received the text message at night, I later asked Language Partner YJ if the saying was like "good night." She said no, it just meant to take a rest, at any time.

Tonight, in class, Master said "숨쉬기," which means "come up for air." (숨 means "a breath.") I suddenly wondered if the 쉬in these words meant the same thing. I asked Master after class and he said they were. I asked if it was a Chinese root. He said no, it was pure Korean, and then wrote "휴."

It took me a minute of listening to him to figure out that he was saying 휴 was the Chinese root that means the same thing. I know 휴가 (a holiday, a vacation) and 후일 (a holiday, a day off) and he said that 쉬는 날 is the pure Korean word for holiday.

Somehow this turned into us talking about how 통일 (unity, unification), 집합 (integration, unification), 통합 (a gathering, a collection, a meeting) are all related. He told me that 통 means "rule, reign." I knew that 일 means "one" and I looked up 합 to find out it means "the sum, the total."

He asked if I knew what 통일 meant and I said, "Yes, reunification. Tongil, Nambuk, Korea." 남북, north and south (lit. south and north), the South and North of Korea, is the name of his brother's studio. He reminded me that his father founded the studio 30 years ago and said that since his family name is "Nam," his father's nickname is "Nam Buk Tong Il."

I would love to find out more about his family's history, because I'm willing to bet there's a lot of interesting stuff there, but I know how sensitive Koreans are about discussing anything about the Japanese occupation, the World Wars, the Korean War, the division, the student movements, the struggle for democracy... Maybe by the time my Korean is up to speed to ask about such things, I'll feel more comfortable broaching the subject.

Hustling home after class, I thought about how I hadn't wanted to go. Class wasn't spectacular, it wasn't awful. It was one of those standard, successful classes.

In something as long-term as martial arts, succeeding is less about innate skill and ability and more about simply overcoming inertia. You have to show up. Day in and day out (class in and class out), high and lows, whether you want to or not. And when you do show up, you have to mentally show up, too, not just physically. We're all going to have our off days—off physically, off mentally, or both—but the people who succeed are the ones who overcome inertia most of the time.