Ready? The secret, for those of you who don’t know me well, is that I’m a little competitive. That coupled with the fact that I was taught that if you are going to do something you need to do it correctly (Mom and Dad if you’re reading this I know I didn’t always apply that, especially in say high school, but I was taught it). This means that sometimes K and I clash regarding the effort something should receive. K can be very focused but at the same time once he decides he is bored or doesn’t want to do something it is hard to get him back on track.
Today was K’s belt test for Karate class. Honestly I don’t think he will be getting a stripe for his yellow belt, but as I didn’t really practice with him this session and he wasn’t interested in practicing for the last week we’ll take what ever he gets. His group also went last which unfortunately meant that he had been sitting for an hour and his attention span was shot. So while he did listen to Sensei and didn’t act out, he also spent most of the test trying to do his Karate moves while biting the nails on at least one hand. It is hard to do two handed moves crisply when you have to keep yanking your hand away from your mouth and then promptly trying to get it up there again. *insert eye roll here* Oh, he also had to go to the restroom during the middle of his test. Hello….you’ve been sitting for an hour. It didn’t occur to you to go before now? *more eye rolling* So he missed doing some of the required moves while he ran to the bathroom.
On the plus side his behavior in class was wonderful. Testing day is always tough because it lasts about an hour and 20 minutes and if you are not being tested you are supposed to sit still and watch quietly. Admittedly I bribed him before class by telling him that if he could sit still (no spinning, no getting in peoples faces, no moving around, etc) he could have the Bakugan that was purchased for me but hadn’t been opened. I even took it into class with us so that he’d have a visual reminder (which also made him the most popular kid as they all came over to see the Bakugan, still in the package, before class started). As a bribe it worked wonderfully and, hey, sometimes you have to do what you have to do. Now if we could just get some of his bored/nervous habits under control we’d be golden.
I guess the just of this post is that while I’m proud of K’s behavior in class, and that he did try his best during the test, I’m disappointed that he probably isn’t going to advance.
To add more frustration I learned, right before class started, that some of the information I’ve been searching for on the web regarding moves, the Kata, etc. was on the dojo website, along with the specific items the kids were going to be tested on today. I checked it out when I got home and it is wonderful info. It was cleverly hidden in the Students Only section of the website. A section I hadn’t checked because I figured you’d need a password or some such idiocy and I guess I didn’t think the YMCA info would be there, just the info for the people who attend the big dojo. Well heck!
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