Wednesday nights are just usually crazy because Lance has karate and Andrew and Kyle have mutual (Scouts or Young Mens). I am supposed to be picking up Lance at the karate dojo at the same time I am dropping off Andrew and Kyle at the church. Fortunately, they are only about ten minutes away from each other and karate usually runs about ten minutes past the hour so it works out nicely.
Normal people would just take the option to move the child at the karate dojo to another night as that is an option. I will not deny that it is an option. I have a good reason for having his on the nights we have him. The other two nights that are available are the “Lil’ Dragons” program nights and I took him out of the program several months ago. I do not want him in it any more. He is old enough for the big class and I want him in the big class where he will make progress towards the ultimate goal in karate–a real black belt. The goal has never been to have him in the Lil’ Dragons program but they had set the age on the big class to a certain age and he fell below that so I was okay for him to start in it since we had started Kyle in it as well. However, Kyle only stayed in it a short time and then he was moved into the big class. Lance, not so much. So after two years of this nonsense I moved him. Unfortunately, I had to also move his days of attendance to remove the attraction to the little kids’ class. It was more fun with more games and toys as rewards. It was not the reinforcement I wanted to encourage anymore, however. I wanted him to progress in the regular program just like his brothers had. He was bored in the younger class and he was the most mature kid in the program. I knew it was time. So I made the decision to inconvenience myself and make my life more crazy just to make this class change for Lance. From time to time we do have to change him to one of those other nights because certain nights just do not work out no matter how much we juggle things around, but for the most part this juggling and running around has been the best change for Lance.
Tonight I dropped Andrew and Kyle off and I managed to get to the dojo in time to see Lance in sparring gear. This is a rare treat. Wednesday is sparring night at the dojo. Tonight I was reminded of the benefits of this class change. There he was sparring with children his age and his maturity level and was actually enjoying the experience. I sat there and watched with a smile on my face because I knew he was enjoying himself. Of course then he got kicked in the shoulder with a good roundhouse kick and you could tell that it hurt. I think he might have gotten hit in the face too as that took him a little longer to recover. He was learning to do things that were really useful and he was learning to do real sparring. He was sparring like the big kids! That was justification enough to remind me that I need to carry on with the craziness that is my life some nights. It pays off…he was so proud of himself.
Here is Lance (in white) doing their stretches and cool down after class. They had a small class tonight. A few kids did leave early tonight, however, so I do not know how big the class really was tonight as some were leaving as I got there.
Bowing out with Grand Master Johnnie Murphy.
When Lance got in the car tonight, he was talking all about what he did during the sparring. He does not normally talking about sparring. Tonight he was all a buzz about it. He was talking about the roundhouse kick that he took in the shoulder. He just kept carrying on. Evidently, he really did enjoy it as much as his mother observed from across the room.
I love this kid!
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