Taekwondo Lessons

It's Monday evening at 6:45PM. That means I'm sitting here at the Escondido Community Center watching Stephen in one of his Taekwondo lessons. He has these 2 times per week - Monday and Thursday and has been doing this for several weeks now. When we were in St Louis, Stephen expressed an interest in learning Karate and we found a place where he could take very early introductory lessons. He really seemed to enjoy it. When we found ourselves in Escondido, we began looking for a place where he could continue learning martial arts. The Karate classes were somewhat expensive but we found this Taekwondo class which is pretty good and not too costly.

There are 25-30 people in this class ranging from very young 5-6 year olds up to gray-haired adults in their late 50-60s. This works pretty well, actually, because there are plenty of young people who are learning the very basics and there are also older folks who make pretty good role models for them. They do alot of the same exercises for everyone from the white belts up to the black belts. Stephen has plenty of people to watch and model after. Sometimes, it gets a bit confusing for Stephen and some of the other young ones, but the teacher, Master Leonard, provides written instructions to the parents so we can work with our kids outside of class. I appreciate this because it lets Stephen and I spend time together learning which I really enjoy.

Taekwondo is a Korean martial arts form. The name literally means 'foot and hand fighting'. This means that it consists of various fighting forms incorporating kicking with the feet and punches, jabs, and holds done with the hands. There are several 'forms' which are basically just different stances and patterns of movement which allow for both defensive and offensive maneuvers. Some of these forms can be complicated but with a little slow-motion practice, they can be learned fairly well.

Perhaps the most difficult part of the process - at least thus far - is learning to speak Korean. All the moves and commands are given in Korean and all counting is done in Korean. This can be tough because it's just memorization. However, since they're doing it twice a week and are pretty repetitive with it, I think Stephen is starting to pick it up pretty well. I, on the other hand, need to spend some time with my notes. Stephen can count to 10 in Korean now and he's pretty proud of that. A few days ago, we talked on the phone with Andy Gilman and his wife Jenna in Taegu, South Korea. Stephen was pretty excited to show Jenna how he could count in Korean. She said that he did, "Perfectly." That made him pretty happy.

I think another really exciting thing for Stephen is that he has a Taekwondo uniform now. They did not get uniforms in his class back in St Louis. It wasn't important then because all the kids in the class were at about the same skill level. In this class, since they have people at all levels up to Black Belt, the uniform is pretty important. Stephen really likes his uniform. He can't wait to get his yellow belt.

The pictures I've included are from the night that they used sticks in their class. Occasionally, the teacher will incorporate lessons from other martial arts forms and the fighting sticks was one of those things. Stephen really liked working with the sticks but some of the forms were a little difficult (not to mention dangerous). He was a little frustrated but I promised him that we'd practice and he'd get it pretty well. The next day, I went on the web to look for a place to get a set of these sticks. It's amazing how much they can charge for a couple of 28 inch long sticks. Instead, I went to Home Depot where, for about $5, I was able to get 2 complete sets of fighting sticks (3/4" dowel rods) cut to the right length. Stephen was pretty excited when I came home with those. We began working with these and, within about 30-45 minutes, he had it down and was doing a great job. It really was a lot of fun.

Last week, a funny coincidence took place. On the way to the lesson, Stephen was talking to me about some older boys in his school who we making fun of him and being pretty mean to. One of them even pushed him and made him fall. Stephen was pretty upset, as you can imagine, and we talked about the right way to deal with this situation - I mean, talking with his teachers about it. Well, when class started, the instructor started out by saying that they would be learning about how to deal with a bully who might knock you down and sit on you. All the moves were about how to deal with a situation where someone is holding you down or trying to hurt you. He specifically talked about bullies on the playground. I thought, "Oh, no. Tomorrow Stephen's going to be suspended for using Taekwondo on some older kids at school." We talked it over and discussed the proper thing to do and the proper way to use or not use Taekwondo. Luckily, no one was injured the next day. :-)

The class runs for about 3 months. If Stephen chooses to continue, and I hope that he does, I might decide to join him in the class. It'd be fun to do it together and I think he wants me to join in. Well, we'll see.

Allen