Taekwondo in Korea

 

After being in Korea for quite some time/a few years, I decided it was time for a change of scenery in my fitness life. Hawie had done Taekwondo (TKD) years back.  He started Hapkido (합기도) when he moved back to Korea and now has his black belt, 2nd dan (I'll explain later). He loved it and I thought it might be a good activity to give a whirl....when in Rome kinda thing. So with the help of Hawie's Hapkido master, we found a do-jang (gym). The gym is right across from Hawie's gym which is about 200 meters away from our house. Perfect! So we went over there, I attended a class and was in. My master and  instructors don't speak really any English and my Korean is survival, if that. I know, I know, I've lived here 3 years now and don't know that much Korean. It's embarrassing really but that's the way it is. :) 

Let me give you a bit of background on doing martial arts in Korea. OK! So first thing is, you do not attend class with adults. Martial arts gyms, unlike the western world, are a place for to occupy your child, give them some excercise, drain them of their energy, or keep them from being beat up at school. Hagwons (private specialized schools in English, art, martial arts, music or studying) are all over and extremely popular in Korea. Kids often attend 2 to 4 hagwons a day on top of all their time at actual school. So instead of doing calss with a bunch of adult, you are in a room kicking, punching, running, making a fool of yourself with a bunch of kids. You can choose your time you go but the latest time is usually the best becuase it is for the oldest group of kids, ie upper elementary to middle school aged kids. In turn, you become like one big family. Korea is a very, very, very family orientented culture. It is something about the culture that I really do enjoy and will miss when we leave. 

ANYWAY, I take up TKD as an adult class with a bunch of kids. Of course the grand master is much older than me, has a wife and 2 kids of late elementary age. There are 2 other instructors that I train with. One is very humble, quiet and has a very kind demeanor. He is actually the one that trains me more often then not and is just slightly younger then me. He is great at his job and is a really good teacher. He speaks absolutely NO English but when teaching something that has lots of body movement, language barriers are broken. Then there's the other instructor.  I call him the new instructor, as he came on 2 months after I started. He is a jock to it's finest. He's super nice and laughs and smiles a lot! As for being a good teacher, not so much but he does have some English and can be helpful at times. I do not work with him very often but it's fun/frustrating when I do. :) The kids at the gym are great but don't want to speak English, I totally get it and don't blame them, and I'm the only girl and old at the gym. They really just don't know what to do with me. I try to interact and play with them but it only goes so far before they try to be the "cool kids." Even with that said, it's still like a family and TKD is most often the highlight of my day. I enjoy being with the kids as well. I teach university, and all though is fantastic, it is really nice to be around kids in a non teaching setting. 

 

One thing you need to do is laugh at yourself and not take things quite so seriously most days in TKD. This is a challenge for me and is still a challenge to this day. If I have perfectionist tendencies towards anything it would be sport related, definitely NOT when washing the dishes. We were not born kicking, blocking and punching things. So these aspects were all very new to me. Not only are you learning how to kick and punch, you are learning jangs (poomses) which are about 20 moves or so per poomse involving kicking, punching, and blocking in a certain order, also called a "form". Click here ( 8th Jang ) to see it performed. There are 8 you need to learn before you test for your black belt. Thank goodness they got easier to catch on to as I got further down the line with time but at first....wooo weee!! What a hot mess that was! I'm not in my 20's anymore, and even with 2 younger brothers when we were young I didn't even kick or punch them. Really I just tried to pinch and dig my nails into them, which did a whole lot of nothing but made me feel a bit better as it released my frustration. But then only to irritate them more and they would just fire back. So if I was ballsy enough and smart enough as a child, I would have kicked and punched them and then maybe this TKD thing would've been easier at the age of 30. But no such luck. Lindsay was starting from square one. At the beginning the mental and physical challenge knocked me on my butt. I wasn't quite expecting that. But they would also train me one-on-one and I was getting through one poomse a month.  It slowed down for a bit, then I went of vacation, and they didn't work on poomses much with any of the class for a while and we just worked on kicks. When I came back from summer vacation, he had changed my class time to 2-3 pm since the kids were out of school as well. That class were the kids, including myself who were going for their black belt test in September. I loved training with those kids! They were younger and way more cute and so much more disciplined.  I got to really bound with them over the 3 weeks we had class together. 

