Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Hapkido fight

This was my first fight. My opponent happened to be a 3rd dan black belt. My kwan jang nim was yelling at the t.v screen when I played this for him. There were two obvious points I should have gotten, and the other guy got 1 or 2 too many. I probably would have lost anyway which isn't a problem for my first time against someone with a lot of skill...but it really pissed me off that the ref didn't give me any points whatsoever. I land a left side kick to the guys pad. And one of those take downs was clean a fast. Like I said, not one point. Oh well. There WILL be a next time. Watch for yourselves.


i'm in the black

The Daegu City Hapkido Exhibition Team

This is one of the things I did this past sunday. I had the dive roll competition (gold medal, in this video there are 13 people on the floor when I dive, HOT), this exhibition show, and my first Hapkido fight which I will be posting soon.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

My days

My days always start the same. I wake up, which is a good thing, brush my teeth and eat lunch. I get on my motorcycle and ride to school. When I get there all the students are outside of the side door changing their shoes into their slippers for school. There is basically a driveway that goes around the side and the steps right there connecting it. There are probably about 50 students outside the door blocking the entire driveway every morning at the time I get into school. The first task is to navigate through the main gates of the school with all the parents stopping short in their cars and double parking. It's a hell of a path to make my way through when there is 2 tons of steel moving erratically all over the place. Once I get through the main gate and the little patches of midget kids I get to the packed driveway. I beep my horn a couple of times and they hear my motorcycle. The first couple of times I did this they just looked up and got so excited that I was there and they saw me all I would see were little black eyes staring me down and huge smiles all yelling "JAY-KUH TEACHER!!" After a couple of weeks they finally got the idea that I wasn't beeping to say hi to them, but to get through them. After that realization it became clock work. I would beep, and just like Moses I would part the sea. Except this wasn't the red sea, this was the Korean sea...and it wasn't water but children. When I beep some of them would be changing their shoes and literally grab them before they could put them on and dive out of my way. Then from the ground they would still wave and yell hello to me. No matter what I do the saying hello part will never go away. Even if I walk into the bathroom to wash my hands and the little kids are peeing, they will turn towards me and say hello. One kid even went to wave to me and ended up peeing on himself because he forgot he was doing something. I wish they had a teachers bathroom. The urinals are in plain view of the hallway and the classroom across from the bath room. I try to pee when there will be no children there like during class. There is a sliding door that closes, but when the kids come in to use the bathroom they open the door and leave the door open. When they leave the don't close the door either. You can imagine how weird it was to be peeing during class and have a kid walk in to begin with...now take this same situation but have that student leave the sliding door open while other students and teachers are walking by, then come right up next to you and start peeing when the rest of the urinals are not occupied just so he can say hello and tell his friends he pissed next to the way gook (foreigner). SSSSOOOOO after I park my bike and a couple more kids dodge me driving, I walk up to my office and start my day. My favorite days are when I get my 5th graders. I love them. I hate my 6th grade but I don't work so hard for them.

The last two days I had no class cause my 6th graders went on a 2 day field trip. Tomorrow there is some election so there is no school. I have Hapkido practice early in the morning though so it's the same as waking up for school. Bummer. The reason I have Hapkido practice is because I made it onto the Daegu city exhibition team. We have a show at the world cup stadium May 23rd so we have to practice for that every weekend. It's time consuming but I suppose it will be worth it all. Along with practice for the show I have my first fighting tournament coming up this sunday. I have been cutting weight and I believe I will make it for this saturdays weigh in. I am very excited and nervous all at the same time. I am competing in the dive rolling competition, doing a mini exhibition show with my gym's exhibition team, and then after lunch I fight. It's going to be a long day but I hope a rewarding one...both in experience and colors of medals. Just got back from practice and decided to write a little bit. I have friends coming over this weekend and staying with me to watch my tourny on Sunday so I have to clean up. And I smell like balls...I got work to do. Stay good if you are, and get better if your not.