Finding my flexibility

With many years of soccer, martial arts, and other activities under my belt, so to speak, I have seen my fair share of bumps, bruises, gashes, and the occasional broken toe, but practicing taekwondo as a middle-aged man presents new challenges and rewards. When I started kicking and punching on Zoom meetings during the early days of the pandemic, I had minimal flexibility in my hips and lower back due to years of sitting at a desk in my IT job. I had to lean my back against the couch just to stretch on the floor with my legs spread – a humbling experience for somebody who once was so tantalizingly close to a karate black belt. Slowly…bit by bit…with a lot of grunts and groans that were thankfully muted on Zoom, I stretched and kicked and lunged and the years of a sedentary work life started to peel away. Over the following months and several years, I could kick over my belt, then my belly button, my chest and on a good day, I can kick over my own head.

With more practice and stretching, my body started to be able to do things it had not done in a decade or more. I learned to do flying kicks, spinning kicks, double and even triple kicks with all the enthusiasm and eagerness as my less aged classmates. I even do flying kicks over my own children, and I haven’t sent a single one of them to the hospital, which I mark down as pretty solid parenting, if I do say so myself.