Just wanted to give a nod to Linoge and his continuing efforts to get back into martial arts. Like him, I took Tae Kwon Do in high school, almost made it to black belt, and then quit when I went to college. For years after that, I kept meaning to go back but either work got in the way or I’d hide behind the all to common excuse of “well, I’ll start again after I get back in shape.”
Ten years of that went by, and I was still sitting on my ass not doing it. Fortunately, my girlfriend decided that she needed to do something to be more confident and learn how to defend herself. I looked up my old instructor, saw that she was still teaching, and went down to rejoin the class. After some “where the hell have you been?” from the instructor, we started class. I became painfully aware that I was horribly out of shape, and those first few classes were painful.
Fast forward a few years, and I’m still out of shape. Much better shape than I was when I started the second time, but I still have more work to do. On the other hand, I am now a black belt and will be testing for my second degree tomorrow. Oh, and it’s been made perfectly clear by my instructor that if I disappear again, she will hunt me down and hurt me. Much more so than she does in class.
Anyway, it sounds like Linoge has found a school that he fits in this time. I was fortunate enough to stumble into one straight away, but I know people that have bounced around many schools before finding the right one.
Yeah, taking a decade off was pretty much my worst idea ever; definitely going to try to avoid that in the future.