How I Spent My Saturday

After my usual early martial arts class, today, there was an instructor's clinic. I always have mixed feelings about these things - on the one hand, they're clearly necessary for our newest instructors, but on the other, they're painfully boring for those of us who've been attending them (and teaching) for several years. And, all too often, large chunks of them are wasted in lengthy discussions that we don't really need to have. Mostly, that stuff comes up because we always have a few students who can't handle it that "because Master Hwang says so" might be the only answer they're gonna get on something. It really ought to be enough of an answer - like most traditional martial arts styles, ChaYon Ryu is hierarchical - but these guys just can't wrap their heads around the idea that this small, quiet woman really is qualified to tell them what they can and cannot do with her branch school. Jackasses.

Anyway! There are a few young instructors that I feel particularly close to, kids that I've been working with for years (and who aren't really actually kids anymore), who never fail to make me painfully proud of them at these things. It's a nice feeling. I wish I could express to these boys how important their success is, to me, but I'm sure it would freak them right out. They're teenagers, after all, and I'm not only the scary hard-ass instructor who is always snapping at people, but also a girl.

So I rambled on about how watching these guys grow up as people, as martial artists, and as instructors has made me feel, to Jameson at dinner tonight, instead. And he smiled gently, patted my hand, and said "Ok, Captain Pellew."

Jimmy's pretty darn good at making me laugh at myself, as it turns out.

( Some other things I did today: )