Taekwondo Week 2

The kids were noticeably more friendly tonight at Taekwondo. I think they're getting used to the idea of having me in their class. Several of the boys ran up to me to say "hi" when I arrived, and two of the girls made of point of talking to me throughout the class.

It was quite the workout tonight - we were practicing our kicks by lining up and then kicking our way around the room two at a time. After five minutes of kicking, I was pretty tired and waiting for the activity to change. Eventually, I realized that this would, in fact, be our only activity of the night. Near the end of the session, and fifty minutes of kicking later, I was completely exhausted. However, this wasn't the end of class. Kwan Jang Nim (Master) lined us up and we raced from one end of the room to the other, by frog hopping and then by walking crouched low to the ground. And to top it off, we did squats! I will be very surprised if I am able to walk to and from school tomorrow without being in a lot of pain.

After class, I took the Taekwondo bus home again. Kwan Jang Nim dropped four of us off at the Hai Tai Apartments. As I was walking toward my building, one of the boys yelled something. I couldn't understand (Joanne: Hangeumal motayo - Korean language I don't speak), so one of the boys managed to translate to "Let's play!" We made a stop at the swing set. I basically went through my entire Korean vocabulary with them. They acted impressed, though I know that at least one of them has a much better grasp of English than I do of Korean. We managed to communicate that I live on the 10th floor, that I work at English Town and that I have a boyfriend (one boy sang the Wedding March to ask whether or not we were married). The boys were smiling and having a great time while we were chatting. Actually, the whole class seemed to be having fun while we were at Taekwondo. It's so nice to see all the kids so happy to just be participating and hanging out with friends. I'm really looking forward to going again tomorrow!