For those of you who are laymen or do another style of Tae Kwon Do, here's a breakdown.
Tae Kwon Do is a kicking art, formed in 1945. If anybody tells you it's thousands of years old, that's crap. Korea traditionally had martial arts up to thousands of years ago, and those martial arts did influence Tae Kwon Do, but Tae Kwon Do was formed in 1945, after Korea was liberated from Japan, which had occupied it during WWII and suppressed all Korean culture. So, Tae Kwon Do was formed through the process of using science, old martial arts, and common sense to come up with the best, most effective fighting style. Tae Kwon Do is now one of the most popular martial arts in the world.
Tae Kwon Do is broken up into two main styles, World Tae Kwon Do Federation, and International Tae Kwon Do Federation. The split happened when General Choi, one of the founding members of Tae Kwon Do, went to North Korea for a demonstration. The other founders didn't like that, and they split from General Choi. They went on to form the ITF, which focuses on sparring (from what I know of it), which is the Tae Kwon Do that is at the Olympics. General Choi formed the WTF, which focuses on the more traditional elements, such as forms (a sort of Tae Kwon Do dance), which is the style I belong to, and the dojang in the story follows. Kind of. My school doesn't take part in any tournaments, and this one does.
My Tae Kwon Do classes consist of: Sparring, sparring drills, self-defense, traditional form and combination work, and workouts. The belt ranking system is as follows.
White, Yellow, Green, Purple, Blue (which is what I currently am), Red, 3rd Degree Brown, 2nd Degree Brown, 1st Degree brown, and then Black, which there are nine degrees of.
So, this was long, but I hope this clears anything up. If you have any questions, PM me, and I'll be more than happy to answer them.
Chapter 4: Why?
I've now met with Shikamaru twice, the time on Sunday, and another time yesterday, on Monday. Both times, he's made me do the same thing, stand up and sit down incredibly slowly. I don't understand it. First of all, the training has no purpose, besides torture, and second of all, Shikamaru, who came off as fairly laid back, is really a slave driver when it comes to training me. Oh well. Today is the first class I'm taking, which will hopefully be enjoyable. But it is 6 hours long…
I got to the dojang about ten minutes early to make sure I was there on time (let's just say I'm usually late. To everything.) When I got there, there was an amazing amount of people there; I'd say at least sixty, people of every rank from white to black. Needless to say, I was kind of overwhelmed. I stood there, in the doorway, kind of dazed, before a voice behind me startled me out of my reveille.
"Going in?" I turned around to see a brown-eyed girl, with her hair in two buns on her head, standing there with a quizzical expression on her face. I glanced down at her belt to see how I should address her, and saw a Brown Belt with a pair of black stripes, 1st Degree just like mine.
"Yeah," I said, kind of nervously. "I was just kind of overwhelmed." I went in, bowing at the door, and looked around for a place to put my things.
"This way." The girl walked past me and, having nowhere else to go, I followed her to a corner of the room. She put down her bag in a relatively empty spot, and motion for me to do the same. As I straightened up, I saw her looking at me. I stood there, kind of uncomfortable, until she extend her hand.
"Tenten."
"Temari," I answered.
"Are you the new girl? I haven't seen you around here before, where are you from?"
"Yeah I am, I'm from Suna."
"So, how do you like it here so far?"
"Well, it's really green, and I haven't gotten used to the temperature, but it's okay, I guess."
"I was born here, so it doesn't seem cold at all to me, but I guess coming from the desert…"
"Yeah…"
"Neji told me about your test, he said he was impressed, but pitied you."
"Pitied? Why?"
"You have Shikamaru as your tutor, correct? He's a real strange one. I don't think anybody here understands him."
"Yeah, he is tutoring me, although so far he's just made me stand and sit."
"Ah, that drill. Huh."
"What?"
"Nothing. Have you met the rest of our staff?"
"Staff? Meaning brown belts and black belts."
"I met Sasuke, Neji , and Shikamaru, but nobody else."
