A Little Sweetness, A Little Rage

The boys are doing fine in school, and the schedule is starting to fall into place (although I hate getting up in the morning - one of my mantras is "Nothing in the world should happen before 10 AM.")

Ironwolf is on vacation this week. I hate to admit it, but it's been nice having him around!

My mom has a job interview sometime next week up here. As in, not in South Carolina. She (and my dad) has been really unhappy down in SC away from the rest of the family. The question is: what happens if she gets the job? Is she going to move back here and leave my father down there?

OK, now for the rage part. It reflects badly upon my character, I'm afraid, but one of the purposes of this blog is to provide a place to be a whiny bitch! LOL

Most of you know that I just received my red belt in tae kwon do. My partner, Chelsea, and I were working together on the red belt curriculum for the first time this evening, and were being taught self-defense by one of the junior instructors. And the instructor was really *criticizing* everything I did, basically going: "you're almost a black belt, you should be able to do this already!"

In the meantime, Chelsea has been picking things up very quickly, but that's partly because she's been working with one of the red belts for several weeks already.

The instructor did this to me last week before testing too. Now, I really like this guy, but he's getting me very angry. So here's my internal response to all this, which I try very hard to keep off the training floor:

First of all, I'm not almost a black belt. According to my plan, I'm still 21 months away from my black belt promotion. I've been there 20 months so far. Therefore I am only halfway there.

Second, who are you comparing me to? Chelsea? Excuse me, but Chelsea is 15 years old, in good physical condition, is able to get to class 5 or 6 times a week (I'm only able to make 2-3), and is almost a foot taller than me (unimportant except for this - she doesn't even have to try if she wants to kick me in the head, I have to strain to reach her). I'm 33 years old, 40 lbs. overweight, I can't be here every day of the week, I'm not very flexible, and my athletic talents are limited at best! You should be comparing me to me , and that's it.

Third, are you seriously expecting me to simply be able to do this the first time around? Maybe you haven't realized it because you've been breezing through on your natural athletic ability and the fact that you are here every day teaching, but I do not find any of this easy. I have to break every piece down to its components and drill and drill and drill some more until it becomes ingrained. Maybe I don't meet your standards of what a red belt should be capable of. I shouldn't have to meet your standards at all - the only things that are important are my standards and my master's standards. You can judge me when you have a few more years under your not-yet-black belt.

OK, all done. I had this need to be petty and angry and to vent it all in the direction of my unsuspecting readers. Really I'm going to let this whole incident slide unless it becomes a regular feature of my instruction with this gentleman. As I said, I do like him a lot, and he really does have great potential as an instructor. I will simply write it off for now as inexperience and the incapability to realize the negative effects of his well-meaning criticism.