During class Master Kim had us form two lines. I got in the line with the black-belt helper. She bowed to Master Kim, and he bowed back and handed her a black rectangular pad. Then he picked up his own pad and said, “We’re going to work on our board breaks.”
The boy behind me gave a little moan. When I looked over my shoulder, he whispered, “I got jump front kick. It’s hard.”
I nodded in sympathy. I didn’t know what a jump front kick was. But the boy had a patch on his dobok sleeve that said BEST KICKING. If he thought it was hard, I was in trouble.
Each person took a turn kicking the pad and then ran to the back of the line. When it was my turn, I just stood there, waiting.
“Oh!” the black belt said. “That’s right. You’re new. The white belt break is push kick.”
She motioned to the boy behind me. “Please demonstrate, Mark.” I was supposed to stand in fighting stance, with my fists up, and then move my back leg up and pull my knee as tight as I could to my body.
“Now fire out your leg,” the black belt said. “And hit the target with the ball of your foot.”
“Make sure you don’t point your toes,” Mark said. “Or you might break one.”
Great. Broken toes were not fun. I knew that from experience. When I was nine, I jumped off the couch, broke my big toe, and had to wear a stupid-looking boot-slipper thing for a month.
I tried to do what Mark had done, but when my foot shot out, it barely hit the pad.
“Not bad,” the black belt said with a smile. But her “not bad” didn’t sound all that good.
I went to the back of the line. I got to practice a few more times. Each time something went wrong. My kick was too wide. Or too short. I forgot to kihap.
At one point, Master Kim handed his kicking pad over to another black belt and came over to watch me.
“You’re not following through,” he said. “Don’t kick at it. Kick past it.”
“Yes sir,” I said.
But I had no idea what he meant. How could you kick something if you were aiming past it?
Master Kim sounded like Yoda. And not in a good way.