Fast-forward to the past few years - I joined the local YMCA about 4-5 years ago - only the local Y was in the next town over, Naperville. Plainfield was still in boom state, growing up from a little farmburg, and didn't have it's own Y yet. I joined mostly to lose wait and get back in shape - that middle age "OH MY GOD" moment so many of us have getting on a scale and putting on pants. You know those moments - can't breath tying your shoes, people run if you wear a tank top, no shirt will stay tucked in your pants once you get them zipped...and let's NOT talk about what it does for sex.
Anyway, the Naperville Y had Tae Kwon Do classes - "Yippeeeee!" I'm thinking. Finally I get to do this! (I also love swimming, was doing that too.) So I join the class - only almost everone taking it is 13 or under!
Now this is too comical. I am 6' 6" and 330lbs - yep, that's no typo, three hundred thirty pounds. I'm in there doing the beginner thing, learning all the moves - I mean, hey, no way can I afford private schools in the strip malls, I have a modern mortgage, man! I really was enjoying it.
The stretches with Tae Kwon Do are great - and geared towards extreme flexibility in the hips and legs, so you can kick straight up. (I still use the stretches while I'm learning Karate now)
So I'm going along, and then they had us doing no-contact sparring. Well, anyone who's ever done martial arts knows that beginners - white belts - don't have the greatest control. They had me sparring with a 12-13 year old boy as he's the biggest one there after me. He leads at me with a roundhouse kick - and I do a low block to block the kick. If we'd had no contact, it would have been fine. But both of us were white belts, and I ended up giving the poor kid a charlie horse in his left thigh blocking. Gawd, I felt horrible! This is why age-separated martial arts training makes sense, folks. One slip, and with my mass and reach, the younger ones just don't have the structure to shrug off even glancing blows from a guy my size. Anyway, I apologized profusely, but he was always leery after that, to the point where he was holding back sparring because of it. Not good - because that could have impeded his training.
There was one truly hilarious moment - the instructor is maybe 5' 7" and 150lbs - and he's going to teach us the flying side kick. Now, this kick, you run full speed across the room, jump up in the air on your side, and one-two kick at your opponent before landing on your feet.
The instructor was standing at one end of the training room holding this huge 3' x 4' pad like a shield. Well, with all the kids, they hardly even budged him. Then there's me. I zoomed lickety-split across the room, went airborne, executed the kick fairly well - and knocked the instructor back at least five feet. Do NOT try this at home, folks! You'll either break yourselves or the walls!
Anyway, I got through yellow belt in Tae Kwon Do, and then something purely stupid happened. I stress fractured my right foot - speed walking at the mall on a Sunday! Ahhhh!! A stress fracture isn't a clean break - oh, no! it is a spiral break around the bone - those long bones between your toes and your ankle. The bone isn't even in two pieces - it's just opened up and burns like hell when you step on it.
So much for Tae Kwon Do training - I let our Y membership lapse, money got tight, I didn't get to re-join and start back up - and here we are alomost three years later. Me being me, I got pissed off about not being able to go, and so didn't stay in practise. Did I mention I weighed in at 295lbs when I was taking Tae Kwon Do? Oops - now you know how I got to 330lbs.
So now, my wife finally gets into exercise, and we join the Y again - only now Plainfield has one a mile from the house, and she wants to go there instead of the other Y. This is how I wound up rusty as hell, a good deal fatter, and taking Isshin Shorinjii Ryu Okinawa Te - style karate.
Here we go, I am a white belt again, (new art) only now, the class is all adult. (I'm still wearing the Tae Kwon Do uniform, because I can't afford to get a karate uniform yet. It works, and my instructor thinks it's fun and cool - but THE WRONG ONE! He told me so the very first day.
Since I just got home from work a little while ago, and I have to go to class this evening before work, I need to go get some sleep. Until next time, Sayonara...(splg?)
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