First Teaching Experience

I taught my first class today!!! Ahhh!! Mr. Coleman is in Virginia for the weekend for a teacher's workshop or something, so he asked me to cover both saturday classes. So I got to the dojang this morning around 9:15, and there was a sign on the door that said "Classes closed due to bad weather". (It was supposed to snow, but it only turned out to be rain). So I unlocked and checked the phone messages just to make sure that it wasn't some mistake. My mom called my cell phone and said that Mr. Coleman had just called her and said to take down the sign and have class. So I did! Gerald was there as an adult, because there has to be someone over 18 present during all classes, but other than that, I was on my own! Only 10 people showed up for all belts, which I was very relieved about. I took my time with warmups (Brian's advice was to stretch warmups out as long as possible the first couple of times you teach, so you would limit your time and not run out of things to do). Then we did some kicking drills to get them sweating. After that, I had them do forms, get a drink of water, then we kicked the bags. I tried to spice it up a little, so after kicking the bags, I had them all get in a line to do flying sidekicks, and we had a contest to see how far everyone could jump. Then I ended with a game of Instructor Says. Whew! It wasn't as nervewracking as I thought it was going to be! I also taught weapons, but I've done that before so it was no big deal. So.... Yay! :D

Testing

I tested for my first progress stripe yesterday! It wasn't a large ordeal, because there was only one other person testing (neither of us could make it to the all-school testing in a few weeks). I sustained a total of two injuries from testing this time around. The first one happened when we were doing self-defense. My partner used a hip throw on me, and I landed on the hardwood floor directly on my right knee. OWWW!!! Mr. Coleman and Paulette helped me hobble to the back room, where we concluded that the most it would amount to was a painful bruise (and boy, it is!) So I walked it off, and joined back in. Doing my forms helped my knee to feel a little better, and it didn't hinder me either, so that's good. Then it was time for breaking. The pain in my knee was just a dull throb by this time, so I decided to try my 360 hook kick (my favorite kick at the moment). I was a little worried because we didn't have any 1/2 inch boards (the standard board used for hook kicks) so I had to use a full inch one. I broke it on the first try, but the pain was almost more than I could stand. My entire left foot felt like it was going to fall off! I went and leaned against one of the poles while the other student broke, trying to ignore the pain. We both passed, and I got my white stripe on my belt; the first step in a long wait for my 4th dan. Just a little less than 3 years to go! :D