{"id":1589,"date":"2007-04-12T08:11:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-12T03:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chris.dwan.org\/?p=1589"},"modified":"2007-04-12T08:11:00","modified_gmt":"2007-04-12T03:11:00","slug":"school-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chris.dwan.org\/?p=1589","title":{"rendered":"School #2"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wandered into karate school number 2 last night. The Rockville Martial Arts and Learning Center<\/a>. Totally different experience … all the way in the other direction.<\/p>\n

I spent half an hour talking to the owner, who is not the lead instructor. He’s a guy who has run various fitness businesses in the past. He operates a school where he *hires* instructors, rather than teaching them. Having learned from last time (and still nursing a sore arm), I was much more understated about what I know. I’ve studied a little. What belt had I achieved? Well, it’s really impossible to compare things between schools. You know, everyone uses the belt ranks differently. Seriously, what belt? Black belt! Wow! He insisted that I wear a black belt at his school, which I would never dream of, and I certainly won’t at first: His school, his rules … I haven’t tested in his school … and seriously … standards differ and I don’t want to dilute them. Also, I would be there to exercise and practice, not to show everyone how cool I am. <\/p>\n

A little further in the conversation, and he was suggesting that if things worked out, I might be available to give a couple of seminars to his instructors on the things I’ve learned. *sigh*. Do you at least want to see if I’m totally bluffing? Flattery gets you everywhere.<\/p>\n

I have little to no interest in Tae Kwon Do, especially the “TKF” style. I’ve seen it, did it when I was a kid, and it seems to be very much the “art for arts sake” style … at least the form that gets taught in schools like these. In addition, the majority of the classes at this place are all-belts, all-ages, and populated with kids. Kids get something very different out of martial arts from adults … and having them present (in my experience) dilutes the adult practice.<\/p>\n

However, the short version is, it’s a decent sized gym with padded floor, heavy bags, kicking shields, and the occasional person my size to work with. The owner says that it’s cool for me to pay on a month by month basis and either do my own workout in private, or study with his instructors if I would like to learn some TKD. At least I won’t totally atrophy, it might force me to crystalize what I know and want to retain, and maybe I’ll make a friend or two around here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wandered into karate school number 2 last night. The Rockville Martial Arts and Learning Center. Totally different experience … all the way in the other direction.<\/p>\n

I spent half an hour talking to the owner, who is not the lead instructor. He’s a guy who has run various fitness businesses in the past. He . . . → Read More: School #2<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chris.dwan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chris.dwan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chris.dwan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chris.dwan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chris.dwan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chris.dwan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chris.dwan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chris.dwan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chris.dwan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}