Dear Santa...

Dear Santa,
There is one thing that I would like very much for Christmas (besides world peace, which Miss. America already asked you for) That is: for more adults to come to Taekwondo class. Don’t get me wrong - I enjoy practicing Taekwondo with the students who do come to evening classes. But I know that we have some students who stopped coming to class, and I wish they would come back! I know they are probably busy getting ready for the holidays. But don’t they realize that taking class helps with the stress of doing all that Christmas stuff??!! Class is only an hour. It’s not that hard to fit into a busy schedule. Plus, if they are like me and have a hard time resisting Christmas cookies, it burns those extra calories!

I’m sure that many adults who never tried Taekwondo would really enjoy it. So, if any really cool kids sit on your lap at the mall, or write letters to you and say that they would like Taekwondo classes for their Christmas present, can you tell them that their mommies and daddies should try Taekwondo too? In fact, a lot of mommies and daddies at our school take Taekwondo class WITH their kids, and have a great time doing it. You see, Taekwondo isn’t just for kids. Some adults think that they are too "old" to take TKD when they see the kids running around the dojang, doing sit-ups and pushups, kicks, punches and free sparing. I wish they knew that that they are never too old or out of shape! I wish that I could tell them that sit-ups, push-ups, kicks, and stuff are difficult at first, but become easier each time...and that Sabumnim lets adults do these Taekwondo moves at their own pace. He’s a super nice guy. He challenges us in class to do our best, but he’s never yelling things like “Do 50 jumping kicks, you wimps!” After all, it’s Taekwondo, not the Marines! I wish I could tell all of the adults out there how much healthier that the adult students are we have taken Taekwondo…how our pants fit better, and we take out our stress on Bob and Billy Bully instead of our families!

Of course, one of the most important benefits of Taekwondo is learning how to defend yourself. I would hope that no one would ever attack Santa (except for maybe Mr. Heatmeiser, Jack Frost, or that abdominable snowman that went after Rudolph). Anyway, maybe some people might not expect a fat man to come flying down the chimney so they might try to punch or kick you. If you knew some Taekwondo moves, you could block their punches, or put them in a headlock or something until you had time to explain that you were just trying to leave them Christmas presents.

When you visit houses of students that haven’t been to class lately, and leave them Christmas presents, maybe you can have some elves whisper subliminal messages in their ears while they are fast asleep, telling them to come back to Allen’s Red Tiger. We miss them!

Your friend,
-Nancy

P.S. Maybe after the holidays, you could swing by sometime and take some classes. After all those milk and cookies, you probably want to have a good work-out to get your pre-Christmas shape back...unless you’re already in shape and are just stuffing yourself with pillows because people just aren’t ready for a skinny Santa yet!