Catching Up.

I know, I know. I haven't posted in like, what... a month? I'm a terrible person. I apologize. I plan certain discussion topics but then end up preoccupied with other things. That, and nothing too terribly exciting has happened in the last month. The short version is thus: Muay Thai every Saturday, school stuff regularly, and I've gotten sick a couple times (and am getting sick yet again as I write this). Oh, and it's getting quite hot.

But I won't leave it at that. I'll do my best to go into some more details in various categories.

School

I've been keeping pretty busy. For a solid 2-3 weeks, they had Naomi and I working with these 3 girls (two 5th graders and 1 sixth grader) to prepare them for an "English Champ Contest" held in Uiwang for all the local schools. There were two primary categories: Story Telling and Speeches. The first stage, actually, was to fix up the stories/speeches. One of my co-teachers gave me a pretty simple picture book to modify into a page-long story, changing and embellishing to my liking. So I did. Then they had Naomi (and later me) fix up the translated-from-Korean speeches that the other two students wrote themselves. Ironically, Naomi ended up working with the one Story Telling student, and I ended up working with the two Speech students.

The Story Telling student was pretty good all around and just struggled with a word here or there. One Speech student was also very good and was the favorite to win of the three, as she competes every year and has won before. The third... well, that was a problem area. She's good, but she's also stubborn and speaks very fast to the point you can't understand her. And no matter how hard you work with her, she refused to change it from her way (to be fair, she did get better, but she never got to the point she needed to get to). Long story short, that girl did not win. Shockingly, neither did the favorite to win, which was a large upset. But, as it turned out, the Story Telling student did win, so that was nice.

Unfortunately, this wasn't good enough for our principal, who wanted ultimate victory. He's currently demanding we start preparing for next year's contest now. So we've already picked the new contestants (I think) and have to start working with them immediately.

Almost immediately after this finished, we had to start prepping for what's known as Open Class. This is when your students' parents come in to observe a class, and then write a report or whatever about what they liked and disliked, which I'm assuming goes to the principal. The first one to prep for was my regular 6th grade class. I wasn't too worried, especially since my co-teacher told me it was most likely no parents would show up (which did end up being the case). But we did prep. Unfortunately, the came I came up with ended up being way too difficult and complex for them. It was the biggest disaster of a lesson I've ever had, and I've never felt so embarrassed as a teacher (which is saying a lot). But I thought on my feet and changed up the game halfway through, and it all worked much better.

But then came the Open Classes for my afternoon classes. I'm not sure I've ever explained this, so I'll explain now: We have two kinds of classes, the regular morning ones, and the optional afternoon ones. Parents can sign their kids up for the afternoon classes to get more practice (they can do it with our school or they can go to what's called a Hagwon, which I have discussed in the past). My afternoon classes are where I do the bulk of my weekly teaching, and they span almost every grade level (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 6th). And I have the same co-teacher for every afternoon class.

Sadly, she's not the greatest co-teacher in the world. She's nice and all, and she tries very hard, but she speaks very (very) limited English, she freaks out too much, she's very unpredictable, and she generally has no idea what she's doing. So one day--I believe it was a Wednesday (or at least a late Tuesday afternoon)--she tells us we need to have our Open Class lesson plans in to her... by Friday. Uh... sure, OK. We get it all in and whatnot, but the real pain comes the following week. She's utterly freaking out the entire week. She's over-thinking everything, worrying like mad. She's terrified of the principal and of messing this up. She's so insanely stressed and freaking out that it's actually starting to screw up the lesson plans we worked on (Oh how I could go into some stories here... for this and other times... but I don't want to rant here). And Naomi and I are both starting to stress because she's stressing so much. 

And then Open Class days come. The short version: 1st grade was insanely loud, but the parents seemed to love the class. 2nd grade was better, and the parents loved the class. 3rd grade was very good, and it was hard to read the parents. 4th grade ended up loud with the games, but overall it was good and enjoyable. And 6th grade had no parents. And the overall parent reviews? Not a single negative comment. (As far as I'm aware.) And we're so relieved it's over. Except now Naomi and I are having to plan and prep for Summer Camp, which is in about a month (it's 2 weeks of fun English-based games and activities that we plan for a limited number of students).

So the afternoon Open Classes were this past Monday/Tuesday. Following that was a couple days of ice cream for the students... for some unexplained reason. And then Friday was "BEST Shop Day," where student could exchange coupons they earn for snacks or toys. Those are always fun days.

