My first class!!

I taught my first class last night! I have been helping and somewhat teaching the Little Ninjas and Young Warriors but...I taught my first ADULT martial arts class last night!
We lined up, bowed in and then Sa Bu Nim looked at me, said "Warm them up!" and walked out of the room. I was soooo freaked, it wasn't funny! The warm up was okay but I wanted to join in with them. I'm not used to being the one at the front of the room!

We did a quick warm up, then I had everyone line up in front of the mirror and we practiced all of our forms that we knew. There are 7 people in the class who are testing for their next belts on the first and I had to help them get ready and make sure they knew their material.
I should really get together with B and M and help them with their techniques. I will have to tell them that I'm available for them.

So today, I've been talking, ALL morning about it! I'm that excited! It was just a great thing and a HUGE show of Sa Bu Nim's confidence in me. It goes a long way in building MY confidence levels up too. I need more confidence and this is the way to do it. I don't have to have the "deer in the headlights" look. I also turned several shades of red last night and Tuesday night. Next Tuesday I have to teach BLACK BELTS their bong form. ME! Why? Because I moved during our last class, didn't step up when he told me to (my "other son" was my fill in that night!) and I'm taking CIT classes to learn how to teach. Open mind, here I am. I need the critique from these kids. What makes me nervous is that they ARE kids--these are all teenagers who have their second and third dans and here I am, a barely Cho Dan (first Dan) and I'm teaching. Plus, I'm in my mid forties. Wow!
Now you know why I need confidence!!

Countdown to the Black Belt is on...

I attended the CDB/BB class last night and am VERY glad I went. I think it'll be something I will be attending more often. The class is Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tuesday's at 6:00 and Thursday is at 7:00. I already have to be there at 6:15 for the Little Ninjas class, so it makes plenty of sense to just stay. I can do this. I'm really looking forward to it.
I was the oldest person in my class tonight. I can laugh about it because I'm 42 and I'm testing with a bunch of pre teen to teenagers. The next oldest people are my good friend S and our instructor. LOL!
We did a LOT of work on our forms tonight. We started with Basic Forms #1, 2 and 3, then moved on to Pyung An Cho Dan (which looks really incredible once you do it SLOWLY!). After that, he had us work on Sip Soo. I feel like I can practice and show off to the people at work---if I do that enough, I'll do it very well. We found out tonight that we're not going to do the entire form at the test--we're only going to do the first part of it. We'll hit the rest of it in the next testing cycle.

Now we're starting in on the hardest part of things. We're going to start in with MANDATORY 2 hour testing preparation classes. This will be on Saturdays starting August 4th. I'm looking forward to it. I also have to start researching my black belt essay. He's going to send out the topics to us and we'll have to turn in the rough draft on the 18th of August. The completed essay is due in September.
Black belt test has been bumped up to October 13th, one day after a dear friend's birthday. I wish I could fly her out here to see me test--that would be so awesome! I know she'll be thinking of me anyway, so I can be happy with that.

What's next? I'm already looking forward to the next part of my journey--I'm going for my second Dan. (pronounced DON). I'm not going to stop with just being a first Dan black belt. I'll be able to test again a year after the next test for me (my recert is April, 2008). I'm already planning ahead and I'm not there yet.