Somewhere high up above the Authentic Local Hong Kong Residential Area, Batman and his trusty sidekick perch on a window sill……
Rockstar Superheroes
(Ok, actually it was just 6 floors up)
That was the view of all the residential buildings outside, from the 6th floor…
Arriving on the early side to Cantonese chatter all around us in the lift, a fully gi-garbed Rockstar attracts a few glances which I’m guessing is because he’s the only one in uniform. Why is that unusual? Since we’ve never been here I get a bit worried we’re in the wrong place because why are people flicking a glance over at him and why aren’t there any other gi-dressed kids – we alight on our floor and parents start herding all the other kids into the toilet nearby to change. Phew.
Soon, the corridor starts to fill up… At its worst, if you don’t like crowds or heat, you might feel quite claustrophobic. After awhile you really couldn’t easily walk thru here at all
It starts to get uncomfortably crowded, and it’s this little cramped corridor and the baby is with us so I get restless… Kings brings her back down for awhile because I haven’t yet paid Rockstar’s exam fees (you have to bring exact change, I didn’t, they wouldn’t accept the money and said just come here and pay exact change) and am a bit worried about being late. Needn’t have worried – the doors open and long queues form, that’s how many other parents left it til de day to pay the HKD 400 fee (belt, bag and guide booklet inclusive if your child passes).
The white belts shuffle together…
And I text Kings so he and Princess make their way back up. An instructor with a seriously booming voice instructs all the kids to sit in neat lines according to their belts. He speaks only Cantonese. Kings is pleased, he of the Rockstar Must Speak Roman. I’m apprehensive.
My own grasp of the local dialect requires some peppering with English words and it’s Rockstar’s first grading in a horribly crowded area that’s alien to him so I locate the instructor I had previously handed Rockstar’s fees to (who had also started off speaking in rapid fire Cantonese to me and then had to repeat half of it in English).
“Uh… I’m not sure how much Cantonese my son understands…” “It’ll be fine,” he replies in perfect English. (Later, Kings would ask Rockstar, who would say the examiner spoke only in Cantonese…) Then again I honestly don’t know anyone who fails a yellow belt grading, but I do know some kids who don’t get to go for yellow belt grading because they do not follow instructions, something the instructor communicates to the entire class… Quite fair right, until you learn to follow instructions and respect others/ practice restraint, you don’t get to learn more about punching and kicking etc…
Obviously this is a “parenting opportunity” I jump at, to drive home the point about there being certain…. rewards in life, for wholesome behavior, in this case for discipline as Rockstar gets older – I decided not to link back to an old post I wrote of when we once brought Rockstar to a pretty commercialized (as in you do see tv ads of the master and classes, which was how we found it to begin with) gung fu class, which he dropped out of. I had expressed surprise that the child who was doing the most misbehaving was wearing a green belt – which means he had been cleared for and passed several gradings despite things like running off/ messing about with kicking pads and complaining loudly about drills… But anyway in the interests of full disclosure like I said Rockstar dropped out of it – just refused to go back there or learn anything, go figure.)
The kids settle down very quickly (higher belts were scheduled to be graded at a later time slot)
It… took a little while longer to clear the parents out of the room. I notice this time they use a mike, rather than an instructor with seriously booming voice who sounds like a drill sergeant haha. Another mum had already told me they would kick all the parents out, I’d expressed surprise at the time, they never used to kick parents out during my time (but my mum told me during higher gradings she left the room on her own accord, after my first kick in the face). But this must be one reason why:
Undeterred by the papers taped over the windows, these parents are trying to film their child through the crack in the door
Kings also badly wanted to see what Rockstar’s first grading would be like, I initially wonder why he is so keen when we’ve all been told to clear out, until I remember Kings has never seen any kind of grading before. Sadly, no matter how much he hung around I don’t think there were ever any ringside standing spaces at that crack in the door 😀
On the way out with Little Miss strapped to me, I pass two local mums and overhear one tell the other she had been requested to stop tying her son’s belt for him…
Took her highness down yet again, finally settling in the car and giving her a stick of string cheese I’d bought before we left Pacific Place, for just such emergencies
Whereupon she proceeds to… yodel.
