I was thinking through my reasons for why I want to write about being a martial arts parent, here are my initial thoughts.
There are various other things that my children do—all of which are very worthwhile. One of these days I’ll write about the many benefits of music and 4H. However, for now, we are enmeshed in the world of Taekwondo. We eat and breathe martial arts. In fact, I’m proud to say that my daughter recently received her black belt, which you can read about here.
When my daughter was younger…
…she was slow. I don’t mean unintelligent; I mean literally slow. She was always the last one to do anything and everything. My husband and I still laugh about his time walking her home from elementary school. He works from a home office and would take a break to go pick her up.
We live less than a mile away, but he tells of the many times when he would finally give up and just carry her (a third grader!) because she would ponder life (very slowly) as she considered putting one step in front of the other. This is the same girl that came home crying because she wasn’t strong enough to play on the monkey bars with her friends. She was soft (and sweet and adorable, but soft).
Enter the world of Taekwondo
My daughter unexpectedly declared her desire to start Taekwondo, and to say I was hesitant would be an understatement. Martial arts? Taekwondo? Doesn’t that involve a lot of kicking? And punching? And yelling? (OK, I wasn’t too worried about the yelling part, she has that skill, ha!) My son was also somewhat interested. We decided it would be a good way to keep them physically active, so we signed them up. Needless to say, that’s when the avalanche of information began, from which we have not yet recovered! I’ll be writing about that in more detail. For now, as their coach would say, “let’s go”!