At Goddard School, the girls’ current daycare, we were offered to enroll kids ages 3 – 5 in a 4 week Tang Soo Do class which would be held at the school and it would be free. The brochure suggested that more than learning defense moves, the kids would be learning respect and building confidence.
I have mentioned before that Julia is our tender-hearted child. It doesn’t take much to upset her and she can be very timid as well. So, after a short discussion, Adam and I decided J should take the class, and at the very least, they would let us if she needed to be pulled from the class because she was too afraid to do anything.
Well, I completely under-estimated Julia (Time out, Mommy!) and Thursday night Adam and I were able to see just how much she learned in her little classes. It was so wonderful to watch! (Thursday night was the “graduation” ceremony.)
The kids arrived and went out to the mat to meet up with their instructors. Julia is so excited to sit out on the mats with her other classmates.
When the instructor said Attention!, those kids perked up and listened right away. We watched as the teacher took them through stances, chants, and other activities related to this art.
Then the instructors showed us that the kids had learned how to punch and kick little pads. Here is Julia kicking the pad (you can see her one leg is a blur.) She had the uncanny ability of looking anywhere but at the pad and still managing to kick it. (Attention span issues, anyone?)
After showing us their defense moves, the kids all had the opportunity to break boards. Even if it meant the teachers helping, each and every kid broke a board with their hand or their foot.
Julia, being a slight thing weight in just over 30 lbs, had some trouble breaking the board with her hand, but she sure did try!
Eventually they reverted to the foot (and with the instructor’s help, Julia was finally able to break her board).
She was so proud!
At the end of the night, Julia received her white belt and stripes. The white belt was all Julia… the red stripes were how well Mommy did writing notes to Julia’s instructor each week… heh.
It will be some time before we ever enroll any of our children in true “extracurricular” activities, but it was nice for Julia to be able to attend these classes during our daycare days and for us to show the things she learned with her other classmates during a special event. It was so awesome to attend and see her do this – I was so proud of her. This is only the second time that we’ve attended an event that was strictly for her – the first being last year’s Christmas program at church. While we don’t want these events to become “about us” and the high we get from seeing our child do well, I will say that it was a great moment to see Julia so proud of herself, and to exhibit that respect and confidence that the instructor sought.
Erin
No comments:
Post a Comment