Testing

Tomorrow morning I will line up with a bunch of white-clad kids half my size and demonstrate what I've been practicing in tae kwon do for the last three months:

• Kicks (Doubles. Very tricky for me. My legs flail and I feel like an idiot. But I feel like an idiot with every new kick I do, and I think it's good for me. More on that later.)
• Kicking combination (Doubles, Ax Kick, Runner. DAR. I amuse myself by calling it the Daughters of the American Revolution Kicking Combination, the only other DAR acronym I've heard of. It's hard for me to remember which kicking combos go with which belt, so any little mnemonic tricks help).
• Form: (Tae Guk Sam Jong. One I should have practiced more. It's not as crisp as my last one. Which, um, I don't remember too well. To do tomorrow before testing: review old form!)
• Self-defense (Two types: traditional and grab. Traditional I still feel silly with. But the grab is fun! I like learning the joint manipulation so I can take someone down. Sadly, if anyone actually attacked me, I think I might need to ask them to grab my arm in just the right way so I could use my techniques. Working towards real-life applicability (may I never have to use it!).
  
• Technique (Knife hand strike, back stance, grab, front stance. I think it's the hardest technique so far.)
  
• Board breaking. (We practiced this with plastic ones, and I surprised myself by actually breaking one. I am still nervous about the real boards though.)
• Terminology. (So we have a Korean woman in our class, and I really want to get her to pronounce all our words for us. Because I'm pretty sure my Korean would be unrecognizable in Korea. it makes me feel all authentic to learn them, though.)
  

One thing I find interesting about tae kwon do, and the testing process, is the pattern of humility and achievement. With each new belt, I learn new techniques and kicks and forms, and it's humbling, sometimes even humiliating. I swear no one on the planet has ever had more goofy looking doubles kicks than me. But by the time three months have passed, I've become more confident, enough that I can stand up with all those little kids and demonstrate ... skill growth, if not skill mastery.

No one gives gold stars to grownups. I don't get special treatment for clean toilets or folded laundry. But tae kwon do makes me feel like a kid again, in hard but good ways: I'm subjected, yes, to the humbling experience of learning new things outside my comfort zone, but I'm also rewarded with tangible acknowledgment that I've grown. Gold star? Not anymore. But next week I will get my green belt.

Banana Squash for Breakfast

Master Taralynn Sorenson is all about general healthiness, not just exercise. One goal of this blog is promoting healthy cooking options. I struggle with this, to be honest with you. My main goal as a family chef is making sure hungry people eat something that didn't cost too much or take me too long to fix. Nutrition is a nice bonus. So I'm always tickled when I find something that is fast, cheap, and nutritious to boot.

This recipe, from Cooks.com, is what I ate Tuesday and Wednesday for breakfast. It's sweet and orangey, which makes me forget that I'm eating a vegetable in the morning. I am not completely sold on the vegetables for breakfast idea, but this is one I think I'll try again sometime:

Honey Glazed Banana Squash
2 lb. banana squash
1/4 c. honey
1/4 c. butter
1 tbsp. orange rind
Salt to taste
Wash and cut pieces of squash into serving size, removing all seeds and unwanted members. Place on cooking sheet, rind side down. Bake at 375 degrees until tender, about 25 minutes.Melt butter in saucepan over low heat. Add honey, salt and grated orange rind. Pour on squash pieces and bake 10 minutes, or more to glaze. Tip: Hubbard squash will work as well.

It was tasty! It passed three of my four cooking goals:

1-Is it easy to make? I'm all about easiness in cooking. This could hardly be easier--the hardest things are grating orange rind and not scraping your fingernails, and having to smell the stinky inside-squash smell when you clean it out. But overall, pretty easy.

2-Is it cheap? Practically free, since my neighbor with a huge garden (he is my buddy. Wonderful man.) gave it to us. Oranges were the main expense; everything else I had on hand.

3-Is it nutritious? Heck yes! Love that squash! Okay, the honey and the butter, not so much. Especially the butter. But I'm the kind of girl who thinks I ought to get a few perks if I'm eating squash.

And, number four, the Holy Grail of cooking: will my kids eat it? No way.

But all my neighbors did at the potluck. And they asked for the recipe. --Emily M.

What on earth am I doing here?

That's what I think sometimes when I come to tae kwon do. I feel out of my element. This may not be a bad thing, given that my current element is a messy house, complete with sticky kitchen floor and random toys in the bathroom. But really, the gym? it has never been my friend. This goes back to junior high p.e., and my memories of maroon and gold polyester shorts and a loud, intense, strict teacher. I itch when I think about those shorts. Bleh.

The fact of the matter is that I have never in my life been athletic, in the sense that I have Pursued a Sport. I have exercised, yes, but biking away in front of the television while David Archuleta croons on American Idol is a very different thing from actually attempting to coordinate my body.

So, what makes tae kwon do different? Why am I overcoming years of anti-athlete conditioning to sweat and kick and yell?

I don't know, exactly. Part of it is that the women's class feels safe to me. People are nice. It's only women. No one so far has mentioned my girth. And part of it is the amazing instructors. I have been attempting to learn the doubles kick ("attempt" is the key word). And the other day I made a kind of breakthrough, and I finally got a feel for it. I rotated and kicked and it seemed to flow. Taralynn was exuberant on my behalf. She was thrilled for me, delighted that my body seemed to catch on to what she'd been telling me.

It felt good. Beats junior high P.E. any day. Plus the uniforms don't itch.

--Emily M.