Gale_CP#5

Gale Workman

CP#5

Sept. 16, 2014, 1:40 p.m.

Hecht House

I was sitting in the Hecht House lobby, awaiting the arrival of my CP Sepideh when Jihun, one of my tutees, walked by. He sat next to me. "What are you doing now?" Jihun asked.

When I told him I was awaiting my CP, he asked if we could talk until she came. "Sure," I replied. "What's up?"

Jihun said he'd received my email about the tech-trouble I had emailing the video I shot of him last week during our session. He said it was OK ... even great ... that he was unable to have a copy of the video, which I had suggested he post to Facebook.

He told me he felt "embarrassed" when he had to look at videos of himself posted online … not painful ... just uncomfortable. I agreed that it was hard, and we swapped stories about how we felt when we looked at videos of ourselves. He agreed the assignment to record him reading the script he wrote was a good learning experience. He said he would like me to critique the video with him in our next session. He said he would not be embarrassed to watch his video with me.

I asked him how he was doing at CIES. Jihun said he was tired. He has been practicing jujitsu three hours a day at least four days a week, training for an October tournament in Miami. As I had an hour's tutoring session last week with another student who studies tae kwan do, I asked Jihun to explain the difference.

Jihun was eager to educate me, as he has a black belt in tae kwan do, and he began practicing tae kwan do when he was a small child. He spoke for a while about martial arts -- using feet, hands, offense, defense.

We kept talking because Sepideh never showed. I enjoyed my spontaneous conversation partnership with Jihun. I was delighted at the end of our conversaation that Jihun stood and extended his hand to shake -- just as he learned from me in our first session together two weeks ago.