I just took my sons for their first Tae Kwon Do session. I've been putting it off for the last year because it's relatively late in the evening and I didn't want to push it with Boy #2 needing to be in bed at a reasonable hour, but for one reason and another we decided to bite the bullet and give it a shot today.
I've said it before and no doubt I'll say it again; I do not come from a sporty family. It's not that we didn't like sport when I was growing up - it's just that, well as a family, we weren't very good at it. I believe the technical term is, in fact, 'a bit crap'. Sure, I tried. I dabbled with judo, with badminton, with swimming, and even, in my twenties & early thirties, field hockey, but of them all only the hockey stuck and even then I just bounced along at the bottom of the club where I played. Whenever a new less talented team was introduced, that was where you would find me, running up the sidelines, more often than not off-side, and always on the right as I was incapable of hitting the ball anywhere other than to the left of me.
Admittedly, I ski, and love it. I don't do it particularly well, but I do it. Although I think you only have to read this post here to get a pretty fair sense of the level to which I'm capable of cutting a dash on the slopes.
Based on all that, you would think the prospects for any kind of sporting fixture, let alone Tae Kwon Do making itself a regular part of our already too-busy schedule would be slim.
But no.
Boy #2 (the child I was expecting to find it too hard / boring / too much running / not featuring any public transport opportunities) loved it, and Boy #1 - although initially a little less fulsome about the experience - has also expressed an interest. (I discovered his lack of enthusiasm had more to do with not being able to instantly wear one of the cool white outfits - which you earn the right to wear over a few weeks - than it did with not actually enjoying himself. It's all about the accessories...)
This is fine, indeed I'm delighted as it is excellent fitness and extremely disciplined, except for one thing; it appears I have become that thing I said I would never be, the mother who's children have scheduled activities every day after school. Between them after school the Boys cover off, in no particular order; lego club, maths club, art club, piano lessons, guitar lessons, Dutch school, football, swim team and now Tae Kwon Do. Oh, and homework - which really should be at the head of the list.
They're six and nine years old. Whatever happened to just coming home from school and simply messing about until tea time?
I've said it before and no doubt I'll say it again; I do not come from a sporty family. It's not that we didn't like sport when I was growing up - it's just that, well as a family, we weren't very good at it. I believe the technical term is, in fact, 'a bit crap'. Sure, I tried. I dabbled with judo, with badminton, with swimming, and even, in my twenties & early thirties, field hockey, but of them all only the hockey stuck and even then I just bounced along at the bottom of the club where I played. Whenever a new less talented team was introduced, that was where you would find me, running up the sidelines, more often than not off-side, and always on the right as I was incapable of hitting the ball anywhere other than to the left of me.
Admittedly, I ski, and love it. I don't do it particularly well, but I do it. Although I think you only have to read this post here to get a pretty fair sense of the level to which I'm capable of cutting a dash on the slopes.
Based on all that, you would think the prospects for any kind of sporting fixture, let alone Tae Kwon Do making itself a regular part of our already too-busy schedule would be slim.
But no.
Boy #2 (the child I was expecting to find it too hard / boring / too much running / not featuring any public transport opportunities) loved it, and Boy #1 - although initially a little less fulsome about the experience - has also expressed an interest. (I discovered his lack of enthusiasm had more to do with not being able to instantly wear one of the cool white outfits - which you earn the right to wear over a few weeks - than it did with not actually enjoying himself. It's all about the accessories...)
This is fine, indeed I'm delighted as it is excellent fitness and extremely disciplined, except for one thing; it appears I have become that thing I said I would never be, the mother who's children have scheduled activities every day after school. Between them after school the Boys cover off, in no particular order; lego club, maths club, art club, piano lessons, guitar lessons, Dutch school, football, swim team and now Tae Kwon Do. Oh, and homework - which really should be at the head of the list.
They're six and nine years old. Whatever happened to just coming home from school and simply messing about until tea time?
I think you should be a volunteer mom just to round off the picture! ;-)
ReplyDeleteCan you believe it - just been contacted by one of their teachers to ask me to be parent rep. Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp!
ReplyDeleteOur life used to resemble that. Now that they've changed school I have handed all extra curricular stuff over to the school so that I no longer have to chivvy small boys into whatever outfit is required while force feeding them dinner in the car. I don't miss it at all
ReplyDeleteYou are hilarious! I LOVE that you have been asked to be a room parent!!
ReplyDeleteThankfully my out of my 2 boys (14 and 13) only the 14yr old does anything after school.
ReplyDeleteHe studies 'Hapkido' and takes a class 3 times a week. He absolutely loves it, and even helps out at the martial arts school in exchange for an extra class. i tihnk the discipline of Martial arts is excellent for kids. Hapkido is a Korean art rather than chinese or Japanese though so is a little different - very cool though!
We have things two out of five days at the moment, and Saturday morning - I find those days very hectic and it's hard to fit in the boys' homework and piano practice on top. Having said that most of their friends seem to have activities almost every day so making playdates is becoming more and more difficult. Luckiy the two of them are quite happy to play together.
ReplyDeleteYou took up hockey in your 20s and 30s?! That's my take-away from this post.
ReplyDeleteMind you, I can top that. I went to a Tae Kwondo lesson in my late 30s (might even have been early 40s). Just the one lesson, mind, but even so.
I hope it's all at school because otherwise how do you manage all that in Moscow?
ReplyDeleteDo you also have things on the weekends???
ReplyDeleteDuring the week is fine - in some schools those would be wrapped up into the school day but hopefully you have free weekends to enjoy yourselves
Melissa, luckily a lot of this is school-based so there's not too much ferrying around. No way we would do it if it weren't!
ReplyDeleteMrsM - but I got away with it, as you know...
Lou, Hapkido sounds cool - but Tae Kwondo it is for us (based on the fact that it, too, is at the school...)
NVG, yes, there's another post; Where did My Weekends Go?
Iota - wanna make something of it? Us hockey chicks are tough, you know...
MCD - yes, you're right, mostly (but not all) at the school. Otherwise, no way!
Muddling Along, some of it's at the weekends - but only until the end of October as it then gets too cold to play football outside. Mixed blessing, I suppose; free weekends, not so much great weather to do stuff in.
I managed to steer clear of 'activities' until we got back to the UK but soon realised my children were being deprived if they weren't engaged in piano/ballet/drama lessons round the clock .... thank goodness they give most of this stuff up when they go all teenage x
ReplyDeleteI remember those ski pants!
ReplyDeleteWe do way to much and are cutting back.
They want me to be a calls rep too, yah, right!