Brotherly love

Monday is not Lance’s normal night at the karate dojo. It is not that he cannot go on Monday night, I just have not increased him to three nights a week. He is more interested in attended two hours a night instead of three nights a week. I am not entirely sure what the “interest” is in suddenly attending two hours a night is when they get to this point. You would think that they would be exhausted. It is not like there are a whole lot of kids in the second class, there are not. Most of the second class is made up of older children and almost entirely of black belts. I just shake my head. This has happened with all three of the boys even if the dynamics of the class was a tad different with the younger two boys.

However, he is testing tomorrow (Tuesday) night and he was concerned that he did not know two of his “one step sparring” parts that he needed to know for his test and that he would not be able to test as a result. I told him not to worry about it and I would just take him tonight. He learned everything he needed to learn and he reviewed everything that he needed to review.

I even sat and waited for Lance to make sure that he had a chance to review everything that he needed for his test and he felt confident that he was ready. If he was not ready, I was just going to hang around longer and let them work with him one on one. They have done that with kids that are testing the next day.

Between classes, however, this is what I got to witness. This is an example of brotherly love that goes on with my kids from time to time. A little rough-housing? At least they were on a padded floor, right? I am not entirely sure what happened and they were just a few feet from me. It happened that quickly. Lance was on the ground and Kyle had him pinned.

What you cannot hear from the pictures, however, is that Lance was laughing a lot harder than the pictures illustrate. There was a lot of laughter going on from both parties – both brothers – so this mother just sat there and watched and laughed right along with them because I have to admit that Lance put up a pretty good fight even though his brother well out masses him.

Sometimes these little spats between brothers are good practice on those skills they learn in class. Self-defense is an important thing even if it is between your brother and you know he is playing around and you love each other. It is okay if you learn to get the upper hand sometimes too.

Lance had his instructor, Carole Parenti, cheering him on. She found it as funny as I did. Unfortunately, while we had him in this very “stuck” situation, we found out that his feet are not as ticklish as I thought they were. He is ticklish on his mid-section, but not his feet. He can completely control all reaction when his feet are tickled. He does not quite have as much control when you tickle his ribcage area or his belly.

I have to admit that I really do love that these boys can have moments like this and then completely shake it off and hug each other afterward. They really do love each other even if they are boys and are a little rough with each other from time to time.