Respect the Sensai!

Have you ever had one of those moments where you were confronted by someone for something unexpectedly and you didn't handle it very well, and then spent the rest of the evening thinking of things you should have said, or other ways you should have handled it? And it just bugs you to no end that you didn't say what you should have said to begin with? I mean, in the sit-coms, the characters are always so quick with a clever comeback. But, I, unlike the characters on TV, don't happen to have a staff of script writers who can feed my next line to me, and left on my own, I am just not that quick on the draw.

Tonight was mortifying!

OK, let me step back a bit, to even earlier today and explain to you why, when I walked through that door to my taekwando class I was already having a terrible day.

First: I had been painting some new built-ins in my dining room ALL DAY, and all day last week, and all day the day before that. I had primed them and painted three coats, and they still needed at least one more coat! It was becoming the never ending project! I dropped everything to come to taekwando class, even though I was covered head to toe in white and red paint, only because I knew I really needed to get more training before my upcoming black belt test. I was hoping the sub teacher that I really like would have been there. Otherwise, I would have stayed home to finish painting that 5th and possibly 6th coat.

Second: My washer had suddenly stopped working today with a Mt. Everest sized pile of a weeks worth of smelly, dirty camping laundry that I was working my way through all day. Love-ly! After doing a bit of CSI type forensics I discovered the source of the problem - a can of pineapple that was waiting its turn to reside in the food storage closet (yep, my food storage is in the laundry room) somehow managed to fall behind my dryer in such a way that the metal rim of the can slipped between the washer's electric plug and the wall and shorted out the outlet. The charred outlet and matching charred notch in the rim of the pineapple can were the clues I usd to solve that little mystery. But, solving the mystery did not solve my problem of a useless outlet and a week's worth of dirty laundry.

Third: My children were fighting like CATS AND DOGS all day. You see, they were supposed to be cleaning their rooms, and they have all adopted fighting and torturing each other as their primary strategy to get out of cleaning their rooms. I contend that just cleaning their rooms might actually take less energy and be less work than fighting, but they are not, as yet, willing to give peace a chance.

Forth: I had some other family matters that I can not discuss here weighing on my mind.

Fifth: PMS

Now you are properly prepared to understand my state of mind when I dragged myself and all six of my children into the taekwando school only find that the sometime sub teacher that I like and was hoping to find was not there. My regular teacher, the 7th degree Korean master who owns the place, who personally I think is the worst teacher EVER, was there. Upon arrival, he informs me that he has to go and that I am teaching the class! Then he walks out the door!!!

I was totally unprepared! I have NEVER taught a class before (except for the one time I taught the young women for an activity). Stressful!

So I winged it. What choice did I have? It was not a small class, either. Besides my own 6 kids, there were 2 teenage brothers, and 3 little white belts, two of whom were brand new (creases still in their uniforms) and their parents were right there watching the whole time!

So we did some stretching and warming up, and then some kicking on the bags. I thought things were going fine until the dad of the two new kids stands up, walks right onto the mat and starts yelling at me!!! He told me I was teaching them all wrong, that I should have divided up the kids by size and such and that I was not disciplining them enough. That he was paying good money for his kids to be taught some discipline, blah blah, blah blah, blah blah.

I was FLOORED! Everyone stopped kicking and just looked at me. I just stood there in shock - absolutely speechless. What could I say? (It turns out, I could have said a LOT of stuff, but I just couldn't think of any of it at the time.)

Finally I said that I did not see the need to divide up the class since we were all working on the same basic kicks, that I was in fact giving each of them, especially the white belts, individual help and thought they were doing fine.

As far as discipline was concerned, I didn't even address it. The class was not being unruly, in my opinion, with the one exception of my very own 4 year old - the one that I usually have to help one-on-one and watch closely to keep him in line during class - when I am not roped into teaching the whole class, that is. 4 year olds don't really grasp the mommy-is-suddenly-teacher concept. Good old Alex was trying to step in and try to help control him in my absence, but 4 year olds have an even harder time grasping the brother-is-suddenly-parent concept. So , yes, I was having a tough time disciplining my own child, especially since I was just trying to remember everything I needed to teach, everything I needed to do, and be on top of each student and help them all with their kicking. It is a lot to remember, especially when you are completely unprepared!

So the dad chewed me out The class came to a standstill. I was flabbergasted and amazed at this guy's gaul. I smiled at my poor class and then, completely flustered, moved onto forms.

The clock was SO SLOW after that. I thought that stupid class would NEVER end.

I felt about 3 inches tall.

After class the same dad came up to me and said he was sorry he interrupted my class, but that he was paying good money for his and that he expected that I would give the class the same kind of discipline that he got years ago when he did martial arts. He went on to inform me that he did martial arts a long time, and that he was a really high belt - like a red belt with a black stripe, and that he has been teaching his kids martial arts at home, and that they already know a lot of stuff, and that he brought them here so they could learn discipline! (What does he think this is? Rex-kwan-do?) Stupid macho crap.

But again, I was speechless, floored by his "apology" which I found even more offensive that the original chastisement that prompted the "apology".

I don't remember what I said, but it wasn't much.

I did cry plenty, though, but thankfully, not until after he left.

What I SHOULD have said was:

"If you know so stinkin' much why don't you come up here and teach this class yourself?!"

or

"You may be paying good money for this class, but I am not getting a dime of it. In fact, I am paying good money myself to come teach this class and get chewed out by you!"

or

"You think I am a bad teacher? Just wait till you see the regular teacher teach. Word of advice - find a new dojo before you sign that contract."

or

"I didn't ask to be here! I walked in the door ready to take a class, and that lame teacher of ours forced me to teach this class and I am not getting paid enough to take your macho bull, so back off!!!"

or

"For someone so concerned about teaching your children discipline, you are doing a lousy job of teaching them to respect their teacher by yelling at the teacher in front of them. Kinda counterproductive, don't you think, buddy?"

or

"If you really were such a high belt years ago as you say you were, why on earth did you not finish the job and get you black belt? Who gets that far and doesn't finish? Lame. Maybe you should get yourself into a gi right now and get back on the mat and finish the job instead of living vicariously through your children. When you have a black belt, you come talk to me about the job I am doing, OK, jerk?"

Yep, now I'm thinking that any one of those would have been infinitely preferable to saying nothing. And since I didn't say them then, I feel much better to have said them here.

Next time I hope my staff of script writers show up on time, instead of the moment my head hits the pillow.

Grrrrr.