Belting The Boy

This is footage of The Boy receiving his white belt from the local Taekwondo place.

He demonstrated an interest in taking some “fighting lessons,” so we dropped $60 for six classes.

Unfortunately, he seems to be the only “Tiny Tiger” who doesn’t have all the moves, oaths and customs committed to memory already. As a result, his enthusiasm for the enterprise is flagging.

I’ll be honest with you: I’m only posting this to show to him, to remind him of how much fun it was when he was the center of attention. Because I refuse to be one of those pushy parents (like I had), forcing my kid to endure one hated extracurricular activity after another. But bailing after one class? When I paid for half a dozen? That would be a terrible fiscal example to set.

Besides which, I’m convinced that if he sticks with it for the full initial six visits, he’ll have figured out the Program by then and it’ll start being fun again. To get from here to there, though, I’m probably gonna have to drop some more cash on a private lesson with one of the Jedi Masters who run the place.

I started thinking about all those other little kids and how suspiciously proficient they were and it occurred to me, I’ll bet many if not most of them also had parents who sprung for the one-on-one instruction to get them over the hump.

What a racket.

But it’ll be worth every penny if he decides he likes it again and wants to continue to pursue it. He’s a damned good kid, and I think with some martial arts under his belt (no pun intended), he not only won’t get beat up on in school, but he won’t have to stand idly by while his friends take their licks from the school bullies, either.

Stop me if I’m overthinking this…