The Day I Received My Black Belt in Taekwondo

My fellow ETAs and me receiving our brand-new, personalized Taekwondo uniforms. Joy!

This afternoon was our second class in Taekwondo. I looked forward to an hour of moving about after a day of sitting around and mulling over Hangul. Nearly all of the ETAs signed up for this extracurricular activity. Other options we had were: K-pop dance, Hanji (an art involving traditional handmade Korean paper), cooking, archery, and tea ceremony. Though everything sounded very interesting, I only signed up for TKD and the tea ceremony intending to subsist solely on my weekly stipend and save as much as I can for my winter vacation travels.

Our instructor is a Jungwon student who has been practicing TKD since he was a preteen. His American name is "Jamie," which he said made the previous year's group of ETAs laugh at him because, they said, it is usually a girl's name. We assured him that "Jamie" was not just a girl's name, and that it was a fine name that suited him well. Jamie is very energetic and friendly. He thinks he requires a translator during our sessions but his English is actually quite good. Despite this, he still frequently apologizes to us, saying, "I'm sorry. My English is...not very good."

Everyone basically loves this guy. It probably didn't hurt that he started off our teacher-student relationship by giving us all black belts! I feel very undeserving of this, but hey.

He taught us punching moves today, which were pretty simple in theory, but not in practice. My hand/foot coordination is awful. I'm the person in the group who makes a move, and then, realizing that I'm the only one with the wrong foot forward, quickly goes to change it before the instructor calls out the next move.

In my defense, the last time I did anything physical in a class-setting was PE in 9th grade. I am in for a real challenge, but I will welcome this with open arms seeing as how I spent a majority of my childhood wishing I practiced some sort of martial arts.

It is never too late and you are never too old to begin a new hobby!

I am a black belt in Taekwondo, apparently. In any case, I do like the personal touch of our names and the word "Fulbright" on our belts and on the back of our uniforms!

MY QUESTIONS FOR YOU:

What is something you have always wanted to try but have never found the time, resources, or opportunity to do? What do you think is keeping you from going/doing/eating/playing/learning?