Proctor

No, it's not the name of a new Marvel superhero movie, it's me! After Bill and me were working out on Saturday, Colette asked me to Proctor the Gup shim sa (lower belt presentation/test). I know absolutely nothing about this roll and had never been to a lower belt test for SBD.  

The story started around the moving of a refrigerator.  Colette and Andy needed a new one and needed some help getting it into the house.  I was in the neighboring town, so I couldn't get there anytime soon.  I ended up showing when they had it in place.  Nice timing!  We chatted a few minutes later and they asked me to be the Proctor on Sunday.  I felt like it would be a good experience and, because I felt a bit guilty not helping a bit more at the school.  We all sign off on helping out when we can, so the work is distributed. I'm usually working on my house so it can be a bit tough.  They have an aggressive schedule of activities there and could use a lot more help, but there isn't a lot of us to go around.  So, I made sure I could get there and try to help.

Help, well, a bit of a hinderance seems a better description. I was given a few instructions from Colette and after getting everyone settled, we were ready for bow in.  There were about fifteen visitors and twelve candidates.  Colette and Andy made up the board and I stood up the whole time.  

My job was to say the moves in Korean and kind of act as a director for all the action.  Holding boards to break, acting as a director for sparring and so on.  Due to the large group the whole thing took several hours.  Afterwards Colette only had a few notes for me.  That seemed pretty good to me.  I totally blanked on the Korean for the sparring stuff. Whoops.  At least she was laughing at that.

All in all, a great experience for me, but I felt bad for many of the students that weren't totally prepared.  When they'd do something on their own for the crowd and it was crap everyone still politely clapped.  I'm not sure if they know, but Colette would follow up with, "I guess we know what we'll be working on next week."  Hah.

Saturday with Bill - we ran through the test again and it was a bit smoother than last week.  I'm taking this as a good sign.  Just a few forgetful spots in ho shin sul of all places.  Everything else went really well and we remember to spar this time.  I was pushing the pace, so we finished in an hour.  Bill pointed out that I don't have to do that since the test will most likely be broken up and I'll have more of an opportunity to rest than I think.  I don't trust our circumstances to line up like that, so I'll stick to a harder pace just in case.