Many things! First, hapkido

After spending almost three months believing others when they say they'll help me out, I finally took it upon myself to arrange my hapkido class on my own, or at least, with only help I knew I could rely upon.

Last week, I realized that behind our building is a big sign saying (in Hangul, of course), "Hap ki do" with a phone number. I dutifully recorded the number, wrote it down, and at school dug out my phrasebook and wrote, in Korean, "Hap ki do, [phone number], timetable, cost, foreigners okay?, thank you," and passed it to our secretaries. After they finished giggling, one of them got on the phone. Eventually, it was all arranged: mornings at 11:30, a private one-hour session five days a week for just me and Nick, 100,000 won per month.

Huzzah!

After a mishap on Monday in which we went to the wrong building (the school had moved about two buildings down), on Tuesday we found our class and our master.

Our master (and I have no idea what his name is) is wonderful - one of those very old men who looks perpetually happy because he's completely at peace with the world and the fact that he could kick your arse in about four seconds but he has no reason to want to. He has no English at all except a hearty "Oooh-kaaay!" when we do something well. The introduction involved a lot of talk in Korean about breathing, energy, the body, and various places where energy rests, which we did our best to understand but really went right over our heads. Then it was falling drills and the basic block-attack drills. After a time he brought in a second instructor, younger, but very qualified, who is very modest about his English, which is actually quite good.

So we've got two instructors taking care of us, five days a week for the rest of the year. I'm very excited about this. I only had one class so far (New Year means no class), but already I can feel the onrush of energy that tends to come with me practicing martial arts.

The remainder of the winter is going to suck a lot less.