I don't need to speak French to fight you.

Back in 2008 Kris and I found ourselves in desperate need of some regular exercise and, both having always wanted to try a martial art, signed up for a trial run at CW Taekwondo. Now, a little over four years later, we find it hard not to alienate ourselves from conversations by bringing taekwondo up too often. There are other people who understand, other people who have fallen in love with a sport to the point that bruises and sore muscles don't even register anymore. It doesn't matter if you are a climber, soccer player, runner, or martial artist. There are just some people who mesh with a sport to the point that the only thing that upsets you about an injury is that it will prevent you from training. It didn't take us four years to become those people; it took about a month. Then, after four years of spending 4-5 days a week at 2-hour practices with people who made you bleed, laugh, and push yourself harder than you knew you could, we moved. I know that we will never replace our CW family, but finding a new dojang was very high on our list.

That brings us to this week and the middle of a trial period at a new gym. I mentioned in the last post why, after a lot of time on the internet, we started with the gym we did. There is an active children's program, men and women in the photos, a range of ages in the adult class, traditional taekwondo mixed with self-defense, and a charismatic and very welcoming group of members. After some entertaining, mixed-language emails Kris and I headed out for our first class in more than two months. The gym was easy enough to find and Bruno, the instructor, welcomed us almost the moment we walked through the door. I say almost, because he had to peel an exuberant 10-year-old green belt off of himself first.

Bruno was extremely friendly and, based on the number of accented "hellos" we received, had told people who we were and that we were coming. Considering how nervous we were, this counted for a lot. The rest of my nerves melted away as I got to put on my uniform and step back on to a blue floor with mirrored walls.  I could tell Kris felt the same way by the way he jumped around on the padded floor like a giddy child. Though nothing was quite the same, enough of it felt familiar - the stretches, the warm-ups, the Korean flag on the wall, the poomsae, the technique - that it felt a little bit like coming home.

That isn't to say the transition has been completely smooth. The flag next to the Korean one is a red and white cross instead of the stars and stripes, so all of the instruction takes place in French. Yes, the commands and counts are in Korean, which is helpful, but anything regarding the specifics of what we are doing is in French. Every so often Bruno would toss some English our way, but we miss any of the banter that can't be conveyed in numbers and pantomime. At one point a green belt came up and put her arms around Kris and I and said something to Bruno that made everyone laugh. They sent a few more verbal jabs around, everyone laughed again, and she went on her way. Kris and I just looked at each other and shrugged. Apparently nothing about the exchange had been deemed important enough to translate.

 It also became clear pretty early that Bruno was trying to see what we were made of. I imagine that any two hour practice covers a range of content, but it seemed that we were getting a tasting menu. When it became clear that we could keep up during basic kicking drills, he added partner drills. Then rolling. Then jumping over people and rolling. Then kicks with targets. Then speed kicks with targets. Then self-defense against an unarmed opponent. Then self-defense against someone armed with a knife. Based on the subsequent practice, I can attest that it is not normal to do one round of an exercise and move on. He was testing us out. When it finally came to take-downs as part of the self-defense, he seemed quite pleased with the abandon Kris and I use when hurling each other at the floor. To be doing such work again, we were quite pleased ourselves.

The work with the rubber knives was the most memorable, largely because it was something completely new. In the past any grappling we have done has been a lot of body contact, patience, and using what your opponents actions to guide your own. At CW a grappling match could easily last half an hour. With a more self-defense mentality against a weapon, things change.

"First of all," Bruno tried to explain to us, "anyone who attacks you with a weapon is a chord." After some confusion and a lot of help, we discovered that he had been trying for "coward."

So rather then spooking the attacker and taking a defensive stance, our first move was to put up our hands and look terrified. Just looking around the room at everyone thrusting fake knives up against the throats of their sniveling friends was pretty entertaining. Then we learned to deflect the knife hand, twist the arm to drive it back towards the attacker's own body in the process of hurling them to the ground. Then begins the fun exchange of both people trying to aim the knife towards their opponent's body and away from their own by twisting limbs and rolling around. Of course, all of us got fake stabbed. No one is perfect.

At the end of class as we all cooled down, Bruno started to give a small speech. As I could understand nothing he said, it gave me time to think about all of the little speeches I had heard from Sabumnim over the years during sit-ups and push-ups. Everything from the lessons learned by losing to how everything that matters happens in the second half of a match to lunch being good. Afterwards Bruno solicited the help of one of his students to try to pass his little lesson for the day on to us. It was about instincts. Everyone has instincts, he explained, and those instincts are what dictate our actions when something dramatic like an attack happens to us. You can never get anything to react more quickly than your instincts, but with practice and training, you can change what those instincts are. That being said, he laughed, no one should go out looking for fights or anything like that. It was a variant of something Sabumnim had said to us at one point, but it was nice that Bruno went through the effort of making sure we could understand.

At the end of that practice and throughout the next one we have started to bond with some of the other students. The bonding is slow and depends a lot more on facial expressions and pantomime than we are used to, but it is encouraging. A bond also formed when Kris and I got grouped with a six-foot-tall red belt for take-downs and he was extremely slow and careful about the way he threw me. Kris gave me a look and I took the guy so off guard that I almost hurled him into a wall. After that, the three of us had an understanding. In the end it seemed like he enjoyed working with people who knew how to fall and how to throw with enough intent and control to really grow. A lot of communication can happen even without the ability to form complete sentences. 

Sparring class is tomorrow, and we are excited to see how it goes. I am allowing myself some cautious amount of optimism that this will work out. As an added bonus, the dojang is a 10-minute walk from our new apartment. With how much trouble we have had with everything else we have tried in Switzerland, we are truly thankful that this has been encouraging. It feels good to be sore. It feels good to yell. It feels good in a way we had yet to in this unfamiliar place.

Au revoir.