Shitty First Draft of Project 1

For eight years, I was in the practice of a martial art. Specifically, Taekwondo. At Taekwondo in Crestview, Florida, I had an instructor who took me under her wing. Her name was Amanda Jeffries at the time, but now it is Amanda Howard because she has since gotten married. A little background about me: I have a stutter. I cannot remember a time in which I did not stutter. I have been going to speech therapy ever since early elementary school and I was bullied for it in elementary and middle school for it. Kids were ruthless back then, and their harsh words still haunt my dreams. Mrs. Howard knew about my stutter and always made me feel comfortable and never forced me to present my forms in front of everyone (something everyone had to do to advance onto the next belt). She only made me present to her. One day at Gordon Martial Arts (the name of the establishment I trained at), the lower belts were practicing their forms for testing the following week. As a second-degree black belt, it was my right of passage to practice with them, and practice the instructor’s position, as when I advanced onto a third-degree black belt, I would be instructing the school. One little girl, Bella, stood up and I got her ready to present her form in front of the school (which including all the other students, the instructors, and the student’s parents) and I stuttered. She sort of chuckled at me when it happened but didn’t interrupt me. But after she presented, she stood up, and in front of the whole class said “Can you tell her to talk normal? It’s weird when she talks like that.” And merrily just sat back down in her seat as if she hadn’t just made a public mockery of me. I was mortified. I felt like everyone was staring at me and I did my best to ignore it and continued on. I pretended like nothing had happened and like Bella didn’t make me want to punch her in her tiny face. Afterwards, Mrs. Howard pulled me aside and told me that Bella is still young and should understand, but she’s at that point in her life where the line is a little fuzzy when it comes to judgment of such things. I told her it wasn’t a big deal, and she looked at me, and told me that she understood, and that I didn’t have to lie to her. Then she called Bella and I into her office and explained to Bella what stuttering was and told her that it was inappropriate to make fun of people for it, especially to someone older than her. After Bella understood, she made Bella apologize and she did so reluctantly, and then went home afterwards and probably forgot all about it. But I never have been able to. Me and Mrs. Howard had a heart to heart after that and she reassured me that I could always come to her and talk to her about anything if I needed to. She told me that she would always have my back and she would always stand up for me if I felt like I couldn’t stand up for myself. Mrs. Howard always made me feel heard and I know I can always count on her to listen to what I have to say and to take my opinions and feelings into consideration. In other words, she makes me feel heard. Even though I no longer train at Gordon’s, I know if I were to ever need anything in the world, I could talk to her and she would be there to guide me and help me in any way that she can.