Part 3 - The Mentors Meet

Amanda parked her car along the street near the Kim's dojang. In truth, she was feeling just a little guilty about this. Today was Wednesday, and she'd specifically chosen today because Christie didn't have class here today. Amanda was trying to avoid making Christie aware of her concerns until she was sure that her daughter needed to know about them. All the same, she felt like she was sneaking around behind her daughter's back.

Okay, Amanda grumbled silently to herself; this felt like a betrayal. Deal with it, Amanda, she told herself. Sometimes it just sucks to a grownup and a Mom, but that was just part of the job. Christie had enough to deal with right now without adding what might not even be a real problem to the mix. Dammit, woman, you're a Mom and Moms worry so the kids don't have to! Deal with it.

Entering the small lobby area, Amanda sat on one of the benches, slipped off her shoes and put on some athletic socks she'd thought to bring. She still remembered the hurt look on eight-year-old Charlie's face when she had entered the school's main studio in her work heels. And she hadn't even known the rule then, but she by gosh knew it now! No shoes in the dojang. And she realized her attention on that small courtesy was just another reaction to her going behind Christie's back with this visit.

Peaking inside the main arena area, she saw a small group of red and black belts working under Master Kim's watchful eye. Grandfather Kim, the patriarch of the Kim family, was standing off to one side, observing the class, when he saw Amanda. With a smile on his face, he unhurriedly went to greet her. "Ah, Mrs. McKellar, right on time. Come, we will go to my office. We will have tea and then discuss whatever you wish to talk with me about."

"Thank you, Mr. Kim. I really appreciate you meeting me like this . . ." Amanda started as she followed his lead to the door off to one side of the room.

"You indicated you have concerns about Christie. She and Charlie are both favorite students of mine and my family. Of course, my family will do anything we can do to help Christie. Please, have a seat, and you can tell me what it is that has a loving mother so concerned."

Amanda felt herself blushing at his observation. "Well, so much for my vaunted poker face. I'm usually not so easy to read."

"I suspect that ordinarily, you are not, but you are dealing with a challenging situation and I must admit that I do possess a fairly strong empathic gift."

"You also are aware of magic, Mr. Kim. Perhaps you even possess some magical gifts of your own, as well. You know that Charlie has become Christie, too. Given all that, and what I saw Monday when I got home from work, makes you my best source for advice." Taking her phone from her purse, Amanda called up the video she'd taken of Christie practicing her forms and held it out to Grandfather. "If you would watch this video and then tell me what you see and think, Mr . . ."

"Please, call me Grandfather, or perhaps, Papa Kim. With so many Kims around here, saying 'Mister' Kim will likely get you at least three answers. It is what the students call me. My son is 'Master Kim,' and my grandson is usually just Young-Soo or Soo. Now, let me see."

Amanda tried to sit quietly as the old gentleman focused on her phone. She watched as he quickly called up the play controls on her phone and began starting and stopping the playback, sometimes rewinding to watch some sequences multiple times. While he watched, his face revealed very little, at least to her eye, but in all, it took him almost twenty minutes to work his way through the bare five minutes of video. Looking up from the phone, he met her eyes directly and said, "Quite remarkable, and perhaps, a little sad."

Disconcerted by his pronouncement, Amanda pressed for more detail. "Remarkable and sad? How, Papa?"

Moving over to sit closer to his guest, Papa Kim fiddled with her phone before holding it where they could both watch. Amanda saw that he had queued it to a spot midway in the vid, one in which Christie's frustration was particularly evident. "Look here, Mrs. McKellar, see how she moves into a pose and then stops abruptly? Now, watch as she assumes the pose she was trying to achieve in the poomse. If she had done that as part of the poomse, it would have been excellent, nearly perfect, in fact. But here is what it looked like when she tried to achieve it as part of the standard form." He backed up the video and showed Christie's position just before she'd stopped in disgust.

"There are similar sequences in the video, but that is the most easily seen. Jeja Christie's mind knows what her body should do. We can see that when she simply assumes the position. That is years of training the mind. Charlie was very advanced for his age. In truth, his black belt was a foregone conclusion a year ago, and only the mandatory training time required by the Federation stopped me from awarding it then. However, Charlie had eight years of intense, repetitive physical training that Christie lacks. Her body does not 'know how to achieve the correct position during the form. At the same time, her dancer's kinesthetic sense tells her final positions are wrong, so she stops and tries to correct herself, to 'teach her body' where she wants it to be."

