After our daughter’s last dance recital and totaling up that seven costumes and six pairs of shoes that cumulatively cost approximately the same as Brazil’s annual GDP we decided to let her choose a new activity. For the amount that dance costs you could, theoretically, rent an entire dance troupe to perform for you once a month for approximately nine billion years.

It was suggested that to help keep her interest and make it more “fun” that I should do the next activity with her. I thought this was a reasonable preposition until we learned that “father-daughter listening-to-fantasy-football-podcasts” wasn’t an approved activity.

Ultimately, she landed on taekwondo. “Taekwondo”, translated, is a combination of three words: “tae” meaning kick; “kwon” meaning punch and “do”, a deer, a female deer. I checked and thankfully the rules of taekwondo do not expressly prohibit dad jokes.

The more I considered this new activity the more onboard I became. After all, being skilled in a form of martial arts will likely help her defend herself slightly more than tap dance, where your only hope is the assailant getting annoyed by the sound of your tap shoes making contact with the ground at irregular intervals. However, if someone was to attempt to attack her, I’d like to think if she busted out a “double buffalo” tap routine they’d get confused and forget all about what they were doing.

After emailing the instructor to verify that, yes, he’s in favor of making more money, we were provided our official “dobok” uniform. The dobok is made from the finest cardboard/plaster blend and offers the breathability of a sealed chimney. Keeping the dobok airtight is a belt. The color of the belt changes based on student ability and seasonal fashion trends and are NOT to be worn on your head pretending to be Daniel Laursso from Karate Kid. After picking the uniform up prior to the first class we were told being able to tie the belt would award us with a patch. This made me instantly want patches for other routine tasks, such as:

– Remembering to prep the coffee the night before patch

– Returning Redbox movies within two days patch

– Not being afraid to answer the phone instead of text patch

The guy on the video made it sound like tying the dumb belt was ridiculously easy. To me, it looked like he was making origami peacocks while on cocaine. The next video showed an eight-year-old giving the tutorial, which looked much more my speed, however few things humble you faster than watching a YouTube video of a third-grader tying a belt and having to stop and rewind it every two seconds because he’s also going too fast.

As the first class neared I started watching more videos of taekwondo master demonstrations and wondered if that would take me three classes or the full month to reach that level. The first class was “junior white belts”, a class traditionally reserved for kids, however I was assured there would be other parents taking the class with their children. As child after child lined up alongside us I discovered this was a lie and perhaps the first lesson of taekwondo was actually: “Never trust anybody.”

At least I had finally mastered tying my belt correctly.

“Looks like you had some problems with your belt,” the teacher incorrectly greeted me. “Is that a dress belt over the top of it holding it on?”

“I like my own way of doing things,” I replied. “It’s OK to feel impressed. Especially since the belt you provided is clearly defective.”

With my steely martial arts eyes, I surveyed the class of five seven-year-olds and raised my hand.

“I don’t feel comfortable destroying these kids,” I said.

“We don’t actually make contact,” he replied.

“Oh good. That’s a relief. But I totally would, you know. I would DE-STROY them.”

“Um…we don’t usually do a lot of stretching in this class but since there’s a parent here that might be a good warmup,” he replied, implicating something.

I narrowed my eyes, hoping I wouldn’t have to show him up on my very first class. I played along and followed the exercises.

“You don’t have to shout ‘Hee-Ya!’ with every stretch,” he incorrectly asserted.

This guy, I tell you.

“Now it’s time for a high kick,” he said, demonstrating the kick that looked like it went uncomfortably high. The kids mimicked.

“No thank you,” I replied.

“What happens when you’re attacked by someone my size or taller?”

I looked around the class.

“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem unless two of them get on another’s shoulders inside a trench coat. And if they did that I’d just push them over as they’d be very top-heavy.”

By the end of the class none of the other students were breathing hard, sweating nearly as much or limping because they kind of pulled something a little, a clear indication I had won taekwondo. Another class or two and I’ll have my black belt and probably be recruited by the Avengers.

The teacher said it was probably too early to start thinking of superhero names but that’s probably just to keep me (the Iron Falcon) humble.