Hai-Yah!

Actually they say Key-ah!

Duncan's back in Karate. We didn't have him do the summer session because we knew he'd miss a lot of classes. But now that he's back in school, and things are in more of a routine, he can continue his karate lessons. He has class once a week on Saturday mornings. He's now a 3rd degree yellow belt (still a beginner).

Duncan does his karate through Young Champions.

They do sparing, even with the younger kids. Today was a sparring day. Luckily, we bring all of Duncan's gear every week. When his sensei told them to get their sparring gear on, Duncan came over to me and we got his gloves on. Usually, when I know it's a sparring day, I have Duncan put on his athletic supporter and cup on at home, but because I didn't know, Duncan didn't have it on. His cup was in his bag, but I didn't want to shove it down his pants in his underwear because he's not really worn his cup that way, plus, we needed to hurry. So I figured he'd be ok, since no ones gotten close to punching him there. Well, as you may have guessed already, he took a shot to his "private".

It was a pretty stiff punch, and it put him on his bottom with a thud. The other boy felt bad about that. Ironically, the boy that Duncan was sparring with at this time was hurt earlier by a punch to the stomach from a different sparring partner, and didn't want to spar anymore. Duncan helped to convince him to spar again. Then he ends up making Duncan cry. Duncan took a minute to calm down. His sensei is very encouraging. And he got up to finish his bout. I was very proud of him for continuing. He ended up losing 3 points to 2. Afterward, the sensei congratulated Duncan on his sparring. She didn't realize the punch was under the belt till Duncan told her.

That was actually Duncan's second bout. He gets pretty excited about sparring, and is always volunteering to go next. His first bout was against a girl that was his height, but a little older, and an orange belt. I forget the order the points were scored in, but it was 2 - 2, next point wins, and the girl got the point. Duncan hates to lose at anything, especially sparring. He sat back with his team and looked over at me very sad. I signed to him that he did very well, and that I liked what he had done. That helped a little, and the sensei saw that Duncan was taking it hard and also told him he did well. He felt better after that too. Then it was near the end when Duncan was chosen to be the hurt boy's new sparring partner. Duncan was ready to go. Again, I don't recall the order the points were earned, but it was 2-2 when Duncan got hurt. Once he got back up, and they continued, the other boy scored the final point. Duncan was very sad. Not only had he gotten hurt, he lost two times.

I did my best to remind him of the good things he did. He sparred using combinations of blocks, punches and kicks. He avoided contact when he could. He had fun. He got to spar two times. Only two or tree kids got to do that. I asked him if he tried his best, and he said he did. I told him that that was good enough for me. I've been working with him on the idea that when we lose a game, we learn something for the next time we play, and we get better at it. So losing isn't a bad thing. The next time he spars, he'll be a little better.

Anyhow, when it's all said and done, he says he had a good time, and that he likes karate, and wants to practice more. I stopped at an am-pm on the way home and got him an icee, and let him know how proud of him I was today. The icee made everything better.

Duncan with his white belt.