Wednesday, June 13, 2012

My Little Ninja

On Friday, June 8, I took Joshua to his first martial arts class called "Little Ninjas." It's free with our gym membership and the 4-5 year old class doesn't require any equipment. He learned that he needs to wrap his thumb around his fingers before punching (so you don't break your thumb), that you punch with your upper knuckles (not your 'knocking' knuckles), and that you hit with knuckles one and two (your pointer and middle finger knuckles). He loved that he got to shout "AY-YA!" when he hit, which the instructor explained was to tighten their core belly muscles when punching. He did a great job listening and learning. The class was cut extremely short, though, because a little girl no more than said she didn't feel well until she started to vomit EVERYWHERE! The instructor was completely thrown off guard and told all the students that class was immediately ending so she could get maintenance to clean up. But, it was enough for me to see that Joshua can go back and do these classes. :)

Joshua went again on Monday, June 11, while I went to Body Pump. Caleb tried to follow him to class (giving me quite the scare since he ran out of the Kidz Club area while I was signing him in!) and was terribly disappointed when Joshua told the instructor that he was only three and couldn't come yet. Soon enough Caleb will have his chance! After getting Caleb to his proper place and taking my class, I ran into the Little Ninjas instructor. She said that Joshua did very well and asked me his age. She said that he'll definitely be ready to advance to the next level by fall - with this being only his second class he listened well, did the exact kicks that she showed the students and he performed the task on the exact beat of the rhyme. She seemed genuinely impressed, and I was glad that he did well and seemed to enjoy it.

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