I was speaking of good moments and I had a sweet one with my oldest, Andrew, this last Saturday. As some of you know, he and I both practice kenpo karate. We both have three one hour classes a week and starting this Fall, our Saturdays have become almost completely dedicated to karate, with a first class (traditional) at 11:15am where we both go our way (separate rooms, him with kids, me with adults) and a second one at 2:15pm where we take the class together as it's a competition class where we learn to control the bo staff.
In that second class, I'm one of only two adults that are attending. I told the teacher, a 19yo kid, not to pay too much attention to me and that I'd simply follow along with the class with Andrew no matter if I'm learning faster (or maybe slower on some moves
) than the kids. Anyway, I'm tough on Andrew, especially in that second class. I will not accept that he wastes his time when the teacher shows us something and then asks us to practice on our own, and even more so, I won't accept that he wastes the time of others by goofing around, which he can do very easily.
I've come to enjoy the Saturdays lately as he is getting better, little by little, not so much with the bo itself, but more in controlling his behaviour and he's received good comments from his morning teacher. This Saturday, he showed me a maturity that I'd never seen before. We were in the locker room prior to our afternoon class and I commented to him that I was looking forward to see if Matty would ever follow our footsteps and practice karate too. Andrew told me he was certain that he would. I joked to him that he was saying that because Matty always wants to do like his older brother (which he really does
) and Andrew smiled and said a simple yeah. I then told him that he'd have to keep on doing karate for a few years more as Matty is not even 2 and they don't start kiddos until they're at least 4. To that, Andrew replied, in his most serious voice: "oh dad, I don't plan on stopping anytime soon. I want to get a black belt."
We'd never brushed the possibility of him getting a black belt before. I mean, in January, it will have been 4 years since he started practicing and he's now a blue belt with a green stripe. He still has to get his green belt, then a brown stripe on his green belt, then a brown belt, then a black stripe on his brown belt before finally being allowed to test for his black belt. So he's got time to do before he gets to the black belt and honestly, I've not seen many kids under 10 get a black belt and he's 8 and a half... Had he told me this when he had just started, say after a month or two of practicing, at the ripe age of 5, I'd have taken that with a grain of salt, like "yeah, yeah, we'll talk again in a couple years" but now, he knows what it will take him to get that black belt and he looked dead serious about it. That showed me he had matured, and it made me feel proud of my boy.
FWIW, I'm a green belt with a brown stripe and there are talks of a possible brown belt test coming up for me. I'd assume that with steady practice, I could probably be testing for my black belt in a year to 18 months. Maybe that's what made him realize that he could do it. I mean, he may be thinking that if daddy is somewhat close, maybe he can do it too. That thought makes it so much sweeter to the father's heart in me.
That turned out to be a long story, thanks for reading it
FM