Yesterday afternoon Miss M graded for her orange belt in Kenpo, a form of Karate. She’s been going for two years now, and though I had doubts she’d keep it up, she’s only missed two classes. Once she went to a seminar with the head of American Kenpo, Jeff Speakman, and got up in front of everyone to do a form after only having learned for six weeks. At the time, she was the only student at the Richmond Kenpo school, among other schools of twenty and thirty people. I remember thinking there was no way I’d have got up in front of all those people now, let alone when I was six.
So her proud uncle and I watched as she went through Lone Kimono, Attacking Mace, Strike of Fear and all the other techniques with cool names, and both got tears in our eyes. Afterwards at the end of year presentation, she was awarded trophies for being both Class Achiever, and Student Leader of the year, and her Sensei made a speech about her.
Here are a couple of photos of the grading. One of the things I like best about it is the ritual of taking all the knowledge from your old belt and putting it into the new one. Marking achievement in a special way is so important, and I don’t think we do it enough in our modern world.
Today I’m loving: my clever girl, but you probably gathered that already
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