So that about catches us up on the last month+ of school activities, at least on the surface level.

Muay Thai

This will be pretty short. It's been going alright, though I'm not sure if I'm getting any better. The main instructor is starting to have me work alone a lot, which is kind of a bummer. But the people who frequent the class are really cool and really nice. I was thinking about maybe dropping it, because it was starting to lose its fun factor and it was really infringing on hanging out with friends on the weekend (not to mention the hassle of the long commute every Saturday). But as it turned out, a different instructor (who does classes on a different day) has taken over for the usual guy for the next month, and we got along really well. He's a really cool guy, and he both instructed well and kept it interesting (not saying the usual guy is bad. It's just different). So I'm gonna stick it out at least another month.

Other

For those not in the know (i.e. those who don't read my Facebook updates), our school's summer break is the last week of July/first week of August. And during that week, I'm taking a trip to Tokyo! I've wanted to go to Tokyo for... I don't know... something like 13 years? So this is super exciting for me. I've got most of the trip planned so I know what I want to see. I honestly can't wait. Similarly, the holiday Chuseok gives us a 5-day break in September this year, so the plan is to take a few days and visit Beijing to see the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, as well as eat some authentic Chinese food! So that's what's going on in the near future.

Oh, and now that I've been here 4 months, I finally bought a scale. It seems I've lost roughly 40-ish pounds (maybe a little less). And hopefully I'll keep putting off the pounds! Whenever I lose weight, this is always the weight area I stagnate at, so I really need to work if I want to put off more.

It's also been getting very hot here. Not Texas hot, but it feels that way with the intense humidity and the fact the air conditioning here is mostly terrible. At least back home, staying inside meant staying cool. Here, I can stay home, have my air conditioning on and my electric fan blowing right on me, and I'm still sweating. I'm sure it has to do with the fluctuating weather, but I've gotten sick a few times in the last month or two, and I'm trying not to get sick again right now. And we're about to start the rainy season this coming week, it looks like. So I'll be in for some non-stop rain for at least a month or so. Great.

And... that's about all I have to update with, I think. Most of the other little things I put up on Facebook. So I'll just leave it here for now!

My Muay Thai Journey

For those unaware, I decided within the last week that I wanted to take up a martial art while in Korea. The first things I saw were Muay Thai, MMA, Judo, and a lot of ground work grappling stuff. I had about zero interest in ground-based stuff. I have no doubt the skill it takes, but even aesthetically, it's not all that exciting. Then I looked into Taekwondo (which is the national sport, actually) and Hapkido (which is a Korean martial art--I also believe it's what Steven Seagal does). But, as luck would have it, the closest (English-speaking) gym for either TKD or Hapkido was about 90 minutes away. So... that brought me back to the first one that really caught my eye--Muay Thai (if you don't know, Muay Thai is Thai Kickboxing). So I said sure, why not. I found a gym with a solid reputation (and spoke English) that's only about an hour away, in Seoul. In fact, it's right near Itaewon, which is like foreigner mecca.

As a pure beginner, I had to start with Muay Thai I (Fundamentals), and fortunately there was a Saturday early afternoon class. I registered for it online and waited for the day.

As the day arrived, I was understandably nervous. I started leaning back on the whole "I'm gonna be way out of my league, they're gonna look at me like I'm crazy, and why am I doing this again?" But I continued on with it and left my place at about 10:30 (the class started at 12:10, but I wanted to give myself some leeway in case I got lost or something).

And that brings me to the next part of the story. Anyone who knows me knows how incredibly directionally challenged I am. And here I was venturing into Seoul on my own, having to make no less than 2 transfers on the trains. And then I'd have to follow the directions from the website to even find the gym itself. Now, I'd been to Seoul a few times by now, and I'd been to Itaewon once... but all of those times I pretty much relied heavily on the directional skills of Tim to get places.

So the first leg of the journey was easy, as it was just one stop over to Geumjeong before taking 5 steps off the train and waiting for the next train. But then came the long stretch, which would take me from Geumjeong to Samgakji (the bulk of the trip--14 stops and about 50 or so minutes long). I was worried at first because the train was packed. Like, uncomfortably so. However, after about half the trip, it cleared off enough, and I even managed to get a seat for a little while.

Now comes Samgakji, where I have to transfer over from Line 4 to Line 6... and I had a bit of a screw-up. I ended up hopping on the wrong train and going the opposite direction. But I just got off at the next stop and found the right train that took me back the way I needed to go. Unfortunately, this took some of my leeway time away, and I was running short on that. I was starting to worry that I was gonna be late (I had to be there early to do some paperwork and make payments and whatnot before the class started).