"Okay, then here they are. You see the guy with yellow hair, jumping around? That's Naruto, 3rd degree brown belt. He's not very skilled, but he's got endless energy. The kid with the bowl cut next to him is Rock Lee, 2nd degree brown belt. He's not incredible at most things, in fact he's pretty bad, but he's very good at sparring. The girl with the pink hair is Sakura, 3rd degree brown belt. She's a really good teacher for the lower ranks. Lastly, we've got Choji, the chubby kid, 3rd degree brown belt, and Masters Kakashi and Guy, two visiting 3rd degree Black belts. Lee and Naruto are actually going to travel with them when they leave, to get some experience. The rest you know." I blinked, trying to digest all of this.
"Wow. That's… a lot."
"Tell me about it. I've been here forever, and I still can't keep everybody straight. Oh, here comes Master Asuma. Class is gonna start in a second. Nice to meet you Temari, and good luck."
"Nice to meet you to, Tenten." Just then, Master Asuma's voice echoed through the hall.
"Fall in!" We all moved quickly into four person rows, arranged by rank. "Now, before we start, I want everyone to meet our new brown belt, Sabaku no Temari. Temari, please come forward." I obeyed, jogging up to the front of the class, and bowing to everybody. "Temari comes from a WTF dojang, and will be learning our forms, but she clearly tested as being ready for this rank. From now on, she will be joining Shikamaru as his assistant in sparring, weapons and self-defense instruction. Alright, Temari, you may go."
The class was indeed six hours long. However, only half of it was for pre-brown belt ranks, so the less advanced ones went home at seven o'clock, leaving us brown and black belts to our more advanced work. The work was fairly easy in the earlier half, as I was an assistant instructor, meaning I got to spend a lot of time just standing around. However, afterwards, we spent two hard hours working hard, with plenty of old fashioned kicking and punching. When we had finished this, Asuma had us take a small break, and then called us together.
"Alright, everybody! Since we have Temari with us now, I think it's high time we did some point sparring. Temari will be the challenger, and anyone who wants to can come up and fight her." Oh. Crap. Did he really just say that? Crap.
We spent almost an entire hour doing this, and I was pretty well exhausted. However, I was proud of myself, having beaten Naruto, Rock Lee, Tenten, and tied with Master Kakashi, although I suspect he was just being lazy. I was standing in the marked off space, hoping that we were done, when everybody started chanting Shikamaru's name.
"Come Shikamaru, show her how it's done!" shouted Tenten. Oh please yes! Let me get a crack at that stupid kid! I'll break his face-
"No." The whole room went silent, even though Shikamaru had spoken quietly. "She's not worth the time right now." Everybody stood around, looking at the floor, as I stared at him. HOW DARE HE! I stomped up to him, and punched him in the face. At least, I meant to. My fist only meet thin air, and Shikamaru was standing behind me, his arms on my waist. I was about to elbow him away when he flipped me around and over, slamming me to the floor. The sound echoed through the dojang, and I was painfully aware of his smirk, as he stared down at me.
"Like I said. Not worth it." Shikamaru walked over, picked up his gear, and left. Asuma stood there awkwardly, and then spoke.
"Alright, everyone…class dismissed." The whole group picked up their things, and quietly left, as I laid there, feeling more pathetic than I ever had in my entire life. Tenten came over and bent down to me.
"Don't let it get to you, Tem. Shikamaru's the best fighter here. He can beat anyone in the dojang, including Masters Guy, Kakashi, and Asuma. Strangly, though, he won't compete at tournaments." She turned to leave, looking back at me. "Are you going to be alright?" I nodded, and as she left, I could see she understood. As soon as she was gone, I began to cry, letting all my frustration out. What had I been training for, that he could beat me so easily? Was it all a joke? Why?
So yeah. That sucks for her. Hey! I haven't seen you people in forever. I'm maybe back. But I'm looking to get a job soon, so…maybe not. OO! Also, I'm gonna be testing for my Brown Belt next fall semester end. SO nervous already!
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