"Almost like a dancer practicing positions at the barre? Like she was in a ballet studio?"

"From what little I understand about dance training, I believe that is a good comparison. I also believe that Christie's dance training and body awareness tell her she's not performing the poomse correctly."

Amanda closed her eyes momentarily and tried not to cry. "I just don't understand, Papa. Historically, Christie's trial is not uncommon in my family line; that is, one of us changing gender has happened any number of times. Both my Mother and I had to deal with it. For the most part, our biggest challenge was adjusting to school and life as the other sex, and, after a couple of months, that stopped being an issue. Christie has had almost four months, and she's still struggling. My powers had already started to emerge at the four-month point in my trial. However, I've seen no sign that my daughter is developing powers. Nothing! Maybe she was supposed to stay in the dance class."

"I don't know about your magic or your trials, but I do know that Christie was completely honorable in her actions and, I think, justified. She even returned to ensure that the show went on, not for herself, but for the other students."

"I know," Amanda replied softly. "I talked to the other mothers whose girls followed Christie to your school. That woman has absolutely no notion of how to teach children. How many promising students have just given up rather than deal with her constant negative reinforcement? You tell a child that they are not any good at something often enough, they'll believe you and go look for something else more rewarding to do." She shook her head at another thought. "I was so happy when the augury showed Christie in dance class instead of martial arts. I always loved dance, but I grew too tall and curvy too quickly. Seeing Christie dancing? Remembering her performances and exhibitions? I found that thrilling, but that's on me, not her."

Grandfather Kim smiled gently. "I will tell you a little secret, Mrs. McKellar, your child has always been a dancer, even when he was Charlie."

"Please, Papa, call me Amanda. But I have to say that I never saw Charlie dance in his entire life."

"Charlie was always an excellent jeja, that is, excellent student; athletic, coachable, intense and determined to excel. However, a few years ago, he had a little stumble when we trained him for one of the mid-level belts. The standard forms? The Poomsae? These must be performed precisely and to a standard cadence. Missteps and imprecise postures are causes for deductions. Too many deductions and the form does not meet the criteria to earn the belt. Charlie went through a phase where he started . . . improvising, shall we say? A little finger flourish here, a slightly elongated thrust there, a pose held a beat or two longer than is specified in the standard. In short, Amanda, Charlie was dancing, very elegantly, too, but we couldn't let him get away with it, and he missed two testing cycles before he got it under control."

"I never knew that. My son certainly never complained to me about it."

"He wouldn't, now would he? The fault was his, he knew it, and he fixed it. It simply took him a while to bring his inclination under control because his nature and instinct was to dance."

"Exactly how bad was it? I mean, what Christie was trying to do on that video?"

Grandfather sighed. "That is a very advanced poomse, one we do not even consider teaching students until they are much further along in their training. Typically we don't begin that training phase until they are almost ready to test for their first red belt. There are movements required in that exercise that require careful development of the student's body. The Koryo Poomse demands a high degree of muscle, tendon and ligament flexibility. Christie came to us in superb physical condition. Her body was already sublimely flexible thanks to her years of studying ballet, but for all that, she was not physically prepared for that poomse. The places where she was having trouble and becoming frustrated? Those movements are of that type - unique to martial arts and not something her training regimen at Madame Coulter's ballet school would have prepared her to accomplish. I will have to speak with her; get her to ease off on those particular movements. Otherwise, she might injure herself. It was very wise of you to bring this to my attention."

Amanda felt a sensation of utter peace descend on her on hearing that from Papa Kim. Perhaps that was the hidden reason she'd felt driven to reach out to the eldest Kim. All she'd known was that her child was unhappy and frustrated; Papa Kim had recognized the real problem, and he had the credibility with her daughter to resolve the issue. "I suddenly feel so much better about that. Now, if I could just figure out why the rest of her trial seems stalled, neither Mom nor I can recall having this much trouble."

