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Black Belt
I had a nice surprise waiting for me when I arrived at the Y today for my class. Aaron Spivack, a guy I’ve known since I was a kid, and who trained with us for years and years, was waiting in the lobby. He got his black belt in ChaYon Ryu about, oh, six or seven years ago, and then joined the Marines right out of high school, so we’ve only seen him sporadically since then.
It was lovely to see him again, and I was glad we got a chance to catch up for a while as I waited for the aerobics class ahead of us to finish up and clear out. And waited. And waited.
When they had run ten minutes over time, one of my brown belts went upstairs to find out what was going on from the front desk. And then, when she reported back to me, I went to find out what was going on.
I’m still not sure I understand it, but evidently there was some kind of scheduling mixup that no one behind the desk was responsible for, so that no one behind the desk could fix it. All they were able to do, pretty much, was act surly and hurt because instructors and students were irritated that they hadn’t been informed that their class times had changed. I could sympathize with the guys behind the desk, of course. After all, it wasn’t their fault. But despite the fact that I was dressed out in my dobak and everyone there knows that I’m perfectly capable of shattering bricks, it’s not as though I was being aggressive or confrontational in any way. I was certainly tempted to start breaking something when my perfectly reasonable query about other available class spaces was met with a sullen shrug and a scowl.
In the end, we got started fifteen minutes late, and in a racquetball court. Hardly an ideal teaching situation, but I’m not a black belt for nothing. And after teaching fifteen minutes of the quietest exercises I could think of (imagine twelve people kihoping in a small room with a killer echo. Yeah.), I was able to reclaim the aerobics room.
The rest of the class went much more smoothly. I worked with two six-year-old white belt girls on Basic Form One for about half an hour, and made some real progress with them. I love teaching children, though it’s very repetitive. It’s so rewarding when they finally understand something – it makes the tedium worthwhile. After the white belts went home, I got to work with the Gubernick brothers and Jeremy Cook on self defense techniques, which was a different kind of rewarding. Those boys – young men, I should say. Jaron will be eighteen on Saturday, and Jeremy is nineteen – definitely push me to my physical limits. I like to think I can still run circles around them as an instructor, but Sam, at least, is starting to catch up a bit there, as well. I’m ridiculously proud of them all.
Sam, Jeremy, and Niko Warner went to Houston earlier this month to take their black belt tests. They’re the first students of mine – kids that I trained from the white belt level – to test for black belt. After class, Sam showed me some photos he had taken of their trip. In Houston, they have pegs on the walls where little boards are hung with the names of every black belt in the system, in order of rank. Sam had gone to the effort of finding the names of his instructors, and photographing them.
“Here’s you,” he said, handing me a snapshot centered on two boards – Rhonda Fleming, Robyn Fleming – hanging just below the second degree divider.
“The stripes look good,” Aaron told me, tonight, when he saw me in my dobak. He was referring to the two white stripes I wear on my black belt, to show my rank.
“They feel good,” I responded.
And they do.
It was lovely to see him again, and I was glad we got a chance to catch up for a while as I waited for the aerobics class ahead of us to finish up and clear out. And waited. And waited.
When they had run ten minutes over time, one of my brown belts went upstairs to find out what was going on from the front desk. And then, when she reported back to me, I went to find out what was going on.
I’m still not sure I understand it, but evidently there was some kind of scheduling mixup that no one behind the desk was responsible for, so that no one behind the desk could fix it. All they were able to do, pretty much, was act surly and hurt because instructors and students were irritated that they hadn’t been informed that their class times had changed. I could sympathize with the guys behind the desk, of course. After all, it wasn’t their fault. But despite the fact that I was dressed out in my dobak and everyone there knows that I’m perfectly capable of shattering bricks, it’s not as though I was being aggressive or confrontational in any way. I was certainly tempted to start breaking something when my perfectly reasonable query about other available class spaces was met with a sullen shrug and a scowl.
In the end, we got started fifteen minutes late, and in a racquetball court. Hardly an ideal teaching situation, but I’m not a black belt for nothing. And after teaching fifteen minutes of the quietest exercises I could think of (imagine twelve people kihoping in a small room with a killer echo. Yeah.), I was able to reclaim the aerobics room.
The rest of the class went much more smoothly. I worked with two six-year-old white belt girls on Basic Form One for about half an hour, and made some real progress with them. I love teaching children, though it’s very repetitive. It’s so rewarding when they finally understand something – it makes the tedium worthwhile. After the white belts went home, I got to work with the Gubernick brothers and Jeremy Cook on self defense techniques, which was a different kind of rewarding. Those boys – young men, I should say. Jaron will be eighteen on Saturday, and Jeremy is nineteen – definitely push me to my physical limits. I like to think I can still run circles around them as an instructor, but Sam, at least, is starting to catch up a bit there, as well. I’m ridiculously proud of them all.
Sam, Jeremy, and Niko Warner went to Houston earlier this month to take their black belt tests. They’re the first students of mine – kids that I trained from the white belt level – to test for black belt. After class, Sam showed me some photos he had taken of their trip. In Houston, they have pegs on the walls where little boards are hung with the names of every black belt in the system, in order of rank. Sam had gone to the effort of finding the names of his instructors, and photographing them.
“Here’s you,” he said, handing me a snapshot centered on two boards – Rhonda Fleming, Robyn Fleming – hanging just below the second degree divider.
“The stripes look good,” Aaron told me, tonight, when he saw me in my dobak. He was referring to the two white stripes I wear on my black belt, to show my rank.
“They feel good,” I responded.
And they do.
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You sound like a great instructor.
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