A Evening of Sweat, Stepping on Strangers, and Portu-french-kor-english

There are many ways to spend a Friday night in Lausanne. You can meet friends at a wine bar. You can go dancing. You can have friends over who need to borrow your shower (true story). Or, you can go to a two-hour taewkondo seminar given by your master's master who is in from Portugal. Tonight Kris and I chose the last.

Not knowing what to expect we brought all of our gear along and arrived relatively early. We had been told that the three-day seminar was quite popular. Bruno was nice enough to save us spots even though we had been out of the country during the sign-up period. He greeted us at the door like old friends, shook Kris's hand and leaned in to give me a kiss on the cheek. I have tried to channel my inner European with this, and even felt proud when I kissed him back without my usual, "Oh God, I am so american" flinch. I flubbed the second kiss, feeling so proud of the first, and completely failed to meet him on the third. Thankfully he wasn't weird about it and simply stated, "In Switzerland, we do three."

The kissing thing had actually come up at taekwondo before, when one of the blue belts asked me how many kisses Americans do. He thought Kris and I were messing with him when we told him none. After we showed him the handshake and the one-armed, bro-hug, he looked sad and asked if all Americans hate each other.

After a warm welcome and changing into our uniforms we milled around on the mats with a few of the people we recognized. Sam, a green belt, started to tell us about the visiting instructor's reputation for working black belts into the ground during practice. Having spent the week recovering from a chest cold, this did little to settle my nerves. Soon we were all called to attention and started warm-ups.

It didn't take long for me to notice that, even though I am used to understanding very little of what is being said, I was understanding even less. At first I thought it was the visiting master's accent, but I soon realized it was because he was speaking Portuguese. Since he is from Portugal, I guess I should have expected that. Things seemed to be going well enough for the portuguese students he had brought with him, and the french-speaking locals were getting by with the bits of critical French being tossed in with the Korean commands. Bits of English even made and appearance. An average set of instructions went something like this:

Portuguese Portuguese Portuguese, ok? Portuguese, the Korean numbers 10 and 20, French, French, French. Korean numbers, change. Korean numbers, stop. Portuguese, Portuguese. French, French. Go faster.

It has given me a new perspective on the idea of a melting pot.

As Sam had warned, the visiting master took the dozen black belts to the far side of the gym to make a separate group. With the exception of a few truly baffling language exchanges, Kris and I fell into place rather well. I was paired with the other short, female black belt and we did some more in-depth stretches. Unfortunately for my new (portuguese) partner, this included a number of wall stretches holding up your partner's leg. As my CW Taekwondo family has learned, my frame is quite deceiving. Even though I am 8 inches shorter than Kris, we have the same length legs. This meant that my more normally proportioned and equally short new partner had a hilariously hard time holding up my leg above her head. Rather than helping her out, the portuguese master saw this as a great photo op and took about 15 pictures.

The actual drills were fantastic and, though my legs may disagree tomorrow, felt really good to do again. Despite our limited ability to communicate verbally, my new partner and I were enjoying ourselves and sympathizing with each other by the end. Though the practice was long, it hadn't been as demanding as Kris and I had expected. We have since decided that it is probably abnormal that we have been to practices where people puke and keep going, have their legs just give out completely, or need help lifting their arms to put on a coat at the end. It made us miss our CW family a little bit more.

After practice we started the partner stretches again, with the added bonuses of walking up and down the back of your partner's thighs and pounding on their arms, legs, and back with your open palms. As we were standing around waiting for others to finish I rubbed my partner's shoulders. She moaned appreciatively and spoke her clearest English of the night, looking me in the eye and saying, "I should pay you." When I laughed, her boyfriend came over and she proceeded to tell him in Portuguese that I give better back rubs than he does. I laughed and felt like some of the cultural barriers were starting to come down.

The moment I enter the locker room I am reminded how far I still have to come. In the US, there is a certain set of expectations that go with locker-room etiquette. Once you are done showering, you will dry yourself and get dressed. Maybe you will stand around in a towel for a while. If you are one of those weird older folks, you will stand around naked for at least 20 minutes, but you won't make lasting eye contact with anyone. Ladies, if they are changing bras, will do so quickly. If a conversation is happening when underwear is being changed, no comments or eye contact are made.

In my Swiss locker room, everyone is standing around topless. Apparently, once you have showered, it is standard to put on some highly fashionable panties, and then mill around for awhile. You can brush your hair, talk to people. You can even weigh yourself and then talk about weighing yourself, sometimes holding panties or a bra in your hand seemingly just for emphasis. Once a bra is put on, you have a good long while before any other clothes are even considered. It is not uncommon at this stage to do your makeup. Apparently the situation is relatively similar in the men's locker room. Kris says that forcing himself to have conversations in French with a bunch of men standing around in boxer briefs is one way of fitting in.

Once everyone was finally dressed, we said our goodbyes and everyone kissed each other again. There seems to be no requirement for the language of the speaker to match the language of the listener. In French, English, and (we presume that was what was being said) Portuguese, everyone said they looked forward to seeing us tomorrow. I can honestly say that I am quite looking forward to seeing them.

Bonne nuit.
Boa noite.
Good night.