We
did it! The grading has come and gone
and the entire family got Red Belts. In
Tang Soo Do Karate, we have three more levels before becoming Apprentice Black
Belts. At the grading, it dawned on me that there is a high probability we’ll be
called upon to be Points during subsequent gradings. Points are higher ranked belts that are
situated in the front, rear, and sometimes left and right of the lower ranked
belts to help guide them. The thought is
that the upper belts should know their forms inside and out. My oldest daughter
had this experience during the “dress rehearsal grading” when Master Landry
assigned her as a Point. Here’s the
problem with being a Point. You actually
need to know your forms inside and out. Period. End of story. Why? Because the
lower belts are actually following
your lead. Master Landry instructed them
to go through Form 1: Kee Cho Hyung IL Bu. My daughter knows this form and does
it well, but since we were focused on doing Form 9: Bassai Dai for the grading,
she added an extra punch into the form. And every single person up there
followed her lead. Oops-a-daisy!
I had a similar experience, as a Green Belt I was asked to help a White Belt on Form 1. Sounded easy at the time. I’ve been doing this form for about 2 years; it should have been a piece of cake. Unfortunately for me and probably fortunate for him, he had been taught the form before and knew how it was supposed to go. Turns out that it’s pretty difficult to juggle all of components of being an instructor;
Ball 1: Give the commands for the
next move,
Ball 2: Demonstrate the move yourself, and
Ball 3: Make sure the student is doing it correctly.
Sigh. I’ve never been very good at juggling. It was the worst looking Form 1 that I had ever done, and I totally confused the poor man. After a while, we mutually agreed that I should stop trying to do the moves myself and just focus on what he was doing incorrect. If I don’t want to embarrass myself like that again I’m going to need some guinea pigs to give karate lessons to… “Oh, kids!” After all, that’s what I had children for; teaching karate to my kids who already know it should be easy compared to strangers. One benefit is that they will be more than willing to point out ALL of my mistakes as an instructor.
Since becoming a Red Belt, I’ve been asked twice to be a
captain for the sparring teams. The first time it happened was our very first
class as Red Belts. The instructor told us to get on our gear and called my
husband and me up first. I assumed that we would be sparring each other and
then to our surprise he said we were the captains and to pick our teams. Later
in the car, my daughter told us that we looked like a couple of deer in
headlights, and proceeded to crack up over the memory of it.
The second time, I wasn’t lucky enough to pick my own team. Master Landry split us up into four teams and assigned captains. As captain, I started looking at my team compared to the other teams. Our team was smaller than the other team in every rank which posed a bit of a problem. I adjusted my strategy to try to throw them off guard by matching up unlikely opponents. The drawback was it meant that I had to go against one of the Black Belts. My dilemma was which one. One of them out weighed me and was taller than me, but in line sparring is a real teddy bear. The other was the most aggressive fighter in our whole school and during line sparring held nothing back. I choose the teddy bear to fight. Moments later I was lying flat on my back looking at the ceiling wondering how I’d gotten there with everything suddenly hurting.
Apparently
some time between when Master Landry yelled “fight” and me gazing up at the
ceiling, the teddy bear turned into this raging bull that saw Red Belt and
charged. I’m not sure who picked me up off the floor. My husband swears he did,
but I only remember trying to tell them to give me a moment. Unfortunately, I
only had time to make sure there were no broken bones and there I was facing
the bear turned bull again wishing that it referred to stock markets. After the
fight, I literally limped away feeling like the sacrificial lamb, but felt
elated when our strategy worked as one of my fellow Red Belts took on a
different Black Belt and won the final match. When I had a chance to thoroughly
check for injuries, I found that I had broken two fingernails. Wish I had known
it at the time; you don’t break a girl’s nails and get away with it, but then
again maybe you do.
The first taste of what they expected out of Red Belts was in our first “advanced” class with Master Needham. Afterwards, I came up with a new nickname for the class; I call it the “No holds barred” class. It’s apparently where teddy bears are transformed into raging bulls, and we’re all wearing red. Lovely. But on the bright side, what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, or so they say.
- Wendy Austin
