Parent's Night

This month at karate is parent's month, kind of a marketing move by my Shihan. Every Thursday at 7, which is an adult class, but the first one where kids were invited to come as well, he's allowing parents to come in with their kids and train for an hour. I missed last week, but since I got jammed up Monday, I wanted to go last night. I had heard it was crowded, but I was surprised when I got there.

This is the first school where we have "spots" in which to line up. Every other school has depended on people just lining up in an order, and maintaining that order. Here the mats have little velcro spots in a grid. There is a line of 4 across the front of the school, then a line of 3 interspaced between them a step back, then 4, then 3, you get the idea. Depending on the class size we line up on the 2s (everyone on the two middle spots doing back), the 3s, or 4s. Last night we not only lined up on the 4s, but people were then shuffled up to the 3s in between us. As a result, it was really crowded, but there was definitely more energy.

The workout was shortened, using some of the regular exercises, but avoiding others that might cause people to either

a) strain themselves, i.e., no splits
b) put a fist in someone else's ear, so no large arm circles.

I still pushed a little hard, and get a sweat going. He had the regular adult students demonstrate some things, and that helped. One strange thing is that I couldn't do the squats. Normally those are a great exercise, straining the legs and getting them tired. But if I went down more than about 3-4", my ankle was strained. I'd noticed that Wed night, so I just bent my knees in time wiht everyone, but didn't really go down, so no real effort involved. At the end of the night when I was doing them in front of Delaney he was pointing at me and telling me I wasn't working hard. He was right!

After a good warmup, we split into partners, but we did parent/kid partners, so I had Delaney. Just a few basic jab/cross items, but it was fun for the other parents to see what their kids did. Quite a few were tired and I think they have new appreciation. It was also neat to see the little 5 or 6 yr old girl next to me with her Mom. She was so serious, and I'm sure her Mom loved it.

The last part of class had the parents separated from the kids into two lines. There was a big space between us and Shihan brought out his new "cube, " a foam cube about 2ft square with differnent things printed on each side. One says "Pushups", another "squats", there's "tell-a-joke", and "teacher does 25" along with a couple others. He had a kid roll and then an adult, with the result being the other side had to "do" the thing. A kid rolled first and the adults had to then to "crunches." Kids got stuck with "squats" and we went back and forth. It seemed the adults constantly ended up doing crunches, which was good for me. The count was 20, but I did 30-40 of each, depending on time. The kids got away with a joke and a teacher effort for a few of their rolls.

All in all it was a fun time, everyone laughing, breathing hard, and I'm sure having a good appreciation for what their kids do. Shihan ended with a special for 2 months, $99 instead of the $75 that it normally costs.

Delaney pays $100 in the leadership class, me $75, and that's a lot. It's comparable to health clubs for adults, but a little more expensive. I'd argue more motivating, but not for everyone, and time is limited. And if you've got a kid, then you're $150-175 a month in the hole. I can see why not that many adults are in there. A few have said that. I'm not sure what a good price is, but I'd go for less $$ and more people.

Delaney wants Tia to go, and asked me if I could get her to go next week. I said I doubted it, but the following week when he's back from summer camp, perhaps we'll have a family night. I asked Kendall if she would try and she declined.