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?