(You see you see you guys, who knew this would end up being my first vid in awhile… actually that channel I uploaded clips to was for me to do rough work going thru and then only embed after, but there are people watching it <pressure> and asking for Little Miss to reflect on the year gone by <lagi pressure> so I can now no longer simply embed happily, must try to come up with real post… Stress siah…!)
Which is when we recognize a couple kids from Rockstar’s own taekwondo class in our housing area (otherwise like, 95% of the other kids I see are all local Cantonese speakers and some of the older kids appear to be studying their schoolwork from flash cards while waiting for their turn) and shortly after discover the parking ticket – we didn’t leave the car for more than 20 minutes ok, and I joke that possibly the entire row of ticketed cars were all from our area because everyone else took public transport haha
But we didn’t have much choice – this is the view right outside the sports center
The nice uncle security guard was saying there was a Mc Donald’s nearby but we didn’t even see it…
A not-very-old uncle walks by several times, peering intently into the open car door where I’m entertaining the baby in the car seat. I don’t suppose it’s unsafe, but I don’t want some unknown guy in this unknown area to engage me in Cantonese conversation about baby care/ parking ticket/ what-not so after that I close the door and in the end switch on the engine when I know The Mens are on the way down because….
Victory pic
Sure enough, they’re down soon. And so the new yellow belt and newly one year old ride off into the sunset.
Congrats! congrats! Rockstar got his yellow belt. This is really fast. When did he start taekwondo?
Does Rockstar do his taekwondo moves for his father to see? Can we have a video of his moves? Sorry ah, sorry ah to put pressure on you.
Oops, also for subscribing to your “in-the-works” utube channel. Didn’t know you don’t deem those videos as ready for viewing.
Hahaha at Miss Rockstar yodeling. She can really talk. Thank you, thank you for the video.
Here, I don’t think we can just sit in the car with the door open. Even sitting in locked cars is not safe. There have been occasions where car jackers will smash the windows to get the cars.
My late father took my brother out of taekwondo class when he saw my brother being kicked by a higher level belt boy. I am not sure how the grading worked because my brother was just a yellow belt but the boy was a red belt but they were put to fight because of having around the same weight so my brother got kicked a lot.
He started… About a month when the instructor first gave us the exam letter scheduling his grading few weeks later… I asked the instructor if I need to have Rockstar practice anything but he said “he knows already” and it’s really easy.. I took my first grading at 9yrs (did ballet n Chinese dance before that) and jumped straight to green so I do agree the first one or two gradings aren’t tough.. As I said, never seen anyone flunk a yellow belt, which is great for little kids’ confidence n morale.. After the first few belts it gets exponentially harder, I would say..
Rockstar is kicking about the home a lot so Kings does get to see moves, just that he’d never seen the actual grading. Also, there is an instruction booklet you get later, with all the pics of moves..
Re your dad n bro’s experience, what I remember from my own taekwondo days (which may have changed, I dunno) is restraint is more important than skill and aggression – for eg, in tournament punches to the head are not allowed. But more than that even if you raise your fist above shoulder level but manage to stop yourself from lashing out, you still get points deducted. And for sparring whether for tournament or exam purposes, if the instructor says break, you must stop immediately. Even if you are in mid-kick. You get failed if you keep fighting after they tell you to stop. BUT re what you said, red belt vs more junior belt or no, if they don’t tell you to stop you are technically allowed to keep going. The instructor/ referee gets to make the call. I’ve both kicked and been kicked in the head by juniors, seniors, older, younger. One girl I kicked KOed completely despite wearing protective head gear. To be honest while I expected her to fall, I really didn’t kick her hard enough in the head for a TKO like she did, I maintain it was partly out of fear. (The kick was also perfectly legal btw and before that I’d already been kicking her chest plate and the ref didn’t “break” it) I went to apologize to her when she woke at the medic station – her mum actually laughed and said it was fine, she was just scared, but the daughter was really, really mad at me and wouldn’t accept my apology..
