Then we spent a few quiet hours just talking and playing and being generally silly. What bliss! I love to spend time with Forest. I get to really relax and just be myself. Only trouble is that we stayed up way past my bedtime, and I had to be up before the sun today. I'm a little cranky.
I've been spending a lot of time working on Tae Kwon Do this week, since I really haven't had a lot else to do. I've actually really been enjoying it. Saturday and Sunday both I put in about an hour each day, and am proud to say that by Monday I finally had a working roundkick.
Monday and Tuesday nights I went to class at LCC, and worked out with the students there. It made me feel a bit better about things, because I'm really not the worst off of all the people there. Here's the thing. I feel like I'm terribly disadvantaged to start this new art, because it's really against my training and my general nature as a person to just haul off and kick or hit someone. I am also one of those people who walks around with very stiff, very upright posture all the time. I was just raised that way, years and years of ballet. In Tae Kwon Do you have to relax yourself a lot, and while the back is mostly straight, you very frequently have to bend forward or backward to counterbalance your strike or kick. You also have to turn your back on your opponent sometimes, and view them peripherally.
I'm boring you, I'll stop. All this babble means is that I have to overcome a lot of mental hurdles in order to learn Tae Kwon Do. Up until this week, the only person I have been learning from/with is Forest. His form is so spot-on perfect and beautiful that I feel like a clumsy little kid trying to imitate the ballerina. Working with other students my own level at least reminds me that I'm doing okay.
It also takes a lot of mental discipline to learn a new art. It's a whole new way of thinking, and of approaching your partner. I have to work hard to remember to not apply Aikido and just toss him on the floor. I also have to remember to let go of perfectionism and just try as hard as I can. It won't be perfect for a few years, and I know that. I just have a weakness for wanting it *now*, and the discipline lies in the patience.
On another note, I am freezing my tail off at work again, and have no idea how I'm going to live through the winter. I have been relegated to a little cubicle which is open on one side, and only 6 feet high on the other three. The problem here is that less than 12 feet away from me is the door to the great outdoors. People go in and out of it all the time. When they open it, a gust of frigid air blasts through here, and then the door is on a spring, so it hangs open for a minute, and then slowly SLOWLY closes itself. I hate it. It's incredibly uncomfortable, my fingers are numb all the time, and I sit here huddling in my coat all day. It's miserable.
I asked for a space heater, but my boss is convinced I will short out the building or start a fire.
