Thursday, January 20, 2005

Scary kicks

Bigger crowd at Ninja Kids today, but the children are all squirrelly. They horse around with each other, pushing and wrestling, ambling into formation. They chatter incessantly, and interrupt the teacher. They fiddle with the weight machines when we're not lined up. They talk and laugh and screw around when they're supposed to be working out with each other.

I'm embarassed about mine, and reprimand them a couple of times. I'd like to stop the nonsense, sit all of them down and have a little chat with them, maybe give them three guidelines (say "yes sir," run to your spots, no back talk, maybe) but it's not my class. I have a feeling that the teacher will say something next time. I hope so.

When we're split up to work on combination kicking, things go better, maybe because I have to concentrate so hard I don't notice the misbehaving kids. I try to remember the kicks various people have taught me; I hope that it starts to come more naturally soon. Patrick tells me I'm "scary." This seems encouraging. "What makes me scary?" I ask. "No one's ever said I'm scary before." "Your kicks," says Patrick. "I think he means that your high kicks are intimidating," says the teacher. Hey, I like being scary.

We end with flying side kicks; I seem to have a flying-side-kick mental block. I can't quite get it right, I think because I can't imagine the ballet counterpart. When do you leap from one foot forward onto the same foot with the other foot extended?

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