Taekwondo

Back in June I started taking Taekwondo with my daughter.  She's been doing this since 2010 and is a 4th brown.  She's 4 belt tests away from getting her black belt.  So I finally got to a point where I said "You know what, I'm going to do this." and I got out there on the floor.

It's a hard wood floor that was designed specifically for Taekwondo.  It's better than a basketball court.  I love it.  When I started this, and one of the stretches was spreading our legs as far as we could, I had a total of 22 boards between my feet.  Now, 5 months later, I am at 25 boards.  When I started, I could barely kick above my belt and now I can kick up to my head level.   As of last night I am officially a green belt.

I have competed in a total of 3 tournaments.  The first tournament I only competed in forms because I was still a gold belt at that point and I got 1st place.  Since then, I have gotten only second place, but I still have medals, so that's okay.  I'm excited that I finally have awards for something athletic and not just something academic.  It's a lot of fun, too.  Though there is a lot of hard work involved.  And I am really hard on myself.  When I mess stuff up, I hate it and I get mad at myself.  It's just the way I am.

I do plan to continue on to get my black belt.  I have a very shallow reason for that, though.  It's not for the ability to protect myself.  It's not for the exercise.  It's because when you're a black belt you can wear whatever color uniform you want to wear and I have my heart set on purple.  I know it's strange but that's my motivation   lol.

Kaitlynne and I were having some fun during the tournament back in November.  

This is Tye Travis and Caitlin Gemina.  I've been watching both of them grow up, it feels like.  I met Tye when he was a red belt and I've watched Caitlin from the very beginning.  She's very good.  

I am going to close out this blog with some pictures from the belt test last night.  My daughter was taking the pictures.  She kept messing around with the settings on my phone and I honestly yelled at her for it, especially since she had my digital camera with which to take pictures as well.  But these turned out okay.  

This is Scott Varner and me.  He'll be 50 on Monday.  He started a little bit before I did but his job hasn't allowed him to come to as many classes as I can, so we tested together last night.  And he said that he refuses to let me get ahead of him. lol.