Tonight, I begin my 17th year of Taekwon-do training and I am very much looking forward to taking my place in line with my friends, bowing in, and leaning into the muscle memory of all of those years of training.
Last year was a rough one for my TKD practice/progress.
After my injury in October (that I didn’t uncover until April) I found it increasingly difficult to participate fully in class and I struggled to practice effectively and my ADHD was not helping, and, and, and…let’s just say things were HARD on my brain and on my body.
So, it was a great relief to discover that there was a REASON why everything was so hard and that I could find ways to make them easier (not easy but easier) again.
It was wonderful to know that the JOY of familiar movement could and would outweigh the challenge once my injuries healed – and that’s what I know I will find at class tonight.
At this point, being a martial artist is a vital part of my identity.
Putting on my dobok, going to class, and moving through my patterns and drills in the company of my friends helps me feel like myself.
After that, the fact that taekwon-do challenges my mind and my body is just a bonus, really.
See you tonight, my TKD friends!
Image description: My taekwon-do black belt rests on a light surface. The gold embroidery has C. Hennebury IV on one end of the belt and Tae Kwon Do in Korean on the other end.
PS – If you are wondering how I did with my plan to prepare for this first class? Well, as usual, various things conspired against me and I had to rework my plan considerably. However, the act of creating that zine helped me to keep TKD prep in mind so I did far more preparation than I would have otherwise and I feel good about the whole thing.
Since I spent most of the time between October 2024 and June 2025 either injured or recovering from an injury, it was not a great year for me at TKD.
I didn’t really have my usual capacity (and didn’t know why) and it was hard for me to invest the level of mental and physical effort required to properly practice.
Without the ability to practice/participate fully, I couldn’t properly enjoy TKD and I couldn’t get as much out of it as I normally would.
There’s nothing that can be done about last year, of course, but I’m determined to have more fun, do more work, and just get more out of my classes) this year.
While it would have been ideal if I had been practicing steadily all summer, that wasn’t possible for me, so I’m working with the time I have.
Aside from the fact that I was still easing back into my normal activities over the summer, I have to allow for my ADHD brain’s variable sense of time, in particular for something that is primarily related to myself. The start of TKD was in the ‘not now’ up until this week until the time frame suddenly shifted to ‘now.’ Once that shift happened, I had much more clarity around how to set myself up for a fun year at TKD.
Soooooo, once that clarity arrived I made a plan for the next 2.5 weeks and then I put that plan into a zine.
I like the zine format because it’s small and contained and it makes the project feel more doable.*
It’s not a super-structured plan (my brain noped out of that immediately!), I just wrote down all the things I could do to start prepping for class and then organized them onto the various pages with a way to track them (or a space to write notes about them) and it feels useful.
I intend to do some things daily (mobility exercises and yoga), some things almost daily (some focused cardio), and others 3-4 times between now and the first day of class (each of my patterns.)
As I mentioned above, the time frame between now and the beginning of classes is short enough that my ADHD brain will accept that time is real and that it is ok to prep for something happening that soon.
My plan is specific enough to ensure that I don’t have to spend too much time deciding what to do in the moment and, yet, flexible enough to let me choose what feels like the most fun on any given day.
I may not fill in all the little circles, stars, and hearts but I am going to work towards it and then be VERY kind to myself if I ‘just’ get 10 or 12 hearts coloured in. After all, 10 or 12 hearts is waaaaaaaaay better than what I would do otherwise.
Frankly, I’m looking forward to challenging myself over the next couple of weeks.
Realistically, ANYTHING I do to prepare will help me head into that first class feeling more like my old self.
And I really like that idea.
KiYA!
Image description: a photo of the cover of my practice zine. It says ‘TKD Prep Work’ on the top half with spirals behind the TKD, arrows pointing to the word Prep, and dots surrounding the word Work. On the bottom half it says August 21 to September 9. The text at the bottom is surrounded by a black frame.Image description: The photo is in portrait view but the text, etc. is in landscape. A photo of an inner page of my practice zine with the word Mobility at the top with trackers (circles to colour in) for hips, wrists, ankles, shoulders/neck. Image Description: a photo of a inner page of my practice zine with the word Cardio at the top, the outlines of 15 stars to colour in (as a tracker), and thin black lines in the background. At the bottom of the page there is a blank space with the words “Make a list:” at the top of it.Image description: a photo of the middle pages of my practice zine. This page has two trackers for two sets of the first group of patterns on the left side, and the name of the individual black belt patterns I know (or am working on) with circles beneath each one to track my practice for each one. The words ‘Black Belt Patterns’ are in the centre of the page. There are a few stars, some small dots, and a couple of spirals decorating the page. Image description: a photo of an inner page of my practice zine. The word Yoga is at the top and there are a bunch of hearts to colour in to track my yoga sessions.Image description: The page is divided into three sections. The top section is headed by the word Kicks then there is an empty space, the middle section is headed by the word Footwork with a space beneath it, the bottom section is headed by the words Punches and Strikes with a space beneath it.
