Thursday, July 01, 2010

Tae Kwon Do

(I got information from two different martial arts studios on the same day, and got them confused. This post used to be titled "Jiu Jitsu" but that was wrong.)

A few weeks ago, at the Meridian Dairy Days festivities, Jared and Zach spun a wheel and won some prizes at a Tae Kwon Do studio's booth. Zach won a uniform and 4 classes for $10. Jared won a uniform and 4 classes for $5, plus a breaking board. Right then and there, they handed him a board and taught him how to break it! You should have seen his face. It took him three tries, but wow, when he broke it into three pieces, I saw the meter on his self-esteem skyrocket!

I know that it was a scheme to get us in the door and hooked on the lessons, but I don't care. I happily let them reel me in. I think the boys would benefit greatly from something like this, and a $15 start isn't bad at all!

Tonight was their first lesson. The place was packed, and there were way too many kids in Jared's class. It was a trial session for everyone, but even so, it was very fun.
Jared's not in this shot, so stop looking for him :)

The boys got their uniforms and looked so freakin' cute! I know nothing about martial arts, so maybe this is just how things are, but I loved that they wrote the boys' names in Korean on their collars.
Jared written in Korean

Zachary written in Korean

The only problem is that I can't understand 90% of anything the Koreans say! I could tell Jared had a hard time, too, although he and I seemed to be struggling more than everyone else. He was slower to sit down and stand up and kick and all that, because he had to watch the other kids to see what they did.

I got out my camera, and some turned out so beautiful that I suddenly want to have family portraits taken there! The lighting is soft and the colors so amazing.

Some of the shots make Jared look like he knows what he's doing! Sorry if I post too many. I'm sort of smitten with them. (Jared's in the very back)




Zach was in a "Little Dragons" class in a different room. There was a closed-circuit TV in third room for the parents to watch. That's him at the top with his head cut off.

The pictures of Zach are a bit wonky because I was shooting through a window. I finally figured out to hold my black diaper backpack up to eliminate the weird reflections. But the shutter speed was really slow, so all his motion is blurred. They still turned out kinda cool, though.
He was kicking a tennis racket-shaped padded target.
Luke amused himself by crawling down a tunnel of chairs. He wasn't real happy to be there, but did okay. If there weren't so many people there, I think it would have been easier.
Jared was very excited to be going back tomorrow. Zach said he didn't want to. But after we came home and they both ate a second dinner, he talked about his lesson in a much more positive tone. He really liked being allowed to kick things as hard as he could! I guess we'll see how they feel about all of this after their fourth lesson. And after I find out how much future lessons will cost!

4 comments:

Kika VilaNova said...

sorry girl, but that is NOT jiu jitsu. Jiu Jitsu is a type of grappling and it's from Brazil too. What your boys did is probably taekwondo or karate... so you might want to change the name of the post and get the right info. Jiu Jitsu is all on the floor, there are no kicks, no punches, and usually no gui involved. :)

hugs

Anonymous said...

There's two forms of Jiu Jitsu: One from Brazil (Brazillian Jiu Jitsu) and one from Asia (Traditional).

Brazillian is grappling (I did this and yes, a gui is involved because I wore one.) and Trad. is what the boys are doing. The one from Brazil was created by the Gracie Family (I was trained by one of their students) and is 'newer' but huge in the Mix Martial Art scene.

Good for the boys! I think they'll really enjoy it :)

CB said...

That is so neat! Jared really looks fierce in some of those pictures :D
BTW Score! On winning the free sessions and the outfits - How awesome is that?

Susie said...

I did more martial arts research, and everyone is actually right! Kika's from Brazil, so Jiu Jitsu means something different to her. We call it Brazilian Jiu Jitsu here. Jiu Jitsu is not Korean, like I thought, but is Japanese.
The boys are doing Tae Kwon Do, a fact that should have been very apparent since it's written on everything. But to my credit, the boys' uniforms are so small that the part of the logo that says Tae Kwon Do is covered by their belts :)