The kid & I just finished a week of tae kwon do camp-- five days of four hours each day. We learned a lot but it brought pain back into the perspective it used to have when I was still on active duty.
Some of the parents hung around for the entire time and we got to talking in between butt-kicking sessions. Most of them were on vacation, others were taking afternoons off, and all were complaining about what they had to do to escape work to watch their kids. During these parental sessions I found not one but two aspiring local ERs-- more than I've found during the last three years.
One man is turning 40 next month and with embarrassed pride admitted that he was unemployed after selling his family's catering business. His wife is a working nurse and they have a couple rental properties so he's planning to stay home and raise the cash flow kids. His daughter is 12, an up & coming almost-black-belt who'll be spending a few weeks of 2006 at Mainland national competitions, so he's quite happy to have control of his time again to travel with her. He's extremely overweight (by at least 250 pounds) so he's promised his family that he's finally going to lose the weight. We'll have to see how that goes, but now that he's ER'd he's truly motivated to make it to his 50th birthday. He has no problem figuring out what he's going to do all day. He says that he wasn't too unhappy with the catering business but he got the unrefusable offer and he has no desire to sniff around for more money, even if they have to sell a rental or two for cashflow. Both he & his spouse worked their way up from the bottoms of their careers-- he as a dishwasher and she as a candy-striper-- and they never brought home more than $45K/year to raise two kids. They saved vociferously and started buying distressed real estate in 1995, and those decisions have taken care of everything else. He's local (three generations now) and we'll be spending some more quality time together. Maybe we can promote a few more ERs in our group.
Another guy is wrapping up a 20-year Air Force career next May. His family's been in the islands for a couple years but he's eagerly anticipating returning to northern Minnesota (redundant?) where "it's not so hot" (yeah, I'll bet) and he can "spend more time ice fishing". (Which apparently has nothing to do with capturing frozen water but can be done for the majority of the year!) He flies the USAF version of a G-V and is excited about becoming a corporate pilot for 3M where he'll get paid for what he'd happily do for free. His teenage son is a naturally talented black belt with a mean hook kick (ouch) and his younger son is working hard on his own black belt. The kids are a little unsure about their "home" state (they've only visited) and not at all sure about the quality of the tae kwon do instruction. (The surfing sucks too.) His spouse has never worked for pay (she homeschools the kids) so he's not unhappy at flying for another couple decades and then spending the rest of his life freezing his assets off fishing. He's found his avocation but he'd never even realized that he wouldn't have to work until Social Security. It'll be interesting to see how long he decides to keep flying for a paycheck, and he'll "win" whichever he decides to do. The ER lightbulb has blazed into life over his head now and I can see that we're going to spend a few more months discussing cash flow & safe withdrawal rates in between sparring sessions.
At least five of these TKD teenagers are going to be nationally-ranked black belts in 2006. One of the 20-somethings is going to national team qualifiers next week and may be training for the Olympics. She's short & only 115 pounds but no one can lay a hand (or a foot) on her.
My kid had a great time and we both dramatically improved our sparring. One of her arms developed a smiley-face bruise pattern but she's much more agile & mobile (she already has the hostile part down) and she's finally learned that it's much better to dodge than to block. She also got to spar with a 16-year-old who absolutely slaughtered her in the last tournament, and while she still didn't win she was happy to narrow the score.
I was the slowest & creakiest biggest & oldest guy there so I was helping some of the younger fighters develop a more physical style. They learned that cunning & deceit can triumph over youth & speed just about every time. It also turns out that many graceful TKD moves, as well as the fighter executing them, can be stopped short with a well-timed left hook. By the end of the week they had no reservations about trying to head-kick the ol' surfer dude, so my agility also improved considerably. The master and I had an interesting talk about sparring through our 50s, and I'm looking forward to spending more time with the humble beginnings of a tiny local ER club. And JB, if you're looking for TKD on Maui, I met a couple of great teachers living there.
Life is good.
Some of the parents hung around for the entire time and we got to talking in between butt-kicking sessions. Most of them were on vacation, others were taking afternoons off, and all were complaining about what they had to do to escape work to watch their kids. During these parental sessions I found not one but two aspiring local ERs-- more than I've found during the last three years.
One man is turning 40 next month and with embarrassed pride admitted that he was unemployed after selling his family's catering business. His wife is a working nurse and they have a couple rental properties so he's planning to stay home and raise the cash flow kids. His daughter is 12, an up & coming almost-black-belt who'll be spending a few weeks of 2006 at Mainland national competitions, so he's quite happy to have control of his time again to travel with her. He's extremely overweight (by at least 250 pounds) so he's promised his family that he's finally going to lose the weight. We'll have to see how that goes, but now that he's ER'd he's truly motivated to make it to his 50th birthday. He has no problem figuring out what he's going to do all day. He says that he wasn't too unhappy with the catering business but he got the unrefusable offer and he has no desire to sniff around for more money, even if they have to sell a rental or two for cashflow. Both he & his spouse worked their way up from the bottoms of their careers-- he as a dishwasher and she as a candy-striper-- and they never brought home more than $45K/year to raise two kids. They saved vociferously and started buying distressed real estate in 1995, and those decisions have taken care of everything else. He's local (three generations now) and we'll be spending some more quality time together. Maybe we can promote a few more ERs in our group.
Another guy is wrapping up a 20-year Air Force career next May. His family's been in the islands for a couple years but he's eagerly anticipating returning to northern Minnesota (redundant?) where "it's not so hot" (yeah, I'll bet) and he can "spend more time ice fishing". (Which apparently has nothing to do with capturing frozen water but can be done for the majority of the year!) He flies the USAF version of a G-V and is excited about becoming a corporate pilot for 3M where he'll get paid for what he'd happily do for free. His teenage son is a naturally talented black belt with a mean hook kick (ouch) and his younger son is working hard on his own black belt. The kids are a little unsure about their "home" state (they've only visited) and not at all sure about the quality of the tae kwon do instruction. (The surfing sucks too.) His spouse has never worked for pay (she homeschools the kids) so he's not unhappy at flying for another couple decades and then spending the rest of his life freezing his assets off fishing. He's found his avocation but he'd never even realized that he wouldn't have to work until Social Security. It'll be interesting to see how long he decides to keep flying for a paycheck, and he'll "win" whichever he decides to do. The ER lightbulb has blazed into life over his head now and I can see that we're going to spend a few more months discussing cash flow & safe withdrawal rates in between sparring sessions.
At least five of these TKD teenagers are going to be nationally-ranked black belts in 2006. One of the 20-somethings is going to national team qualifiers next week and may be training for the Olympics. She's short & only 115 pounds but no one can lay a hand (or a foot) on her.
My kid had a great time and we both dramatically improved our sparring. One of her arms developed a smiley-face bruise pattern but she's much more agile & mobile (she already has the hostile part down) and she's finally learned that it's much better to dodge than to block. She also got to spar with a 16-year-old who absolutely slaughtered her in the last tournament, and while she still didn't win she was happy to narrow the score.
I was the slowest & creakiest biggest & oldest guy there so I was helping some of the younger fighters develop a more physical style. They learned that cunning & deceit can triumph over youth & speed just about every time. It also turns out that many graceful TKD moves, as well as the fighter executing them, can be stopped short with a well-timed left hook. By the end of the week they had no reservations about trying to head-kick the ol' surfer dude, so my agility also improved considerably. The master and I had an interesting talk about sparring through our 50s, and I'm looking forward to spending more time with the humble beginnings of a tiny local ER club. And JB, if you're looking for TKD on Maui, I met a couple of great teachers living there.
Life is good.
I'd do that for free too
