Amanda Takes Off...

Tonight's class was good. We did a lot of specific poomse kicking drills. Master differentiates between poomse kicking, sparring kicking and demonstration kicking. We usually do sparring drills—target practice, a lot of "running" in place, sliding back and forth into kicks, multiple kicks, and kicking combinations and so on.

Poomse drills, on the other hand, are all about slow, big, controlled movement. Fine-turning, holding the leg at various points in the kick for long periods of time. Even when you do them sitting on the floor, they make the muscles ache.

At one point, we had one hand on the wall for support. Master was helping me work on my roundhouse kick. I had my eyes closed because it hurt so much. He was asking me a question and I was nodding and he said, "Oh! Amanda! You..." he started tensing his arm muscles. Indeed, my body was shaking from the effort.

We were standing, without using the wall for support, and Master straightened my leg. He had shifted my weight way, way back and I was going to fall, so I clutched at him. He grabbed me, rebalanced me, looked at my leg and in Korean he said, "Straight."

"I know."

"Really?"

I realized that he didn't want to jam his knee against my butt to straighten me out the way he does to everyone else. I somehow managed to get straighter, although I'm not sure how.

When we were sitting working on the roundhouse kick, he asked me what the 허리 and 엉덩이 are called. Roughly waist and hip, but 엉덩이 tends to also include the butt. I told him, and he said to twist them. I demonstrated, "I am. See? Straight...twist."

"Twist...more."

I tried twisting more. Finally he pushed me into position. I tried to hold it, but couldn't seem to. It wasn't a matter of balance, it was a matter of structure. He said, "I know, American 엉덩이." Everyone else looked at him like he was crazy and he explained that your anatomy and physiology is in part influenced by where your ancestors are from. It's not just that I'm not Asian though, it's that I'm female, too. Luckily, he seems to understand that while not letting it be an excuse.

Despite the racist history of measuring people, there's a reason forensic anthropologists can do their work.

Ghost hasn't been in class for a week or so. When he came in tonight he greeted me, "Amanda, Amanda! Hi, hi, hi!"

I asked him how he's been and why he hasn't been there. He explained that his knee had been hurt. When we were on the floor doing our drills, he started making fish faces, fluttering his feet and twisting his lips around. I was laughing. Master asked what was going on.

"[Ghost]...mermaid?"

They all stared at me. I tried again. "Mermaid? Disney movie? The Little Mermaid? Ariel?"

Master looked at me. "Ariel?"

I thought. "바다 여자?" Sea woman? More stares. "요기, 여자." Here, woman, I said, gesturing to my upper body. "요기, fish," I said, gesturing to my lower body. (Yes, I know the Korean words for polar bear, flat feet, and "to go and come back" but not fish. The stupidity of this is not lost on me.)

"인어공주! Chinese!" He explained that it came from Chinese roots: 인 (person) 어 (fish) 공주 (princess).

He asked if it was the same in English. I said "English, more 바다 여자."

After class I turned the tables on him. I wrote 인어공주, 바다, 여자 on the board, then mermaid. I explained that "mer" came from Old English and French roots, ultimately dating back to Latin. Underneath "mer" I wrote marine and maritime. (We looked that word up in Korean.) Under "maid" I listed maid, maiden, bridesmaid, handmaid. I told him what each one was, taking slight liberties with handmaid ("a princess' helper") since it's not a word in common use and I doubt he'll ever need a more specific definition. I meant to write down "maiden name" but forgot.

He said, "So 'maid' like 'woman?'"

"Old, root. Like Chinese root, yes."

"Ah..."

"English, easy, see?" I said smiling.

He grinned, "Like Korean, easy too!"