Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00602

I took Andy to karate today. Allison has gone back to work at the school and get things ready for the year. Andy does much better at Karate when it is in the morning. Of course, we’re soon going to be going back to school and so his classes will be in the evenings instead. I think he’ll do much better this year. He’s focusing more. You can see him trying harder every class and he’s being asked to demonstrate things to the other kids so he is enjoying that attention.

Today in class the kids got to do board breaking and they did so with a Pop up Jump Front Kick. Pop Ups are a kick that Andy has had trouble with in the past. It is hard to do them at home on the wood floors so being back on the mats has really helped with that. I snapped this a moment before he broke the board and it was pretty high for him. I do like how he’s starting to show some great form in class, too. He’s improved so much.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00556

Andy and I both took our stripe test today. We both passed. We’re on our brown belt and with the brown belt things get more challenging and earning the next belt take longer. It actually takes double the time. Up until now we earned a stripe once a month for three months and then progressed to the next belt as long as we had all three stripes. Now we need six stripes to progress to the next belt. Honestly, that is fine with me because I feel that I have so much to learn before I progress again. I also feel that in 6 months time Andy will be older and by the time he is ready to earn his black belt (A year or two from now) he’ll have matured more and also improved in skill. He has improved so much over this past year and grown up as well.