One of the biggest goals throughout my entire life has been taking Karate. We couldn’t afford it when I was a kid. I couldn’t find the time after college, or maybe I was a little pre-occupied with less productive activities. I always dreamed of being a black belt though.
About 20 months ago, a few weeks before turning 43, my wife and I started taking Taekwondo with my little girl. I love it for several reasons. Now that we are in the advanced class, it is a strenuous workout. It is toughening us up. It’s building my little girl’s confidence. She’s learning patience, because even though she really, really wants a black belt now, she’s knows she has another couple years to work on it.
I think that by the time, she gets her black belt, she’ll have really good concept of working hard for something, over a longer term, to get really good at it, then seeing the benefits pay off. It’s tough teaching little ones that over instant gratification.
She (and I) are already realizing the importance of consistency. I can’t wait to learn consistency with blogging. She knows how quickly we can forget kicks or forms if we take too long a break.
We get to help teach the younger belts. We are blue belts now. I’m on our school’s leadership team. I’m learning to be an instructor, so I get to assist in teaching. That is a blast. I love teaching and working with kids. And my little girl feels so big when she gets to teach.
It is quality time we get to spend together, working on forms or kicks, helping one another with technique. She is not the least bit shy about critiquing me. It’s much more fun than sitting around watching television.
Lastly, we’re having a blast. It’s just fun, running and jumping around and kicking things. And each other.
During Saturday morning’s class, one of our Taekwondo instructors was teaching us about spacing. He was telling us the importance of knowing how far from (or close to) the bags, paddles or your opponent you need to be to throw an effective kick. He said, “You need to know how long your legs are.”
I thought it was pretty funny. It sounded quite silly, but it sounded so profound.
Surely there is a gem there. I’m not sure what it is yet, but I will come up with something. Part of the purpose of this blog is to pry back the curtains, so you can see the inner workings of my mind. I want to give you a peek into how I get ideas, the works in progress, the methods to my madness.
Another topic we can look forward to!
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