Tell us about your first day at something

Tell us about your first day at something — school, work, as a parent, etc.

I will tell you about my first day in martial arts. I had been active for years but was very out of shape by the time I got into the martial arts. I still had flexibility and could do a lot of my gymnastics moves but I wanted to learn how to hone a combative edge.

I had always been fascinated with the martial arts and how disciplined they were and what they could do with their body. Suffice it to say it didn’t go as smoothly as I thought.

The first day they were teaching some basics and having back and forth sparring no contact. I was just shown a back kick and was told to do it. I didn’t feel comfortable as it’s not something I cared for.

I started to lose balance and as a gymnast you are told to land on your back so I pushed off and landed flat on my back. Within a couple seconds I was back on my feet doing a kip up which is going from your back to your feet without rolling.

The instructor made me stop and said I should never just get up as I should check if I am injured. I made a comment that I had been trained for this and knew immediately I wasn’t hurt well other than embarrassed for falling. He made a bigger deal of this saying that it was basically being a bad influence since the younger people would try and do what I did.

I was shocked but this wasn’t the only thing that shocked me that night. I was the last to leave as I was packing away my equipment so I could leave and put on my shoes. The instructor came up who has given me hell for doing the kip up and asked me if I could train him on that. I was utterly shocked and was not really happy since he didn’t want me to do it in class but he wanted me to train him on how to do it. Talk about a conflict of interest. I gave him a few pointers but he never managed to figure out how to complete the move.

Suffice it to say that I tried to avoid anything that could be seen as a flair or style that wasn’t something he could do.