Wednesday Night

Here in our town, Wednesday night is Church Night. Soon after we moved to town over 15 years ago, people informed us that every Wednesday night, the churches in town hold confirmation classes, bible study, meetings, and children's activities.

"Schools aren't supposed to schedule practices or rehearsals on Wednesday night. It's Church Night," we were told.

I'm not sure that agreement still holds between churches and school still holds. But lots of churches still do Church Night. I used to regularly skip Wednesday TKD class to attend a Bible Study; this year, I've decided to attend TKD on Wednesday. It's one of those tough choices I've had to make to pursue this martial arts thing. . .

But tonight, our church's youth group was responsible for making dinner at Church Night, and as a parent of a youth group member, I wanted to help out. Robbie's really just a marginal member of the youth group. At 11, he seems a bit baffled by the group dynamics, especially between boys and girls, but he does enjoy some of the group's activities. I had volunteered to help with the pancake supper (the kids' choice of menu), and had planned to skip TKD.

But when I realized this would be my last practice before the tournament Saturday, I decided I needed to do TKD.

So I helped prepare the meal, supervising pancake-flipping and setting up fellowship hall. It was fun to be with the high-spirited youth group in the kitchen. They laughed and teased each other and worked hard. Many of the youth I remembered from when they were little ones--my guitar and I used to do music with the little children on Church Night. I served the pastor his meal, and remembered the wonderful discussions our Bible Study would have on Wednesday night. But I left before the meetings and activities, skittering in to the dojang right before class started.

It was weird to leave church before things really got started, but I'm glad I got the extra TKD class in. We worked on advanced kicks: reverse tornados and good sparring combinations (roundhouse, reverse hook). Then we got in a good amount of sparring practice, something I really needed!

After class, I asked Brian A. to watch me do my form. He's a good critiquer--knows all the small details, like where to hold your hands, which direction you should face, etc.

"You're really starting to show a lot of power in your form," he told me. "And your middle knife hand is much better. Your wrist is straight."

I was as pleased to hear these words of encouragement as I was to have him help me on some tricky parts. Getting power and snap into my forms has been a goal of mine over the past couple of months. Ms. Pryor says that as brown belts, we need to make these forms our own; not just do them, but perform them.

It was a busy Wednesday night. I wish I could always do both: Church Night and TKD. But there's only so much a person can do, and you can only be in one place at a time. Whenever you say "yes" to one thing, you're saying "no" to another. As a busy person with lots of interests, I often find that a hard truth to keep in mind.