They have what?!

I was brave and didn't go to FIGHT tonight, are you proud of me? I even set up a time to talk to Sir about training tomorrow during kickboxing, so I won't be able to be in class for that, either. Skipping TWO classes, here, see? I am taking it easy! (No guarantees that I will sit out of tkd tomorrow night, though. That's asking an awful lot.)

Thanks for all of the kind words about Huggy! He is pretty adorable. I brought him in to work (my tissue paper for wrapping things was still in my desk from some gifting or other) and everyone is now asking me if I can make one for them. In all ranges of colors, from lime green (Mom) to black and grey (an "execution hedgehog" - an inside joke from The Pillowman) to pink (Chrissy) to yellow (Miss A/Kara) to red (my friend Carl) to purple (me! I want one too!) to any other color of the rainbow. Very fun - they are a quick knit and gift idea, but I'm definitely not making them all at once! I might have to go up to SLO this weekend to hit a decent yarn shop - a little cheerful yellow toy might be just the thing to go with Miss A's baby blanket.

The coolest thing, though? They have PENGUINS!! Dudes!! I must get my hands on this pattern!

Dojahng news behind the cut.

So, the deal is, Sir and Mrs. S have gotten pretty fed up with ATA's politics and business practices. Sir isn't sure what parent organization we'll switch to yet, but he's been talking a lot with his instructors who are also leaving or have left the ATA, and is deciding between two. Both of those systems are more of a mixture of martial art styles, not just taekwondo. Sir will still teach taekwondo as the primary style, but there can be more guest instructors come in to add different flavors to the mix. I'm not completely sure about what changes will happen to formwork yet, but I do know that he will be adding a physical fitness requirement to black belt testing, intensifying the self-defense almost to FIGHT-level (he's always been big on the idea that martial arts are completely useless if you cannot defend yourself), delaying announcing testing results, holding to a higher and more even testing standard, dropping people in rank who have not trained on a consistent basis, and a few other things. Uniforms will be changing after the next testing date (March 29) - regular students will wear white, leadership students (like me) will wear blue, and instructors will wear black. We will have both a taekwondo patch and a FIGHT patch. They are also going to changeover all the tshirts and things to different, "more fitness looking" style gear (they better not get rid of FIGHT pants, though, those are the most comfortable things EVER!), and phase out the ones with the ATA logos. The dojahng has already been repainted and the old Songham Star and other ATA logos have been covered over or taken down, and the red parts of the mats will be changed out soon. They will still teach FIGHT to 18+ and kickboxing (I want a kickboxing patch, too!), so the general format of what they offer will stay the same. It will be really interesting to see what changes and how! I'm so excited to see the way the school is growing and adapting to what the owners actually want it to be and to be a (very) small part of it!