I wasn't going all the way to Itaewon, though. I had to get off at the stop right before, at Noksapyeong, which I guess puts you at the outskirts of Itaewon. This was a pretty cool little station. There weren't a lot of people, but the whole look of the place was pretty nice. Though it took me a while to get out, as it involved like 2-3 escalators and another flight of stairs, so I have to keep that in mind when timing things later.

I finally ended up on the street, and it's a very pretty little area. I had to walk a ways before going down an underpass and coming up on the other side. I got a bit turned around at this point, as I couldn't find the gym. I knew it was above this bistro and right before a bank--I found the bank and the bistro, but couldn't find the way to the gym. I had to walk around a while before I found it (it was basically right in front of me the whole time).

At this point there's like 10 minutes until the class starts (so it's noon by now). I get up the stairs and the door is closed with a sign saying there's a yoga class going on, don't enter until it finishes. So I'm standing around waiting when a young woman shows up--and I was happy to see someone else just as out of shape as I was. But then this way-too-in-shape dude shows up right after just to make us feel bad.

Anyway, we eventually get in once the yoga class ends. It's a tiny little studio, but it's nice. I fill out my paperwork and pay my fees. Though the class actually starts as I'm doing this, and they go right into jump ropes. By the time I finish the paperwork and change clothes, they wrap up the jump rope warm-up and start the real stuff.

Now, I wasn't sure what to expect going into this. I didn't know if, as beginners, we were gonna be taught some little moves and take it slow or what. Taught some moves? Yes. Take it slow? No. (And out of the 12 or so of us there, only 4 of us were true beginners.) The first thing we do is stretching followed by basic feet movement. Basic bouncing back and forth from foot to foot, keeping light. "OK. This is easy enough," I thought. That was nothing.

Next came the part where we stand in a fighting pose and kick our dominant knee into the air while bringing our dominant arm down to create almost a right angle, basically. Do that like 20-30 times. Now lets add another step to it. You don't just bring up your knee, no. Now you stand with your dominant leg forward so that you do a jump and switch (jump and bring the dominant leg to the back) so that when you land, you can bring that knee back up into the air. Do that another 30 times. It's at this point I can start to feel my right leg getting a bit too weak to move properly, so I switch it up and do some work with my left. But we're not done there. Now, instead of a jump and switch, we just step forward and bring the knee up. (And remember, every time you bring the knee up, you bring the arm of the same side down while guarding your face with the other arm.) Another 30 or so times.

Thai Pads

Then it was time for the Thai Pads (not to be confused with

Pad Thai

delicious Pad Thai). You partnered up (me and the other new and out of shape girl partnered for everything) and one of you had these pads strapped to your arms. You held them low, near the waist, and tight. Then the other person proceeded to bring their knee up into them while holding onto the shoulders of the pad-holder. So we did that for a while (switching pads after a few dozen reps) before upping the ante and incorporating the different knee kicks we'd just learned, but against the pads. And we did that kinda thing for a while.

From there it was time for gloves on. We practiced some one-two punches basically (slide your foot forward, left punch, right punch). Then we got the pads again and worked on that before we added the final step, which I basically called the "Boom, boom, shift, kick." You slid forward a bit, left punch, right punch, jump/switch, knee. And it was almost as much of a workout hold the pads, as it got your arms moving quite a bit, too, to keep up with the hits and knees.

And that was about it. The whole class was about an hour long, and I don't think I covered everything. But it was honestly so much, it was hard to remember everything. There were things that were like 20-30 reps. And there were a few things that were actually 100 reps. And we did get a handful of very short water breaks. I sweat like crazy and was pretty exhausted halfway through. But I guess I caught a second wind, because I was fine for most of the second half.

Though then I went back to change into my regular clothes and found I could barely lift my leg to get into them. So I'll be pretty sore over the next couple days, but it was a lot of fun, and I actually can't wait to go back. I also had them order me some equipment that I'll need (shin guards, gloves, mouth piece, etc.). The guy teaching the class said I could probably switch to the Muay Thai II after a couple weeks when I have the basics down. My biggest problem will be coordination and remembering all the different things I have to do all at the same time. But I'll get the hang of it.

How I'll look in a year.

(Oh, and the trip home was easy, and seemed to go by pretty fast. No issues there.)