*My ADHD brain perked up when I typed that. “Consider doing zines for other projects, Christine.” “Let’s make a note and revisit that later, Brain.”
Remember a few months ago when I wrote about being the very model of a middle aged martial artist?
I’m at it again.
Last week, I had the honour of taking part in a photoshoot with my photographer friend, Amy Cleary.
I really enjoy the process of helping people with their creative projects, whether I am coaching, brainstorming, or participating in some way. So, I was having a great time observing Amy practice her craft while I was trying to create visually interesting movements.
That would have been plenty of fun for one afternoon but my enjoyment was enhanced by how excited Amy was about my TKD techniques and about the ideas she wanted to express with her photos.
While it would be possible to have a photoshoot and keep your subject as a passive participant, Amy doesn’t want to capture passivity, she wants to express the power of the person she is highlighting in her photos.
I enjoyed my afternoon with Amy and I appreciated her goal of focusing on the individual’s power but I didn’t give much thought to the end result. I basically considered myself kind of a prop for her creative expression.
I knew she would take artistic, interesting photos and I wasn’t worried about whether I would like how I looked in them. Whether I looked ‘good’ or not didn’t feel relevant to the project at hand.
And then she posted a photo from our shoot.
See what I mean? Determination, power, strength. This photo feels great! Photo credit: Amy Cleary Image description: an artfully shadowed photo of me in my white TKD uniform (dobok) and red sparring helmet and gloves. I am punching toward the camera with my right hand and I am holding my left hand back by my head. I am staring into the camera and I look very serious.
It was a revelation.
I still didn’t consider whether I looked ‘good’ or not. What I saw was that I looked POWERFUL and that felt GREAT.
It also felt like a surprise.
Because of my ADHD, unless I work to think otherwise, my brain divides time into ‘now’ or ‘not-now.’ Either I can accomplish the thing I want to do immediately or it gets put off to a time in the indeterminate future.
I find it very difficult to do a small thing now that won’t pay off until the distant future and, unless I consciously work at it, I have trouble believing that a series of small actions will add up to a great whole. I’m sure you can see that this perspective creates a lot of challenges around fitness and exercise.
After all, a single session of any type of exercise isn’t going to produce many tangible results so it’s hard to convince my brain to let me expend the energy now for something that can’t be ‘finished’ right away and that may not produce tangible results for a while.
So, when I try to think about my body looking powerful, it is always something that will happen in the future, in the ‘not-now.’
It’s not that I think of myself as weak – I know the ways that I am strong and I often FEEL powerful – but I have this idea of what powerful *looks* like and I didn’t think I was there yet.
So, that’s why the photo was a surprise.
I’m not heavily-muscled, I’m not at peak physical fitness, I’m rounded in places where many athletes are sleek, but my body is powerful just as it is and Amy’s photos showed me that.
I am delighted by my intense expression in this one. Photo credit: Amy Cleary Image description: a photo of me in my white TKD uniform with my hair pulled back in a black bandana. My body is oriented toward the right side of the photo but I am punching my right fist toward the camera and I am looking directly at the photographer over my extended arm/fist.
I don’t have to wait until the not-now.
I am powerful NOW.
And since I am already powerful, that changes my perspective on my current efforts. I am not starting from scratch, I am enhancing what already exists.
If all goes well, I’m hoping to test for my 4th degree black belt in ITF Taekwon-Do sometime later this year but I have a lot of work to do in order to be fully prepared.
I’m fairly confident about the patterns I have learned for previous black belt tests.* And I feel good about one of the three I need to learn for this test but I haven’t yet fully grasped the second pattern that I need to learn.
So, I am taking my own advice from my Go Team! posts and creating a plan for a small, specific practice to really get this pattern, Yoo Sin, into my brain and into my muscle memory:
I’m going to practice Yoo Sin for at least 5 minutes a day, every day, from now until the end of February, or until I can perform it without hesitation, whichever comes first.
This is what Yoo Sin looks like:
A YouTube video of Patricia Pacero performing the ITF Takekwon-Do pattern Yoo Sin in a practice space with white walls and with blue mats on the floor. She is wearing a white TKD uniform (dobok) and her black belt.
I have been through the whole pattern step-by-step a couple of times with guided instruction but at this point I can only get about 1/3 of the way through the pattern without stopping to check the next move.
I’m not sure if 5 minutes of daily practice will get me where I want to go with the pattern in a month but it will definitely move me in the right direction.
And, as I know from my own Go Team! pep talks, I can reassess and do some course correction at any point in the process.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
For the record, this isn’t the only TKD practice I will do in February, it’s just how I plan to add this pattern to my repertoire.
*If you aren’t familiar with how things work in the martial arts, getting your black belt is not your end point, it’s the point at which you know enough of the basics to start deepening and strengthening your practice. I earned my first degree black belt in 2014. I learned 3 new patterns for my second degree belt in 2016, another 3 new patterns for my third degree belt in 2019, and I have to learn 3 new patterns for my 4th degree test. This is on top of the 9 patterns that I learned for the various belts leading to my first degree black belt.