The clock is ticking at this point. I am very nervous.  It's August, I have one month to get through the last two poomses and be able to be comfortable enough to perform them for my black belt. At this point, I just trust my master and instructors and pray that I will be ready for the the big test day. Keep in mind, Korea very much a last minute culture with big things. They always wait to the last minute. In 2 weeks I got through my 7th poomse and then had a little over 2 weeks to get through the 8th and most major one. What I didn't know is that when you go for you test, everyone does the 8th poomse and then they choose a random poomse 1-7 to test you on. We can accredit that on the language barrier and cultural barrier. ;) 

After my test happy and glad to be done!

Ok! After a very emotionally, physically and mentally challenging 2 weeks prior to the test, the big day has arrived. I arrived at the gym at 8am. Stretch, practice some more and then off I go with my one instructor (the one that has really trained me the most) to the testing site. We pull up and there's TKD vans everywhere and kids in their uniforms and parents and all sorts of craziness. It's a REALLY big deal to test and get your black belt as a kid in Korea so the kids take it very seriously (sometimes) and are very proud when they pass. The energy is awesome! I'm still extremely nervous. My instructor in his super limited almost no English tells me to relax and breath and I'll be fine. We get there and I practice facing the direction I will be facing when I go in front of the judges. Luckily we find out which random poomse we will do prior to getting in there. Thank goodness it was one of the poomses that I could do really well! That was a bit of a relief. As all the hustle and bustle was going on and kids and parents and instructors are in and out and all over the place, I am practicing in the middle of all of it. On top of that, I am the only foreigner in the entire place!  Koreans always stare and anyway but this time they would stare and point even more. Being in Korea 3 years at this point, you learn how to tune it out. I don't blame them so much. Sometimes I even find myself staring at foreigners on the street just because they look so different then all the Koreans. ;) 

You test in a huge gym! There are 3 tables of judges you need to go in front of and there are 360 degrees of second story bleachers with kids and parents sitting in them. Underneath is the holding area where you wait your turn. Each person has a number and you test usually with your gym.  Since I was the only one testing for my 'dan" at my gym, I was by myself. Or so I thought I would be testing by myself as my master had said. At the last minute I was thrown in (as a time saver) with another group of kids from another gym. This knocked me off a bit. There's already so much going on, I'm nervous and feel a bit unprepared and I'm thrown in to test with other people. In the middle of all that, this other master comes up to me and says he knows my master. I was polite and tried talking to him and he knew some English and was trying to calm my nerves and help me. Turns out he was the first owner of my current gym and my master trained under him and now he is, in my instructor's words, KING of Taekwondo. Apparently he is really high up in the TKD world. It was an honor to be there with him and have him help me out. 

I did the test and at the end of each thing, I was shaking and bright red. I didn't make a mistake but hesitated on one move in the 8th poomse. But for the most part did really well according to the grand master and my instructor. My instructor who brought me was super pleased and excited. It's a huge honor for them to be seen and train a foreigner.  I was excited for him and happy that my master sent me with him.  I thought that I would find out then if I passed or not. Turns out you need to wait an entire month. It's been a month and no word. But that's okay. I'm sure they took pity on me and passed me. Haha. 

My adrenaline was pumping so high that day and all the stress leading up to it, through out the day when I got home, I would all of  sudden feel like I was powering down, then be ok again, then randomly hours later power down. All in all, the experience was amazing. I wouldn't give it up for the world. That day and few weeks leading up to the test was one of the toughest things mentally, physically and emotionally I have ever done. Going to TKD in the first place was a huge step out of my comfort zone but I am so glad I stepped out and wished I would have crossed the line much earlier. Cheers for now! Thanks for reading!

I have since found out that I officially passed my black belt (1st dan) test! I'm not sure who was happier, my master or me when I found out! In about another month I should have my black belt with my name on in Korean and the name of the Taekwondo school. It was an adventure telling my instructor I wanted Lindsay Bateman on the belt and NOT Lindsay Milligan. I had not written "Bateman" in Korean in a while and had forgotten. So we tried together to write it in Korean. At first, my Master gave it a try. He spelled it "바트맨" which translate to "Batman." I giggled and we worked it out. But even over here in a different culture and language, my surname is still mis-pronounced.  It will be interesting to see what my name will look like and what is on the belt. ^^

Thank you for reading!

 :)

After my test at home happy to be done!