By lunchtime on Monday, I had memorized about half of the flash cards. There were some I still couldn’t pronounce. Like the words for riding-horse stance with a punch: juchum-seogi jireugi. In my head, I could hear it, but I just couldn’t get my mouth to make the right sounds. I hoped Master Kim would count it right if we got close enough.
I needed to practice my push kick. I got only three tries to break the board at my test. If I couldn’t break it, I failed. Too bad, so sad. Try again in another three months. Dad and I drove by a garage sale on our way to the grocery store, but we didn’t see any kicking bags. Just treadmills and stationary bikes.
I went to our basement and climbed into the crawl space to look for something I could use to make my own bag. I found the pile of boxes with GIVE AWAY scrawled on the sides. It was mostly clothes, but I hoped there might be something useful.
And . . . bingo!
In the third box, I found Sam’s old comforter. It still had plenty of puffiness. I dragged it out of the dusty crawl space and shook it in case any spiders had taken up residence. All folded up tight, it made a good-size rectangle. I got the duct tape off Dad’s workbench. It took me half an hour to wrap the blanket up. When it was done, it looked just a little smaller than the kicking shields Master Kim brought to class.
I tore off another strip of duct tape, folded it in half lengthwise, and attached it to the top of the shield to create a handle. One end of a rope tied to the handle and the other end tied to one of the basement rafters and ta-da! My very own kicking bag.
I got into fighting stance and threw a push kick. My homemade bag went flying. It was hard to tell if I was standing the right distance away and if I had the right amount of strength to actually break a board. But Master Kim said successful board breaks were more about getting the right technique than having a lot of strength. I hoped he was right. Plus, at test time, someone would be holding my board and so it wouldn’t give as much. I stopped the bag from swinging and kept practicing.
Bear came downstairs. She cocked her head and whined the way she does when she needs to go out.
“Okay, girl,” I told her. “I could use a break anyway.”
When the two of us got upstairs, Sam was in the kitchen, warming something in the microwave. “Where’ve you been?” he asked.
“Practicing,” I said.
“I thought you called the TV all day. If you’re not going to watch it, I’m going to.”
Crispy fried eggs!
I’d completely forgotten that Sweet Caroline Cakes was the Monday marathon on channel thirteen.
Oh well. Sweet Caroline would just have to understand.