what do i do?

[tkdkid123]

I love tennis too. But I have looked into the closer one and it turns out that they have classes on saturdays, and tennis is on mondays so I'll ask my mom if we can go then because she is off work on the weekends. and my mom said she wouldn't let me walk there because she wants to be sure that nothing happens to me. thanks everybody for the advice it was a lot of help!

[JusticeZero]

....like what? I can assure you that there is nothing along that road that is anywhere near as dangerous as it is to be driving in a car on it. If she was worried about your safety, she would MAKE you walk. But eeh, everyone who studies this has been telling everyone that for years and nobody listens.. sigh.

[MasterPain]

....like what? I can assure you that there is nothing along that road that is anywhere near as dangerous as it is to be driving in a car on it. If she was worried about your safety, she would MAKE you walk. But eeh, everyone who studies this has been telling everyone that for years and nobody listens.. sigh.

A child, possibly female, alone on the road at night..... Sounds like a target. Being abducted while walking to a self defense class would be the worst irony ever.

For adults, I agree. Walk if it's close enough. Even then I'd suggest pepper spray and a wariness toward people.

[JusticeZero]

Might be a target, but under those circumstances, they are still safer walking, even if they are walking through a high crime neighborhood. The risk level of a car is just that severe.

[JusticeZero]

Another concept that needs to be noted here is that media causes peoples estimation of risk to be seriously skewed.

First is density. Imagine an island country with a population like a small city. People go out swimming and fishing all the time. Every few years someone gets eaten by a shark, and that's a tragedy, but it doesn't happen very often and really, it's nothing to worry about.

Now the island gets hooked up by TV in a network of several thousand other islands just like it.

Suddenly, every day there is lurid coverage of the vicious shark attack that happened that afternoon!

What happened? Did the sharks get more dangerous? No, the sample size just got a lot bigger, but people are only seeing the hits in the sample. They don't do the math and think "The chances of being killed by a shark today are one in one billion. If I know a thousand people, the chances that one will be killed today is one in one million. There are three hundred and sixty five days in a year. One million days is almost two thousand, seven hundred, forty years. I'm almost certainly not going to be eaten by a shark."

Second is media bias itself. In America, we do not pay to have a free press, so we have really poor quality news. One specific feature of this is than news has to pay for itself with advertisements, so what news is shown is biased toward sensationalism. As a result, ONE freak incident which is sufficiently outrageous can feed the news for days as people are bombarded with image after image of the same absurdly low percentage incident. In the meanwhile, car wrecks make people uncomfortable and anyways, they're FAR TOO COMMON. So we don't even hear about them unless they are profoundly bizarre or unusually noteworthy in some way. And even then it's just a little side note.

It's a bit like living in a world where you are surrounded by live machinegun fire and land mines, but the TV news choses to sensationalize and obsess over the danger of food allergies - so everyone has themself tested and retested for allergies and is intensely critical of their food intake even as they raise their voices to be heard over the zing of ricocheting bullets and explosions, which they completely ignore.

[mal103]

Nothing to worry about unless you are the one eaten by the shark.....

Sorry JusticeZero I couldn't resist!

Another thing to think of is to go to the local club/dojo and ask if any of them live nearby and could pick you up, maybe you could alternate it with your mom driving every other week or something.

Maybe attend a few lessons first before asking so you can see if you get along with the club etc.

Only you and your mom can decide if they think its safe to walk, we have lots of narrow lanes without footpaths that would make it risky here. At least if you have a car accident/crash then you will still know where your kids are, not knowing is a bigger fear.

[tkdkid123]

my mom won't let me walk there alone. She said she wants to be sure that nothing happens to me. I have looked into that class that is closer. I think I will be able to start classes there. I don't want to quit tennis because I love that too. But hopefully I can start back at this new place soon. Thank you for the advice everybody!

[tkdkid123]

my mom won't let me walk there alone. She said she wants to be sure that nothing happens to me. I have looked into that class that is closer. I think I will be able to start classes there. I don't want to quit tennis because I love that too. But hopefully I can start back at this new place soon. Thank you for the advice everybody!

[JusticeZero]

Long response regarding cars, i'll put it in a different thread - the one where this was mentioned earlier actually.

http://www.karateforums.com/post461909.html#461909

Edited June 2, 2011 by JusticeZero

[Harlan]

Keep looking!!!

There are good schools (even TKD ones ) that offer classes for as low as 2$/class taught out of churches, recreational centers, etc. It's only by looking that you will find...anything. And don't be closed off to the possibility of taking a different art that isn't what you 'want' but might have a great teacher, be affordable, convenient and closeby.

And it may very well be that you may only be able to work out an arrangement for one class per week with someone you like and at price your mom is willing to pay. Practice at home every day...and you will still be better than all the TKD kids that attend a school three times a week and end up quitting.