So accidentally cool...

One of my sons is nearly half way through a week of such an IMMENSELY cool sport-related activity that even I - the queen of no sporting ability - get excited about it when I think about it.

Imagine your child getting the chance to spend a week being coached in a sport he likes, but at which he will never be a world beater, by luminaries who's names send grown men into awed revery.  Like, for example, being shown how to ride a bike by Chris Hoy.  Or how to score a goal by David Beckham.  Or how hit a tennis ball by Jimmy Connor.  You get the picture.

Well, we got the opportunity for Boy #? to do something along those lines, for a week.  He jumped at it, so we made it happen.  He's having a great time, hanging out and playing a sport he likes, being coached in how to improve his performance, and being outdoors all day, every day, in top-class facilities.

There's just one thing.

He has no idea how amazing this experience is.

On the one hand this freaks me out a little.  It's like training at Anfield and treating it like the local rec, or knocking a few balls about at Wimbledon and acting as if it's your back garden.  It's as if you're treating Lawrence Dallaglio like your dad showing you how to score a try, or back-chatting Freddie Flintoff - showing you how to bowl a cricket ball - like you would a visiting uncle.  It's just.  Plain.  Wrong.

But on the other, I'm quite glad my son has no idea how cool this opportunity is.  He just gets to hang out with the other kids in his class, enjoying the experience, with no thought of being intimidated by who the coach is or the location he's standing in.  Mainly because - if I'm honest - as an expat with limited exposure to sports events on tv,  he has no idea of who the coach is, or the historical significance of the location he's standing in.  This situation would be impossible to achieve if we lived in the UK given the exposure afforded to this sport, but due to the fact that whilst we like it we cherry pick the games we watch, and then add to that the fact that where we live most of those games aren't screened at times we would be interested in, his opportunities to soak up background knowledge about this sport are thin on the ground.  The result is a child who is simply there this week to learn and have fun, rather than to impress his heroes.

Husband, who was here for the first day of this activity, is delighted by how good a time Boy #? is having, and more than a little envious of the opportunity (as is every other man we've mentioned it to).  He told me that he would never even have considered doing this at our son's age.  He would have been too scared; his exact words were 'I wouldn't have dared...'

But there's time enough for hero-worship in our son's future.  For now, here he is:  Daring.  Making us proud, doing the things we never got the opportunity to do, taking them in his stride, just getting on with it.  Learning from it, enjoying it, and not wasting time worrying what anyone else thinks of his choices or performance.

And actually, now I think about it, that in itself may just be the coolest part of the whole experience...

Our schedule? Over-extended? How very dare you...

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?