Yes, that is a photo of me in a Tae Kwon Do outfit! My TKD outfit. Thursday was my first class. There were so many reasons I decided to take classes. The first, was the Friday afternoon there were two young men walking down my long driveway. I had no idea who they were. Why were they walking down my driveway? They had run off the road and wanted to know if I could help them. I told them I could not help them, but would call a wrecker for them. The wrecker service was not going to come out because they did not know under what circumstances they had run off the road. The young men were going to have to call. I drove up the driveway and found a neighbor down the road had stopped to help. All the years I was married to Brent I was secure in knowing he was my protector. It was a false sense of protection. Driving to the grocery store or to a friend's house anything could have happened to me. Those young men came at time Brent would have been at work. But, the reality of my life is that Brent is no longer here to love and protect me and the children. Now, I must make all the decisions for us.
Secondly, every week I take Abigail to Tae Kwon Do and sit on the sidelines and watch her kick, punch and spar. I go home and do no exercise. I finally figured out that since I'm already taking Abigail three times a week I might as well take classes too. I do not have to make arrangements to go to a gym or Curves for Women and wonder how I am going to fit it all in. I'm already there! No extra gas to spend and I get my classes half price.
I filled out the required form for Tae Kwon Do. There was a question on the form, "What do you expect to get out of Tae Kwon Do?" My answer was exercise, self confidence and self defense.
Excitement, sadness and concern filled my mind as I drove to my first class. Tears came to my eyes realizing that I would not have even considered taking the class if Brent were still here. Oh, the embarrassment of it all! I had to order the largest outfit, I'm out of shape, people are going to laugh at me, will I be able to get up and down off the floor for those push ups, will my memory be adequate to remember the student oath, and what part of my body is going to hurt?????? My bluegrassin' friends can relate to my first class. Do you remember your first jam? Everybody knew what they were doing. Each instrument plays at a different time and yet it all goes together to get that sound. Each picker knows when it comes their time to take their break, the singers know how to harmonize and you are standing in the background just trying to keep time. Well, everybody in the class knew their pattern, knew the right vocal responses to the instructors, and they knew how to kick and punch. I had to jump right in and start in the middle. The instructor, Mr. Corliss a second degree black belt, wasted no time having us stretch, ouch. We even had to do some push ups. Thank goodness there was no one behind me! After awhile, Mr. Corliss, had the lower belts go in the back to work on our kicks. Thankfully, it was an adult class. The average adult age, maybe 20. There was one adult man in the class with his two young sons and nephew. Chris was his name. He took the time to help me get started on my pattern. He and his sons and nephew were white belts like me. All these past seven months of watching Abigail made me think it was not so hard to do. Trying to balance on one leg, lift the other one and kick and then reverse punch is much for this 53 year old. I am the oldest one taking classes. The runner up is five years younger than me. I expected to be very sore the next day, but to my surprise I was not. Hopefully, I will catch on pretty quick. I guess I'll have to get a poster of Chuck Norris, 8th degree black belt!
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