On a Personal Note

Back at the beginning of last Summer, in order to help foster the boy’s continued interest in it, I started taking martial arts lessons at the school. I don’t take the same classes, nor are we on the same curriculum. That makes total sense, since what an adult is capable of deciding and following through on is vastly different from that of a 7 year-old.

Of course, my start got derailed by my elbow surgery back in the Fall. I lost 3 months of training as a result. I think it affected the boy as well a bit, since he was a little more difficult to get enthused for his classes.

Now that I’m involved again, it’s nice because I can help him with certain things he’s currently learning, like the forms or certain self-defense techniques. I offer to help him and I work with him a bit if he wants to. If he doesn’t that’s no problem. I have no desire to pressure him to like it.

Anyway, the school “graduates” it’s students on a monthly basis. Or, I should say, it holds a little graduation ceremony on a monthly basis for those students who are moving on to a new belt level. I’ve only been back at it for a month to this point but the instructors asked me to attend the graduation today. I actually asked them if I was graduating to the next belt level, and they indicated “No” to me. It left me somewhat confused and their explanations didn’t help me much. I just resolved myself to following through on what they asked and leaving it at that.

So imagine my surprise when, at the end of the ceremony, they graduated me to the next belt level. In one sense, I won’t complain since I’ve shown so far that I can handle the curriculum. On the other hand, I’d just been out for 3 months and was only 1 month back. On the third hand, this is the belt level where I get to start sparring, which is something I’ve been greatly looking forward to.

The boy has been sparring for awhile now, so I get to play a little catch up. Maybe I can get some lessons from him.

I’ll note for the record that the Wife was uspet because she didn’t bother coming to the graduation.  I’d told her I wasn’t graduating to the next belt level and that she wasn’t going to miss much.  So she took the kids out to eat while I participated in the graduation.  Naturally, events turned out a bit different.  In the grand scheme, it’s still not that big a deal- there are more belt levels, more significant than this as well, to come.  Between mine and the boy’s, she’ll have plenty of chances to watch graduations.