Sunday, June 05, 2005

Shinzen Jiai

Our son participated in his annual "friendly match" for Shintokukai Karate-do, his karate school. We spent Saturday afternoon in a middle school gym watching karate kids and their teachers demonstrate kata and sparring. We've been to a few of these. Our boy started karate when he was 8 and has stayed with this same school all of these years. It was fun to see the tiny little ones just 6 years old and remember when our boy's white belt days.

Our fifteen year old green belt did a fine job. He looked so smart, and performed his kata very crisply. He's still somewhat tentative in sparring, but he has come a long way, especially in his stance and balance. He didn't match his opponents for kicks and blows, but he was solid and very good defensively. And he looked great, although I think we'll have to buy him a new gi for September. He's almost as tall as his dad now.

We spend hours at our daughter's performances, but relatively little time watching the karate boy. I try to arrive early to pick him up from practice, so I can watch for a few minutes, but mostly he's pretty independent about it, and certainly doesn't want any spectators when he practises at home. We're proud of him when we see him demonstrate his skills. He has put in hours of work to get to where he is today. I'm grateful for the opportunity to celebrate this.

question: how did he grow up so fast?

mompoet - filled with wonder

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