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[home_and_away]

We've arrived a good 20 minutes before the youth all ranks class, Mark, Dae, & I. For a moment, Dae's fascinated by the seniors sparring. Then listless bouncing sets in.

"Dae," Mark stage-whispers, and puts his hands out palm-up. Dae grins and puts his hands palm down on top of Mark's. They stare at eachother. Dae twitches his hands away...back...away... Mark's right hand flips and tries to tap Dae's left--which flies out of range. "Good." Their hands meet again. Mark's left twitches and Dae's fly. Left turns round and taps Dae's right.

"Oh!" Dae laughs, and puts his hands out palm-up. He catches Mark's right on the first try. They laugh.

Slowly the game progresses, feints and taps and reversals. Other kids drift in, some with parents in tow. One by one, they all glance at the seniors sparring...and then drift toward the reflex game.

"Here," I say, hearing Dae start to lose interest. "I want a go." I offer my hands palm up. Dae grins at me. I gaze at him, hold his eyes, don't move. His hands rest on mine. Wait. My right flicks and taps his left. His eyebrows shoot up and his jaw drops.
"Not such a pushover, am I?" I grin.
"Go mama!"
"Thank you. Your turn?"
He feints with his right, feints again, then surprises me by tapping my left with his left.
I laugh! "Nice, kid. Nicely done."

Mark's turn. I watch Dae play. He's getting tired and his eyes are moving before his hands are. He swings for Mark and misses, looks up at Mark, vexed. "You're telegraphing, babe." I say. Dae tilts his head. ? "Your eyes just before you moved showed where you were headed."

Dae exhales, nods, looks directly up at Mark. Holds perfectly still. Then *flick* and Mark's tapped.

"Yes!" Mark cheers, and Dae cheers with him, and I look around.

The other kids waiting for their class to start have perched on the bleacher and are watching silently, like crows at a corn trough. The littlest one with the darkest belt seems to still be processing the concept "telegraphing."

How interesting.

Comments

[brni.livejournal.com]

Telegraphing is a useful move. As long as you telegraph false information exactly when it counts most. :)

[ladywind.livejournal.com]

:D Which Dae tried out today, when we were playing and waiting for class. No idea how the little blackbelt (which is still a wtf? in my head, but nevermind) is integrating the data.

[brni.livejournal.com]

heh... "little blackbelt." in my old school, one kid got his black belt at age 9, and he was amazing - could leap over 6 kids and break a board. but for the most part it was understood - kids just didn't have their shit together enough for black belt until somewhat later.

karate in general can be great for kids (made a huge difference in my kid's life - don't think he'd have made it through school w/o ending up in juvi without it), but there's definitely a difference between schools.

Just curious - does his TKD school have a web page?

[ladywind.livejournal.com]

This one is five. He's amazingly self-contained for a five year old, and I've no doubt he knows the forms and whathaveyou, but yeah, he's still five. Still mischief if he thinks he can get away with it, still more interested in exhibition than teaching. ~shrugs~ Which is fine--that's what childhood's for, and not everybody's built to teach. But still. The belt's bigger than he is, yet.

I like the "smell" of Dae's teachers. The master feels like cool water on a hot day. The teenaged blackbelt who directs most of the young-newb-and-little-ones' class knows without doubt where his towel is and is awesome with kids. If there are assholes here, I have yet to meet them. Lots of pictures of students on the walls; no trophy case.

So TKD's probably not the most bluntly effective art for a fight. I don't mean to teach him to fight yet; I mean to help him learn he doesn't have to all the time. You know?

As for a website... ~wry smile~ They have a website (http://ita6.itaonline.com/cms/default.aspx) like a human has a tail (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coccyx)--kindof vestigial, hidden, and useless on its own, but good for connecting with the rest of the body and occasionally easing passages.

[brni.livejournal.com]

The "smell" of the instructors is important. So is the smell of the students, in particular, how the higher ranking students treat the lower ranking students. That tells you if the school groks that the concept of "respect" means significantly more than "respect for authority."

Your guy does ITF style TKD (North Korean style), which has all the weaknesses one might expect developing under a cult of personality. (South Korean style - WTF - has all the weaknesses one might expect of being developed by committee.) In general, WTF people consider ITF illegitimate, and vice versa, and have written their histories of TKD along ideological lines, neither of which is fully true. It's kind of fascinating, because you can read the history of nations into the gap thus created.

As far as I'm concerned, though, it's really down to individual instructors and schools. If they teach respect for self and for others as if they are the same thing, have an understanding of how to create and deflect power, and enhance mobility, flexibility, balance and focus, the rest is window dressing. :)