karate testing

Karate testing has begun. In the higher belts, they start with kata and one step testing a week before the regular testing. During regular testing you need to know strikes, blocks, kicks, and self defense. Friday night was kata and one steps. Kata is called form in tae kwon do. It's a series of moves in a specific order. One steps are little things like an acted out fight. One guy throws a punch and the other person has a set of moves to counter it. For the test I was doing there is only one kata and 3 one steps. (Corey has 6 one steps and 2 katas since she's a higher belt). Let me just say, Corey always says how hard testing is. In the past I told her "yeah, I know but you know the stuff. Blah blah blah." Well, it IS hard no matter how well you know it before you get there. For example, I did my kata WRONG the first time. I didn't even know I messed up. The girl that was doing the testing said, "I've seen you do it right. Try again." So I did and I passed, thankfully. You only get one do over by her rules. Then on to one steps WHICH I practiced over and over. Well, I almost lost it up there. My memory went blank! But, I fought through it and passed all those. Well, when we were done with these we could do merit badge stuff. For my belt there is Dojo etiquette, uniform, and fitness. Dojo etiquette is a breeze. Yes and no sir/ma'am, please/thank you, proper bowing, sitting, attention stance, that stuff. Uniform, easy - fold your uniform, tie your belt stuff like that. Fitness about killed me though. I'm so out of shape, but getting better. 25 push ups, 25 sit ups, 25 jumping jacks, 15 squat thrusts, 10 stretches. I decided to do pushups first because I wouldn't be able to do them without ALL my energy. Amazingly, I passed! I can still feel the situps though. But, know I know how Corey feels at testing. She passed her first kata. She doesn't think she got any of her one steps though. Hopefully she moves up a bit though. Of course, if I skip all the belts I want to skip, I'll probably be only inching forward a bit at a time. Amory has decided to not test. He said he doesn't know his kata and he doesn't know his one steps. Plus, he has basketball on Wednesday that he'd rather go to.

Basketball and Karate

Well, kindergarten basketball is going on now. THAT is a riot. The kids have so much fun and are really enjoying it. Amory is loving every second of the games. He says that practice is even better. He's a scoring and rebounding machine. He's not so good at defending though. His favorite thing is dribbling though. He's great at it.









We just got back from karate tournament. Both kids participated. Amory won a trophy for fastest kick. He got 1st place in his group. He loves getting the runner up medals. You should have seen him with his trophy though. That kid was pumping that trophy into the air over and over. I'll post a pic sometime. Corey did ok. She tries so hard, but only wants to do things her way. That's alright though, it's all about learning.

What are we up to now?

Well, both kids ARE doing karate. Amory had said he was going back for his jedi training, but then he started acting weird. Well, he's back with a vengeance. He's loving it and practicing it, but he still lacks the focus in class. I'm sure it will get there eventually though. Corey is loving it too. The new thing is that parents can take the class. Well, fortunately or unfortunately, I can't take the white belt class. But, I want to take class. So, I'm taking it on Friday with Corey. It's the advance class, and honestly, it kicks my butt. I'm out of shape plain and simple. Oh well, it's good for me and I'm having fun, it's a great bunch of kids. Yeah, I'm the only adult. On Wednesdays, one lady was doing it, but she didn't like being the only adult and changed her mind. I have been trying to get the other parents to try it out, but they aren't.

Both kids are back in gymnastics too. Amory wasn't sure about that either. He ended up being the only kid in his class last week. He had so much fun without waiting his turn. He didn't gain any social skills, but his motor skills did get worked. Corey seemed to have fun. Her friends from last year weren't in this class. She's signed up for intermediate class, but I think they combined it with beginner because there were some kids really struggling and some that were really good. She's right in the middle. Our gym joined up with another gym here in town. I never cared for the other place, but we'll see how it goes. So far, it's looking good. The main thing I don't like is the logo of the place. They used to be g-force jets and have a cool jet picture logo. Now they are Lawrence Gymnastics and Athletics East. It's just some random squiggle line that represents like a person jumping or something. Oh well, as long as the kids like it.