"As I said earlier, I do not know anything about the challenges you and your mother faced when it was your time. I might offer this observation based on what you've told me and what I know about Charlie and now Christie. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that you and your mother simply had to acclimate to your new stations and then carry on with what was, at that time, normal teenage life experiences. Certainly, learning how to function as a member of the opposite team was likely quite stressful, but did you really lose anything you considered integral to your self or self-image? I suspect not."

"Well, I badly missed sewing and needlecraft," Amanda replied thoughtfully.

"And if those things had truly been central to your emotional and mental well-being, you could have still pursued them in the privacy of your own space, away from spying eyes. Ah, and from the look on your face, that is what you did, correct?" Amanda nodded, and Papa continued. "Christie has lost eight years of effort, discipline and physical preparation. Moreover, the way the Federation is currently overseeing the advancement of students, Christie is two, perhaps even three years away from achieving the same belt level that Charlie held only three months ago. And she will need most of that time to recondition. . . or is it just to condition as in the first time, her body for the demands of that advancement. That is a significant obstacle and one that only a powerful and disciplined personality could hope to overcome. Christie is still a young person and, I suspect, is struggling with that realization herself. Once she has, and I have every confidence in that determined young lady, she will begin to acclimate as you and your mother did."

"Ah, Lord. She could have stayed in dance, but realistically, that probably would have become a dead-end for her, too. She's grown almost two inches over the summer and has begun to fill out her curves. Takes after her mom there, I guess."

"Too tall and curvy for ballet?" At Amanda's rueful agreement, Papa nodded. "So, in all likelihood, had Christie continued in ballet, her growth spurt would have limited her options there. She would have needed to find something else to take its place; another type of dance, martial arts or other activity. Whatever she decided to do, she was still starting all over, using her ballet experience to help her adapt to that new vocation."

"I never thought of it like that," Amanda breathed, her eyes wide. "Perhaps her trial lessons started when her most obvious path closed? I will have to think hard about that. Well, Papa, I need to get home and talk with my daughter. I haven't told her yet about my concerns because I felt I needed your expertise to make sure I wasn't blowing everything out of proportion. I don't usually keep secrets from her, and I want her to hear about our little visit from me before you talk to her."

"I understand, Amanda. Here is my card with my home and mobile phone numbers. Perhaps you could send me that video file so that when I talk to her, I will have it to go over with her."

Amanda pulled out her phone and quickly sent the requested file. "There. You should have it in a few moments. I have to run since it is her night to cook dinner and she failed in that duty the night of the frustration poomse."

"Drive safely. I will talk to her after Saturday's class unless she asks me about it during tomorrow's session. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help you and Christie. I am very fond of her."

Amanda started to rise but stopped when Papa raised his hand. "Mrs. McKellar, Amanda," he began slowly, "You mentioned that you were concerned about not seeing Christie's abilities start to emerge yet. Do you recall her final bout on the testing day back in August?"

Slipping back into her seat, Amanda nodded. "I was terrified at the time because neither Christie nor Charlie ever had anything good to say about him - just the opposite. And he was so much bigger than she was."

Nodding his head thoughtfully, Papa Kim said, "The move she used at the very end of the bout? It was actually a combination of moves. That combination of a jumping 360-degree hook kick followed by a roundhouse kick is very advanced. Those are techniques we teach to red belt students. Combining them, as Christie did, is very difficult. Honestly, I cannot remember Charlie ever using that combination except in practice. Like the Koryo Poomse, that combination should have been well beyond Christie's current level of physical preparation."

"And that means what, Papa?"

"Just that your child has always been a very physical individual. I would hazard to guess that she may have somehow focused her nascent powers to enhance her physical abilities at that very stressful instant. I suggest you start watching for signs that she is developing any athletic traits or abilities faster than normal. And we will monitor her development here at the dojang, as well."

Amanda sat and thought for a few moments before replying, "Now that you mention it, I believe there were instances in our family records when such enhancements occurred. . ."

"Perhaps you should take another, closer look before talking with your daughter?" Papa Kim asked, smiling gently.

Momentarily overwhelmed, Amanda jumped over to hug and kiss the older man before waving goodbye and hurrying out of the dojang to her car. She was so focused on getting home and reviewing the family records she almost forgot to stop and put her shoes back on first. Almost.