Tae Kwon Ow

Tae Kwon Ow!
By: PurpleHeart

"Bye Mom!"  I smile to her as I climb out of the green Ford Expedition and shut the car door.
"Bye mom."  My brother mutters as he comes out of the car and shuts his door.  Mom drives away as we both saunter over to the glass double door entrance in our Tae Kwon Do uniforms complete with blue belts.  It is the summer of 2001.  Sean is 11 and I am 10 years old.  Once inside, Sean and I take a seat on the steel, folding chairs near the door and take off our shoes and/or socks.  Our martial-arts instructor, Emil Vardeh, is sitting at his desk on the opposite side of the entrance.  He is of Armenian descent.  His posture is strong and his uniform is distinguished.  A few of his youthful students are gathered round him.  Our class is small and every kid is about 5 to 13 years of age.  One boy swivels around in one of the chairs.  The TAE KWON DO 4 ALL building is part of a complex of stores.  A doughnut café and a jewelry store are just a short walk away.  The interior of this small building has carpet, mirrors, folding panel mats, Everlast kicking bags, a water cooler, a bathroom, and a closet full of sparring gear.  On one of the walls is a belt display with the belts ranking in this order: white, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, brown, red, puma, and black.  Hanging above the mirrors is a South Korean flag.
At 4 o' clock, Taekwondo class begins.  Sean and I join our fellow kid-martial artists on the dojang.  We file-up in line according to belt rank, and face the instructor.  Sean and I line up right in between the green and purple belt kids.  The instructor then gives a powerful, Korean voice command!  Instinctively, we react by entering our attention stances, and bow to him.  We then respectfully bow to the other students.  Next, we run a couple laps around the dojang, which is a ten meters square outlined in red tape.  After that, we start stretching with the instructor or the black-belt students.  Once we finish, the instructor sends us off to fetch the sparring gear out of the closet.  Each of us puts on a Kwon head guard and an Adidas hogu, also called a chest protector or body guard.  Together we all help each other tie the straps in the back of the hogus.  It is amusingly cute how we made a line of kids tying back straps.  With nine to seven kids, it was a pretty long line.  The last kid in line would secure whoever's straps were in front of him or her.  The kid first in line is made to do just the opposite.
When we are ready, we all return to the dojang with a partner.  My partner is my brother.  Our instructor explains the first kicking exercise and then demonstrates.  We begin the exercise.  As soon as we start, I immediately realize that Sean is not doing it the right way.  He did not seem to understand what it was we were doing; furthermore, he did not know what he was doing.  His fighting stance is sloppy.  If I stopped to take the time to explain to him, the exercise would be over, and then after I was done helping, we would have to move on to the next one.  So I try to correct him by talking him through it while doing the kicking exercise.  Each partner takes turns practicing kicks on the other.  As I try to help, Sean becomes frustrated and more upset each time he falls short.  The instructor then moves us on to the next kicking exercise.  We begin practicing the bicycle kick.  We take turns striking the kicking-target double clapper in our partner's hand.  Each kick is sharply packed with so much force that it causes a loud whack!  Now it is my turn again.  I do a bicycle kick and strike!
"Ow!"  Sean lets out!  In the process, I accidentally hurt Sean.  He was not bleeding or screaming in pain.  Even so it still hurts and he gets mad at me.
"Sorry."  I apologize.  He kicks the target in my hand hard!  After two more angry kicks, we continue on to the next kicking exercise. Next is the roundhouse kick.  Sean is still lost and I am getting rather irritated with him.  Sean is still angry too.  Again we take turns kicking one another.  Each hit meets either side of the torso.  Now every single kick we land always meets dead on.  The target for our partner is the hogu we wear.  Sean kicks me hard!  The powerful blow causes me to lose balance!  The feeling of falling was strangely unreal to me.  Without warning, I find myself knocked to the floor.  It was so fast that all I remember is the pain Sean's kick delivered….  The blow made me land on my left elbow when I fell and hit the ground.  There is an immense pain in my elbow!  It hurts so much!  I feel more pain than I do my arm!  I try to move my arm and that causes almost double the pain.  The joints in my elbow feel unbelievably stiff!  I cannot bend my elbow without the sensation of sharp pain…!  I have never felt pain like this before!  I look up to Sean and see him in shock with his finger in his ear.  
"Oh no….  Oh no…."  Sean says in a barely audible voice.  He was shamefaced.  
Little by little the whole room stops….  The students nearest us are surprised to find me on the floor.  Further down the line, the black-belt students are astonished to see me down.  One black-belt boy calls for the instructor.  The instructor and two black-belt boys rush over to me.  The instructor kneels down to me.
"What happened, Aisling?"  He was a little wide-eyed.
"Sean… Sean kicked me and I fell… on my elbow."  My eyes start to fill with tears.
"Where does it hurt the most?"  He looks to me and asks.
"My… elbow."   I say distressingly.  All eyes are on my elbow as he slowly moves it to see the extent of the damage.
"Does that hurt?"  He asks me.
"Uh-huh."  I utter in low spirits.
"Ooh.  Tsk-tsk…."  My elbow is swollen and bruised.  It is not a pretty picture.  Some part of me was relieved that I was not bleeding.  The instructor smiles at me.
"You know what, Aisling?"  His smile is yet to be explained.
"What?"
"You are such a strong girl.  You did not cry!  You are braver than the boys in this class!"
"Really?"  I was basically the only girl in the class.
"Yes!  These boys, I'm sure they would have cried a river if they got hurt like you."  He then continues on with an imitation of a boy crying pathetically.  I smile and laugh!  The boys start laughing too!  Except for my brother, Sean….  The instructor was right; I did not cry.
"Let's get you off the floor."  The instructor and the two boys help me up to my feet.
"You did a great job today.  You deserve a rest."  He then turns to the two black belt students.  "Walk Aisling over and set her in one of the chairs."  The two black-belt boys support me as they help me over to one of the chairs near the instructor's desk.  I sit down in one of the desk chairs.  The boys make sure I am okay and then go back to the group.  Now that I am calm, I notice that the pain in my elbow is less now.  I watch the clock tick away at the time.  Although the pain is still excruciating, I did my best to make myself comfortable.  Minutes later, taekwondo class is over.  The students line up again by belt rank and face the instructor.  For a second time, he gives a powerful, Korean voice command!  The students instinctively enter their attention stances and bow.  They then bow to the other students.  The instructor dismisses them and wishes them well.  A little later, our mom arrives to pick us up.  When she finds out what happened to me, it is surprising news for her.  The instructor tells Mom everything- how it happened, what the damage seems to be, how brave I was, etc.  He smiles and waves goodbye to me as we leave in the car.
Just a few days later, an X-ray reveals that my elbow is broken.  I had broken the worst possible bone in my left elbow.  Turns out the bone I broke was a small one.  I was really lucky that it was healing the right way and did not need surgery.  (More like I was lucky I landed on carpet and not on concrete.)  A day or two later, my mom took me into the doctor's office in Modesto.  I got a purple cast.  Purple is my favorite color.  No one signed it; it was summer, but I am sure I was the only bride's maid in Northern California with a purple cast.