Work Team, White Stripe

I don't sit alone through break and lunch anymore. All the temps plus one regular worker have assembled at my table as the regular hangout. It's like in high school. I'm quiet, don't want to get too personable with people, choose a place to sit where I don't have to look at anyone, and next thing I know, everyone's sitting around me.

I hope I don't get greedy for power again, and vie for leadership in a situation that doesn't particularly need it. That's a habit I'd like to break.

I don't think I mentioned that, on overtime shift, there were only three of our usual six, which means that we only had enough for one team. So they brought in three other workers from a different area and made them a team doing what we do. By the end of the day, our team had produced three times as much as the replacement team.

I got my white stripe in Karate yesterday. I failed the test for this stripe twice previously, the only stripe test I'd ever failed, and spent three regular kata classes specifically training for this s tripe, the only time I'd ever specifically trained for a stripe that wasn't kata or self-defense.

The group of moves you need for this stripe are: middle block, cross body block, reinforced cross body block, hammer fist, and knife strike.

Both times my main failing was the cross body block. The first time, I didn't really know what it even was. Second time, I'd been practicing it almost exclusively and had some confidence in it's execution, but this happened:

Teacher: Interesting. I've never seen this before. That was a good, powerful move... Uh... have you ever attended another school?
Me: No, never.
Teacher: How many kung fu movies have you watched? Haha, well, anyway, your move was an effective cross body block, but you modified it to fit the curriculum of another school!

Yeah, so I had to relearn what the move was in our curriculum. I haven't watched many Kung Fu movies, if you were wondering.

But when I finally got it, I actually felt like I was at the level I should be, and wasn't just getting it out of pity.