TKD lesson was nearly an hour today.  We've got so much material now I have to actually break the lessons apart and only cover some of the curriculum each day, whereas before we could go over everything in half an hour.

Overall it was positive.  We learned the first part of "Dan Gun"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUBLmf0_fvY

Specifically the block and punch on both sides.  Was rather proud of myself: taught my kid that it was basically dirty boxing.  You use the block to deflect a punch while stepping in to the inside, and then that whole "hand out, step forward and punch" part is grab the opponent (hair, clothes, whatever), pull them into you and punch them in the face. 

I still don't think my kid really "gets" what a punch is. They're too focused on just getting the arm out.  We drilled one-steps, and they were acting like a battering ram: lock the fist out, then run the body into the opponent.  We took out the MMA gloves and focus mitts and I tried to get them to really give it a pop. Was still pretty lackluster, but getting there.  I gave my kid permission to really punch me in the liver during one-steps, to see if they could generate any sort of power.  Toward the end, it was kinda sorta happening, but still something to work on.

Their roundkicks in the air look real sharp.  Seems they have an easier time with those vs front kicks.  Got down in the basement and drilled the rear roundhouse on that inflatable bag I showed before.  My kid has legit devastating kicks.  Their roundhouse and push kicks are things I wouldn't want my connective tissue on the end of, which I know first hand because they like to kick me straight on my ACL reconstructed knee with the blown out hamstring.

That said, sh*t, those moves are Muay Thai, not Tae Kwon Do.  Funny that...

Still struggling a bit with the psychology part of things.  Once my kid gets frustrated, learning is pretty much over.  However, my kid gets frustrated LEARNING things, so it's a bit of a cycle.  Furthermore, once they get frustrated, they do this weird perpetual motion thing where they keep doing the thing they're struggling with worse and worse so that they can get more and more frustrated about it.  That's hard for me to wrap my head around.  It happened today when they were trying to change stances during the form, and it happened hard when I had them try throwing the roundhouse with their left leg as the rear leg instead of the right leg.  That second part blew my mind: I legit didn't think that was a big ask, but they looked at me like I just asked them to eat the sun.  They threw anything BUT a roundhouse at the back.  Hook kicks, cresent kicks, front kicks, lateral knees, all things I hadn't taught them, but they were adamant they weren't going to throw a left leg roundhouse that day. 

I tried to remember a lesson from last time, and had them end the session with those right leg roundhouses.  They were rocking the bag there, which was great for them, but also blew my mind they couldn't do it with the left side.  It wouldn't such a big deal in Muay Thai, where you can just be an orthodox or southpaw, but TKD is big on fighting from both sides.

Taught my kid the trick about throwing down the right arm to get the hip to turn in the roundhouse.  They picked it up pretty well.