Amory will be starting basketball soon. This will be his first team sport. We'll see how he does. I'll definitely post pictures when that happens. Corey wanted to do it, but I just didn't sign her up. She quit softball, I was just worried about that. I'll try to get her in something else though.

Small update.

So, I haven't updated in over a month. Is it because we weren't doing anything? No, of course not. We did finish up the summer softball season. They had a lot of fun this year and improved so much. We just ended the summer session of karate. Corey moved up to purple belt/white stripe. A small step, but a step none-the-less. She also got patches for tonfa and fan. She had to write papers as the main thing for this, and then demonstrate how to use it. We left there and she was the only one to get patches for the weapons. I told her it was because her mom was mean and made her do the papers. She agreed, but said that it was a good thing I was so mean or she wouldn't have gotten them. I guess she at least knows WHY sometimes parents are mean.

Well, in the past month, Corey thought about doing football. I told her it was her choice, but that it's everyday except Monday. That would mean nothing else. She couldn't decide. Then we got info on a softball tryout for the fall. She decided this was something she wanted to do. Well, that ruled football out. I guess we found something she liked better. I'm kinda happy because football is such a huge commitment and what if she hated it. Anyway, the softball stuff is going well. It's funny, they were only practicing/tryouts for about an hour and I saw improvement already. This should be good.

Karate starts back in the first week of September. So does gymnastics. We'll be running again soon!

Karate tournament

Well, it was a good one. Corey participated in strongest punch, strongest kick, fast fist, fastest kick, and sparring. I think she got ripped off in sparring. The rule is that it's single elimination if there is more than 4 kids. Well, in this case there were 5 kids. That means the first person to lose was gone. Sure, they may be better than the other kids that were in there, but you will never know. So, she looked good and it was a close match. But, sadly she lost and was eliminated. She got a runner up trophy. Oh well, better luck next time. (and she better sit at the back of the line!)

It went quickly this summer and she had fun and that's what matters.

Amory wanted to be in tournament so much. He is now ready to go back because he's planning to take a weapons kata to tournament. (It's part of his jedi training)

Last game tonight

Hope they have fun. They are playing a team from the upper division and I KNOW this team is hard. Anyway, Corey had a chance to go to tournament again, but she chose to go to her karate tournament. Should be fun.

More softball and stuff

Well, Corey's team played their first ever tournament last weekend. They won their second game and did very well against some teams that were just bigger and more experienced.


Team warming up





Anyway, Corey pitched again for a little bit. The girls got a bunch of experience. They played 3 games the first day and one the next and were wiped out, but I think they had a lot of fun. I got a lot of SUN. I'm peeling now.

Pitching

Corey has been wanting to pitch really bad. She finally got her chance the other day. She loved it and did great!





She can't wait to try again. Tonight, she was the catcher.

Summer is here

CK has had her first two softball games with tonight being their third. Hope they win this one! She's having a blast and the team looks awesome! Corey played right field and 3rd base last night.

Well, prior to the first game, they had a Wednesday night practice much to her disappointment. Well, we worked it out for her to go to karate and softball both that night. She ended up getting her purple belt. She also did kata with the group in front of all the parents!! Rock on!

KATA TESTING!

So, the Corey had kata and one step testing on Friday. She had 6 one steps to know, and I think she got 3.5 so not too bad. She also needed to retest for her green belt kata and then her blue belt kata. She got them!! BOTH! Her patches are on her top already. She is so proud and excited. Now, let's see what happens next.

fun stuff

It's that time of year when you can't sit still. Too bad the weather didn't figure it out. Monday, both kids had gymnastics. No big deal until you throw in the fact that Corey also had softball scheduled at the same time as her class. I wasn't smart enough to tell her to go to early class. (That's what one of her team mates and fellow aspiring gymnast did). However, we got a call canceling practice due to cold! It's APRIL! Oddly, we'd skipped our previous practice the Thursday before because it was around the freezing point and Monday was quite a bit warmer. Oh well. Wednesday was karate, thankfully indoors. And Thursday was softball and again COLDER. We went there and I'd say it was a hair above freezing. All I know is that Amory and I played on the play stuff while we were waiting and I thought I'd shiver to my death. Amory is doing AWESOME at throwing and catching. We took our gloves out and played for a bit. Corey's softball skills are far from perfect, but guess what, she's hustling! I think that will make a huge difference. Then finally on Friday, Corey had karate. She's getting better at her kata all the time, but still refuses to test. The good news is that she asked to get the curriculum and wants to practice. I think she is wanting to skip belts. Good luck with that!