And in my defense I did predominantly head kicks not to be mean ok, it was because I grew up physically frail and with low blood pressure – most “regular” kids would’ve outlasted me in terms of stamina – so I had to make up in quality (of kicks, technique) what I always lacked in endurance. And I have no idea why some of my mentors in the dealing room thought this was funny. (?!)
I noticed in Rockstar’s handbook the students aren’t allowed to spar without an instructor present btw and kinda assumed the same rule applied re instructor calling it (whether to break or not)…
Thanks Aileen for the detailed reply. So is it true that different belt levels can be put together to spar if they are about the same weight?
Good to see Rockstar likes taekwondo so Mommy can spar with him later on. So did your mentors smile or laugh when you told them about your taekwondo strategy?
The mom you mentioned sparring with red belt I assumed it was a tournament in which case the answer is yes. Based on my experience la, since we are all same generation and I haven’t seen that much of Rockstar’s taekwondo as he’s new and we just picked the most convenient neighborhood one –
For tournaments – very common for different level belts to spar. It goes by weight and gender and they wear full protective gear. I even remember team mates adjusting their weight categories by drinking a lot of water or dieting, so as not to meet each other in the same category if they are both the strongest fighters on the team. That said, one 17yr old boy still had a tooth kicked out during one tournament I was at.
For gradings – mostly keep to own belt level unless a senior is requested to join in the sparring in which case it’s kinda understood the senior wouldn’t really “show off” much because he’s not the one being graded. Here they really didn’t differentiate by weight and gender. No protective gear worn (this may be different today because I saw a lot of the higher belts going in to grading with their own chest plates) and you are supposed to pull all punches in the spar..
To be exact (since u asked la) I worked especially on one particular kick to the head that was otherwise not that commonly used back then (used to be called reverse crescent kick). It was primarily because I figured I had to score fast since most opponents would be able to outlast me in a regular bout with all the kicking to chest plates and dancing about the ring. Because of all the rules around a tournament spar, when they two opponents end up too close, they’re usually stuck until a referee breaks them – because a regular kick in such close quarters looks more like a knee, which is a foul. but if you try to gain enough distance to kick properly then your opponent is going to kick you properly the moment you try to step back. I chose to do that reverse kick because in such close quarters the turn protects your chest plate from being scored on while you are able to lean back and bring your leg up to take off your opponent’s head. Of course you have to be very flexible to get reach head level so that was what I worked on. I thought this was easier and more effective than putting in extra time and work on stamina that might not necessarily help me score in the tournament. (of course we all have a certain fitness level already but i just barely passed this, some of my team mates were phenomenal)
So, one mentor thought it was hilarious that I “couldn’t be bothered to get more stamina off and so took people’s heads off”. I guess the way he said that was meant to be sarcastic…
Thanks for explaining. I am not sure whether it was a grading or tournament. Maybe I’ll ask my brother. Don’t know whether he can remember the incident or not.
i found reverse crescent kick on utube. Wow, it looks lethal. I wouldn’t want to be kicked on the head like that. I guess all your opponents are scared of your reverse crescent kick. I know I would be. 🙂
Nolah dear, by the time you reach that tournament level you would b used to it and anyway everyone is in protective gear, it just seems scary if you haven’t done the sport… and anyway as i replied privately before, martial arts isn’t so you can go vigilante, it’s only to give you a bit better chance if you are cornered… otherwise the first advice we are always given is to run 😀 and try to avoid the fight – same as people who don’t do martial arts la 🙂 and of course if you start a fight you are stripped of your belt…
funny story, many years ago my cousin who served in the British army got held at knife point by a would-be mugger in London… He says he punched the guy, and when the mugger fell, he and his friend (also army guy) started kicking him. When the police came, the mugger pressed charges and my cousin got fined like, GBP 100 for it. His friend got off because he pleaded guilty. My cousin refused to plead guilty because he said he wasn’t the one trying to mug someone with a knife and he maintains Everyone Is Just Really Stupid.
For the record, no my cousin wasn’t in these martial arts, he just learnt the self defense the army taught him 😀
Miss Rockstar really seemed to be answering you in the video. You asked her and she replied. 🙂