So proud...

Yeah, he looked so proud as I saw him coming my way, wearing his green belt now with a taped brown stripe at both ends. But you know what, the title could have applied to his daddy too. I was and will always be really proud of my boys. They bring such joy into our lives, it just can't be described.

Anyway, my monday evening instructor was the main tester last night and when he got to the front desk to get the brown tape, he flashed me the thumbs up sign with a good sized smile. He simply added something along the lines of "it went real well, he knew his stuff". While he also said that he had a couple of instances of the fist wanting to stay in front, he said it wasn't that bad.

I feel that Andrew has begun to learn that hard work does pay off. I can see that in his talking and his behaviour. About his school report card, which was very good, to this belt test, he is beginning to realize that he can't simply coast on talent alone. That's good, I like that he's growing, but darn it, he's growing too fast. Oh well.

One other thing I think he has learned is that this fist thing will need to be worked on from now on, if simply so that it doesn't come back to haunt him as he starts getting to the more important belt tests. Not saying the previous belt tests were not important, but from my importance, when I got my brown belt (3rd kyu and the next belt he will test for), I really felt like I had stepped up a notch. Maybe it's got to do with the fact that in adult classes, brown belts are supposed to take the "advanced" classes, or the fact that our brown belt comes with a black stripe, signal that if you keep on working hard, maybe someday you can get to that black belt. One thing I know he realized yesterday is that a brown stripe to his green belt is the final link to said brown belt which is kinda close to the black belt.

Yesterday, he seemed more motivated than ever to keep on practicing. Reminded me of about a year ago, right after I got my brown belt, we had a little talk in which, for the first time, he mentionned something about the black belt. We got to talking about Matthew his little brother and if he thought he would like to do karate or not. I told Andrew that maybe he would, but that he was still a good two years from even getting signed up (will turn 4 in January 2008). I had asked Andrew if he thought he'd still be practicing karate by then and he replied, with a smile in his eyes, that yeah he would, because he wanted to get a black belt... Andrew was 8 at the time, and I'm pretty sure he can't see when he would test for a black belt, yet, he sees it in his future... That was another moment of pride for daddy. :)

All these talks of a future black belt are not to say that this is our only goal. I'm sure parents reading my blog here will relate to how hard it can be to motivate a kid to keep on practicing, especially when belt tests are getting few and far between. An adult can rationalize, or at least some adult can. ;) For a kid, it's harder. To see my boy's fire being rekindled like that, it just felt nice to him maturing and made me realize how much he's grown lately.

In all the good news about the test, I forgot to talk about one little inconvenient news we got on Wednesday evening. That was the last class of the Fall session at that location, a gym in a school very close to our house. Sadly, we also learned that it was the last class that will be held at that location, EVER. Turned out that while there used to be two hours of class, each of them attended by 12-14 kids, this Fall, it had dropped to only one hour with at the most 13 kids and sometimes only 9-10. Our karate school just couldn't justify having to pay the rental fee charged by the school board and they have decided to not offer satellite classes in that gymnasium in January. As I said, this is an inconvenient news. I had come to like the closeness of the place as it allowed Andrew to have one hour of class in the week maybe only 2 minutes away from home instead of the usual 10-15 minutes that it takes us to get to the dojo. Doesn't seem much but with homeworks and such weeknight free time sometimes come at a premium. Right now, Andrew was taking three hours a week, the other two being Fridays and Saturday mornings. His subscription 48 weeks, twice a week, but we usually take it easy during the Summer months, so we'd been putting time "in the bank" so the speak. We could simply keep on going twice a week (Friday and Saturday) or find another evening in the week. I took a quick look at the school's kid schedule for his belt level and I think I saw an opening at 7 on Tuesday which could fit quite well. Before 7 gives us plenty of time to do homeworks and lessons, and even giving my wife a bit more time to get home. I gotta say that the 6pm time for the Wednesday evening was cutting it close.

The other inconvenient thing about this news is that I lose my free hour of practice. As you've read in the past, I used that hour mainly to practice my bo and sometimes to practice my kata. That, combined with the fact that come January, Andrew will switch from the 7pm to the 8pm traditional class on Fridays (due to his new belt and some rearrangement of belts for a better split of size in classes) and there's not much room available in that time slot at the dojo as opposed to the 7pm slot, where I can usually find a little spot to practice in. Maybe I'll simply drop to only going to the regular Saturday afternoon class with a couple private classes for me every once in a while. I guess we'll see when we get there...

FM