Celebrity Status

Last Friday at Hapkido the normal 11 am class showed up for our 9:40 session. When I showed up I was greeted with a series of Hello!'s and wows. I got changed and while I waited for the class to actually start I had about 10 kids following me around where ever I went.

They were all amazed that I did Hapkido and of course started grilling me with the little English they did know. Where are you from, how old are you, do you like Pizza and so on. I answered the questions I could in Korean and that impressed them. One kids English was half decent and he was helping the other kids ask what they wanted to ask. The kwan jang nim's (hapkido master or instructor) girl friend was there and her English is pretty good. She was able to tell me what some of the kids wanted to but couldn't.

The one's who English was ok wanted to tell me that he really liked Hapkido because he was very good at it. Then he proceeded to show me. He was not kidding. He did the number 2 flip (which is a round off) followed by a back flip that he did so high and seemingly effortlessly. Then the kids started grilling me about the types of moves I could do. Luckily they were asking me about the gymnastic type moves which I is my strength.

They asked me to show them number 1, which is a regular cartwheel. I did that, to a round of applause by all the kids...just for a cartwheel! Their friend did like 5 back flips like seconds before to no reaction! Then I did a round off followed by more applause of course and a number 3...I'm not sure what you would call it but its like a round off but you land facing the opposite direction. I can't do number 4 although it is my goal to be able to do before I leave Korea. It is a cartwheel without using your hands.

They also asked me how many bags I could dive roll over. I gave them the number 4, sounds decent but isn't so high that I wouldn't be able to deliver if I had to. I did eventually have to because sure enough at the end of the night we jumped over one bag, then kept adding more. I doubled the four I told them I could do and managed a cool 8. Impressed myself there. All the little kids were impressed as well because I only told them 4. After the 5th one the kid who's hapkido was exceptional and English was decent congratulated me.

I seriously lack in my hapkido abilities in every aspect except the gym parts. I am the lowest ranked person other then one guys younger sister, but she doesn't come very often. There are 4 or 5 brown belts and the rest are some degree of black. I am red, a step down from brown. I can however do a better cartwheel and other flips then all the browns and some of the blacks. I also out lasted all the browns and 4 or 5 black belts in the dive rolling.

All in all it was a fun night at hapkido and I was treated as though I was someone important even though my skills were inferior to everyone there.