karate tournament

Well, Corey went to tournament. Actually, we all WENT, but Corey participated. She chose to do only 4 events. That's fine, we got home EARLY. She did strongest punch, strongest kick, fastest punch, and fastest kick. She didn't place real high in anything, but this year she didn't freak out. So, she did well in that respect. I asked her if she did her best and tried her best, and she said she did. That's all we can ask for.

One thing that pissed me off was that there was a man behind me yelling at his youngest son because he couldn't sit still in the stands while they were waiting. Guess what, NONE of the younger siblings could sit still. MOST parents knew that before hand, so we packed activities for the little ones. Not this family, they just yelled. But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was when his older boy was competing, there was a small issue. His boy was NOT performing to the level that dad thought he should. Get this, the kid had THREE girls beat him. Honestly, this competition is supposed to be fun, each kid at least medals. I think as they get older, it MIGHT be harder for a girl to win (in fact in the older age divisions, there weren't many girls winning, but there also weren't many girls participating.) However, technique will win the "strongest" events. Now, if they are all using the same strike, sure the bigger guy will win. At nine all the kids are around the same size. The kids that won were the ones that did a better strike. I'm sure this poor boy was in trouble the whole way home. Oh, and it didn't matter to dear old dad that the kid was a green belt going against other kids of higher belt rank. MAYBE those kids that had been a green belt for awhile or even blue belts had a better technique.

Oh, and a parent of a child I know, I could see the parent getting on the kid's case. Little brother had been winning all his events. Guess what, IT GETS HARDER as you get older. Some kids get bigger faster, some kids learn new techniques. It just happens, and then there is the fact that the groups for the older kids are HUGE. Of course, they have this trade up system and if you get four first place trophies, you can trade for one tournament champion trophy and then you can also trade 2 of those trophies for 1 GRAND Tournament trophy. This family has all the boys put all their trophies together to get the tournament trophies. Poor kid wasn't pulling his weight.

softball

Corey got the info for softball. She can either try out for a new team or be on her same team. Of course she wants her old team, so that's awesome. I hope she enjoys it as much this year.

The evil one

(That would be Amory for those that don't know him).

Amory is now in a boys only class at gymnastics and is liking it a lot. They do things you don't see in the other classes. They go wild but it's usually a controlled chaos. Anyway, the boy loves his gymnastics class and his coaches.

Sadly, Amory has second child issues. He's never played preschool soccer, taken preschool music class or preschool art. In fact, he's only been in preschool since January. He'll have half a year under his belt when kindergarten starts where his sister had a full year. He recently told me he wants to play tennis. I'll have to look into that for summer.

He did go back to karate. He's not doing well with the sitting quietly part though. Sparring, he loves. We will see how it all works out.

Karate graduation

Corey had her graduation demo the other night for karate. She was a green belt blue stripe, and was hoping to get her blue belt. Well for the demo part, she and a couple other girls (another 3rd grader and her 7th grade sister) did some throws and such. They had a blast. Anyway, when they called her name, she got he same green belt blue stripe. I could tell by her body language she was devastated. However, sensei had said at any time during the semester if they had tape on their belt (meaning they needed to perfect just one thing) they could re-test. Normally they only test once a session. Well, she coped until the end. She came up to me, and burst. Of course, my baby was crying, so I had to cry too. Well, we talked about it, and she understood what she needed to do to get her next belt and she went off to help clean up. A brown belt came up her and told her she did a great job at demo. (Everyone looks up to Jessie, she's a highschooler AND almost a black belt.)

So, we are doing clean up and sensei asked Corey if she had anything she wanted to show him. She decided to go ahead and do it. She passed, but she doesn't get the patch for the thing she did (kata) until it's even better. But, at least she passed. Corey is a blue belt!!!