In Daegu, there are tons of hagwons. Hagwons are private academies, like the one I teach in. I teach at an English hagwon. On average there's three per block, and that's just English. There's also math, computer, art, taekwondo, and so on. Today, Hannah and I went around to some of the schools in our neighborhood and found one where the instructor is female, and has good time slots. She spoke a fair amount of English, and the floor is padded.
She had us sit and watch one of the classes, and I was really nervous. She told us ahead of time that everyone was a black belt and that they jumped rope 1,000 times. So I sat, quivering, sometimes grabbing for Hannah's hand, while some kids played around--kids younger than my afternoon students but older than my kindergarten kids. As 8:30 rolled around, I realized they were going to be my classmates. It's a lot less scary when you can easily protect yourself by tackling and sitting on your opponent.
Some of the stuff honestly looked difficult, but it was all very interesting. There were two kids with purple belts, and they got to sit out for the harder stuff. I'm looking forward to joining them. To be honest, I think this is going to be a great next step in the adventure. Learning taekwondo in South Korea? Oh yeah, babe. BAM!
Merry & Bright - and a new freebie!
5 years ago
3 comments:
Hey.... I think that means that I should drag Becca up from Denver and you two can spar for a while. Granted she's a high brown belt... the karate school got too expensive and Mark and Brenda said screw the black belt... but I'd get a kick out of watching you two beat the hell out of eachother.
You go girl!!! I think it sounds like a lot of fun. It's great to see you streching yourself and getting the most out of your whole experience in Korea. Hai-ya!!!
Holy crap! You saw really high belts! Don't worry, the white, yellow, and orange belt stuff will be easily within your grasp and is actually a lot of fun to do (I practice with the Brender sometimes! :))
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