Monday: Three Things

1. Coming back . . . again. It's hard to keep leaving TKD and coming back after a week's absence! I'm glad to be back, yet I really notice the little things I've lost. Anything that I've recently memorized, for example.

I stumble through my forms, have some trouble with stances, and even feel a bit awkward at basic moves. I try not to get frustrated. This was the last time I'll miss class for a week, so I'll catch up. At least that's what I tell myself.

2. Tornado. My new kick is the front tornado kick, though Master Hughes seems to think we brown belts also know the reverse tornado kick. Ms. Pryor showed me last time I was here and I was getting it before I left . . . but that was a week ago.

Tonight, I'm clumsily trying it during combination kicking; then I stop.

"Do you actually use the tornado kick in sparring," I ask Justin, my partner at the time.

"Not much," he says. "I did use it in a tournament where you got 3 points for a jumping kick to the head."

I try again, and he stops me.

"Use a roundhouse."

"The second kick?" I ask. The tornado kick is like a tour jete' in ballet: one leg goes up, you turn, and before the first leg comes down, the second goes up, too. But a tornado kick is . . . scarier to look at.

"Yeah, a roundhouse," he says. "That will make a loud slap when it hits the pads." He shows me.

This makes more sense. I'm better at a roundhouse kick than at an outside-inside (crescent) kick.

"OK. This seems more useful. I guess I'll learn it," I tell him.

3. Bat. As Brian and I are going over our forms after class, a bat flies through the back room where we are. It flutters around the room, then out into the dojang.

"I'm leaving," says Matthew, with wide eyes.

"He's not after you," I tell him. "Those bats eat insects."

I love bats. I'm not sure why. I guess I'm a mammalphile.

The bat disappears, maybe back up into the attic.