Saturday, October 15, 2005
Looking "cool"
My daughter had her friend over for lunch yesterday. Noticing my gi, the friend queried about it. "Mom!" my daughter called "show my friend some moves.." I instantly thought.. How do you quickly "show some moves" to impress a young teenager? I'm not attached to any wires to do those fancy gymnastic spinning 360 degree back kicks like on the movies? I decided to ask my daughter to be part of the "showing cool moves" knowing that she isn't fond of being my partner in the first place.. and thinking that this was my way out of putting on an imprompt demonstration. But no... My daughter was all up for being placed into the event. I asked her to grab my wrist, and then proceeded to do self-defense with a nice loud kiai to accent it. This had the desired effect on the friend, who later on told my daughter that she thought that I was a really awesome Mom. Is this going to be a trend for the future? If so, I'd better think up of some "cool" looking karate moves for these types of occasions, because no matter how difficult some of the karate techniques are.. they don't all match in the "coolness" of appearance department. I wonder how often a black belt is asked to "show something"?
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2 comments:
I've got to say, it's one thing I really don't like to do ... being asked to do a demonstration. While I can do some beautiful kicks, I never thought my martial art was for show. Or maybe I'm just shy?
But I do like to expose my 4yo son to martial arts in that way. I don't really think it's really necessary for him to start training right now, but I do think that it's great he's able to watch good MA practice sessions. The other day I put him in a leg lock, and he said, "hey daddy, that's a figure four leg lock"! Too cool.
Slowly does it ...
Colin
Well.. I know that the whole Shotokan karate style started with a demonstration that Sensei Gichin Funakoshi did in Japan, and after that came history. Demonstrations can be "just for show", or "to educate" depending on the inner attitude of the person doing the performance. Your comment shows the balance of attitude perfectly, Colin. You are showing your son something "cool" but at the same time you are helping him learn something important.
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