The Boy, age 5, passed his first karate belt test Monday. I looked a long time before settling on a school I liked because having trained for a goodly number of years, I'm fussy about what I want him to be studying. I wasn't interested in the 'fast-food' style chains, nor was I sending him to the Tae Kwon Do guy in town. No disrespect to TKD, but I don't see it as a viable self-defense form, or at least it wasn't when I was studying. We'd have TKD guys come to our dojo and as soon as you got inside the range of their kicks or, ye gods, if you got them on the ground, they were helpless. I wanted a mix of styles for the Boy, and I'm very happy with the school I found. The cop who runs it is an excellent teacher, as are the other three black belts who teach classes as well. I can see the Boy's self-confidence growing in leaps and bounds. I know the board test is mostly hooey, but he was fearless breaking it on his first try with an elbow strike.
I'm not crazy about the scheduled belt advancements - every 8 classes gets a tip, and after 4 tips they test (at this level they just get a colored stripe on a new belt, as opposed to a solid new color), but I understand the necessity of it to keep them interested and enthused (and also to keep track). Aside from not really knowing how to do a sit-up the Boy did really well, considering he's five (I have to keep myself from getting crazy because his stance is wrong or his hips aren't coming forward - he's FIVE). It's KILLING me not to be out there myself in the adult classes, but for now I'm committed to hockey and I don't really want to spend three nights a week away from my wife and kids. When hockey's over I'll reassess, though, because they were doing reversals off throws with locks thrown in and my blood was SINGING through my veins, commanding me to get out there. Sigh.
Writing: 565 yesterday, 545 today. Too much finesse with a conversation that might just get cut anyway, but I'm having fun. Might take tomorrow morning for editing. It's my party, dammit.
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