Have you ever been to a Tae kwan do class demonstration? If you haven't, go!!! It may save your children from turning into little demons. Seriously... I did start to wonder if my sweet son was beginning to warp into a creature from the black lagoon. When we decided to pull him from public school, it was at an all time high. (I was checking daily for horns). After giving him a weeks break at home, I knew it was time to get him involved in to something out in the real world. I mean come on people... I needed to socialize the damn kid or I was going to hear it from all the homeschool haters out there. (As if public school was ever a good idea for socialization...?)
Any way... back to Kung foo. Let me give you a little background on how I ended up observing the art of the Korean. My neighbor has 3 boys all between the ages of 1-6 and is a very busy working full-time. Every time we are out playing with them I noticed how well our kids play together and how well behaved her boys seem to always be. After talking with her about some of Liam's behaviors lately, she mentioned Tae kwan do. She said it has done wonders for her 5 years self-control and has provided a great physical outlet for both her older two. I decided to go two days later and find out what the program was all about.
The first day of class started out kind of rough. After the first 5 minutes Liam came running over to me with a desperate look on his face. You know the broken look? It's unbelievable painful for a mom to experience that. (I have only seen that look on his face a few times before, like the first time I insisted he go back to sleep by himself in a new bed.) That face he gave me with his big crocodile tears streaming down his face was killing me inside. He said,"mommy mommy please let me go home, I don't like this." "I cannot do that exercise and he said I would have to do it again until I got it right!" "I don't want to do this anymore."
I could barely look him in the face as I said "go work it out with your instructor." "He's in charge right now!" (I had to get up and pretend to get a magazine and wait for him to chase after me.) To my surprise, Liam turned around and followed Master Morgan right back on to the mat. Wow!!! Is this really going to work? Is military style really affective? Break them down to build them up... Tough love and hard work! To my relief... I started seeing a difference after class with the way Liam carried himself and spoke. Slight short of amazing to me! We have been hooked ever since.
Liam is learning self-control, respect for others, personal space, balance, flexibility and to count in Korean (amongst other things)! All the while... mommy learns to keep it real with with a 5 year old, Korean master style!
Yesterday, his master demanded Liam's group do 150 jumping jacks the right way or he would be punished for being lazy! Sounds harsh...right? Guess what... my five year old can do perfect jumping jacks the right way...anytime I ask!
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