Go get 'em kid!

There had been talks that Andrew was getting close to testing for his 4th kyu (a brown stripe on his green belt). Well it got confirmed yesterday. Go Andrew!

The way he learned about it was kind of dramatic though. A couple of weeks ago, I had a tiny talk with Dgina, the head of our school, simply asking her how she thought Andrew was doing. Since she gives kids class on Mondays and Tuesdays at the dojo exclusively, Andrew almost never has her for instructor, but while Stephane, his regular instructor, was in Spain for the World Championship, she was Andrew's replacement instructor for a couple of weeks. She had then told me that Andrew had not been placed on any of the November tests for one particular reason. Even though he knew all of his curriculum for his 4th kyu, he apparently had developed the bad habit of not always chambering his fists at the hip when striking, and he had also started not improved his stances enough (forward stance and horse stance in particular). The stances I knew about it and we've been reminding him about it in particular in his bo classes, but the chambering of his fists, I had no clue about it, since I don't really pay attention to his traditional classes (I'm usually taking a class myself, or I'm training at the same time). It wasn't really evident in his main kata, Circle of the Tiger, because he almsot always performs it with a competition mindset, so he usually pays attention to everything then.

Anyway, she had then told me that they had issued a challenge to him to get better by December 14, the date of the last test before the xmas break.

I realized last Wednesday that December 14 was coming fast, so after his private class, I made a deal with his Wednesday night instructor (Stephane) that if he planned to put him on the test, we would have Andrew take a private class on Wednesday the 13th, to get him ready for the test. He assured him that I didn't want to pressure him to put Andrew on the test but if they didn't he was ready, we simply wouldn't have him take a private class and we'd wait until whenever would have been the time in January to have that private class. He agreed with the idea and told me he would give me an answer by Saturday morning.

Came Saturday morning. Stephane came to see me during my class, telling me that he would put Andrew on the test, but would only tell him on Wednesday. That was fine by me. Yesterday during dinner prior to the class, I told Andrew that it was still possible that Stephane would give him his card for the test and that if so, it would probably be a good idea to stay for an extra half hour of private class. He went along with the idea and seemed to be thinking that the private class was a good idea, if a test was forthcoming.

Got to class, I trained on my things, they did their own things. End of class came, still no card. Stephane dismisses class and Andrew starts taking his belt off, turning back to me at the back of the room. He didn't really look disappointed or anything. Stephane turned to me and Andrew and I made a quick head nod, mouthing "he knows nothing yet". Stephane caught my nod immediately and turned to Andrew and told him "you stay with me for a half hour and if you show me you have improved enough, you'll get your card for tomorrow". I turned to Andrew presented him a high five while telling him to give it all he got, to go at it as if that were the test. I saw fire in his eyes.

I left the room as I usually do when he's taking a private class and I came back 30 minutes later. First I saw as I walked in the gym was my Andrew skipping with the little cardboard piece indicating he was on the test. He had that huge smile on his face, a $1000 smile that gave me goosebumps. Stephane told me he had improved his stances and his fist chambering significantly and he had all the needed curriculum to test.

Go Nanou, go get 'em!

FM

PS: "Nanou" is how his little brother Matthew used to call him when he first started talking. Even though he's since corrected his way of saying his big brother's name, the Nanou way of saying it has affectively stuck for my wife and I. :)