I had to do a lot of thinking before I returned to Taekwondo this fall.
Here in Newfoundland and Labrador, we have the advantage of isolation/low population density and that, combined with early strict measures, kept our COVID numbers low overall (fewer than 300 cases in a population of approximately 500,000.)
So, this fall is finding us slowly getting back into something that looks similar to the old normal. It’s a more complex normal – physical distancing, elaborate sanitization, and more rules than you could shake a stick at- but it does bear a certain resemblance to the before-times.
Kids are in school, Guide and Scout groups are starting up, you can eat at restaurants but capacity is reduced, a lot of things are happening outdoors and there is tape on the floor everywhere.
When my instructor contacted me in August to tell me that classes would start again in September, I couldn’t commit right away. I wanted to see my friends from class, I wanted to get back into that routine again, and I wanted to re-sharpen my skills. But, I didn’t want to do something foolish and take a health risk so I could punch things in my fighting pajamas.
Myself, Mr. Power and Ms. L. Zurel during one of our breaks. I only realized after I took this photo that I didn’t even try to smirk or smile. Everything feels a bit more ‘serious business’ these days, doesn’t it?
I relaxed a bit when I saw the list of rules for the school. The timing of classes has changed (to accomodate cleaning between groups), there is tape on the floor to mark a distanced spot for each student, we have to wear masks on the way in and out and during breaks and we are welcome to leave our masks on all during class (at 2m apart, we technically don’t need to be masked.) All of that helped but the thing that made the most difference for me was the fact that we are prohibited from breathing out sharply when we execute a move. That was one of my biggest concerns – the idea that I would be in a room of people projecting their breath out forcefully into the room.
So, I have been to about half of the classes* so far and it is great to be back but it is also very strange.
The class is both familiar and unfamiliar. It’s like when you dream about something that you do in real life – it has basically the same shape and the same purpose but the elements aren’t quite right.
The 2m difference in spacing is just slightly more that we would usually be apart when we are Doing our patterns. So my friend Kevin, ahem, Mr. James, is in the correct place on my right hand side but he’s too far away from me. So the unconscious cues that I would normally get from his movement under normal circumstances are now gone.
Usually, only the youngest students have duct tape on the floor to keep them from piling up on each other during kicking drills. Now, there are duct tape markers to indicate a spot for each student.
I’m slightly too far away from my instructor to see them well without my glasses on. I have to keep my glasses off because I’m wearing a mask and the steaming up is too irritating. (Yes,I leave my mask on the whole time, I just feel better that way.) This isn’t a crisis, there aren’t too many subtle movements that I need to see, but it adds to the weird feeling I am experiencing.
The weirdest thing though, the most eerie, is the fact that the class is quiet. Under normal circumstances as we are doing our patterns everyone is breathing out on almost every move. So the classroom is filled with the sounds of this rhythmic breathing. Now we are all quiet. I’ve noticed myself adding comments or slightly nervous laughter more often and I am working on reigning that in. I guess you could say that the patterns could be more meditative now but it is hard to adjust to that idea in a context that was not particularly meditative before. For right now, it feels a little like something is wrong, like we are sombre as a reaction to something (and I guess we are.)
I imagine I will adjust to this over time. After a while, it probably won’t seem so weird, the silence will just become part of how class works. But, for right now, it really makes me conscious of how things have changed. And it makes me aware of the sensory clues I was picking up from other people.
If you had asked me before, I would have said that I spent too much time glancing at other people to make sure I was on track with a given pattern* (it was a habit I was trying to overcome.) However, now I am realizing that hearing breathing patterns and judging people’s proximity were also a big part of staying on track with both the pattern itself and with the group as a whole.
But, all of that being said I really appreciate being able to return to class – especially since so many people around the world are still unable to have any sense of normalcy in their days.
And, I especially appreciate the flexibility my instructors and my classmates are offering right now.
Everyone in the class is able to participate at their own level of risk-tolerance. My comfort/lack of comfort with the current risk level means that I am leaving my mask on, that I am a bit rusty in my movements because my ambient anxiety affects my concentration, and that I could not participant in certain drills that would bring me ‘too close’ (for my comfort) to another masked person. All of that has been fine with everyone else. We are all being very careful of everyone else’s feelings, needs, and comfort levels and that is what makes our classes work well right now.
I’m ending this with a kiya because we can’t shout it in class these days.
KIYA!
*I misjudged the weight of something while cleaning my shed and wonked out my shoulder for a while so I stayed home from class a few times.
**While that could be interpreted as a lack of confidence on my part, that is not exactly it. Sometimes, I lack confidence, but mostly I think my challenges with proprioception keep me glancing around. Sometimes, for example, I firmly believe that my foot is in the right spot for a given stance but something twigs me to the fact that it isn’t – a quick glance at my neighbour lets me correct something that I can’t quite figure out by how my body feels.)
