Black Belts

Mr. Carter
Some people aren't completely at ease with the way Mr. Carter has come back to the dojang, taking back a leadership role and being quite vocal.

"Were you getting some advice from Mr. Carter?" I asked one student (students will remain anonymous . . . )after I saw him correcting her on her form. "Did he give you some advice?'
"Yeah," she told me. "Constantly!"

"I sparred with Mr. Carter," I told another student.
"I don't know what was with him and his fighting stance," she commented. "He was jumping around--it made me think of a dog! I would have laughed if he'd done that to me."

"He's loud," I said to yet another student as we worked out to the sound of Mr. Carter shouting at someone.
"Yeah, that's all he seems to do," he answered. "Yell."

Mr. Carter's loudness and hyper-intensity is getting on some peoples' nerves, it seems. Master Hughes is loud and sometimes intense, but he also has a laid-back, genial good humor that eases tension.

I don't really like Mr. Carter's current approach, but it seems to me it comes out of an enthusiasm and love for Tae Kwon Do. He seems really really glad to be back. Maybe he'll settle down a bit once he's been there a while.

Ms. Pryor
She's helped me with a few things recently:
1. Sparring--she gave me some advice on avoiding kicks. "Just step back--you don't need to reach forward to block a kick."
2. Making the end of Won-Hyo look reasonably good.
3. Uniforms. More on that in a later post.

Justin
"I think Justin's coming back sometime soon," I mentioned to Stephanie and Cavio at the end of class.

"I hope not," said Cavio. "I've never liked him. He wants everyone to know he's a 2nd degree black belt. Kind of a show off."

Stephanie and I don't say anything. I'm thinking totally untrue--that's the opposite of what Justin's like. I bet Steph is thinking the same thing.

I think there's tension between Cavio and Justin because they're about the same age, and Cavio joined our dojang very recently after a very long training elsewhere. They also have very different personalities. . . I'm sure it's been a bit awkward.

Black Belts to Be
There's a huge group of people testing for black belt next month. Pam, Jim, Brian A., and June are all testing, along with a big group of kids including Savaun, Grace, and maybe Brittany.

I'm going to be sure to go to that black belt test!