Karate

My youngest son loves karate.

He’s just graduated into his orange belt. This morning he is showing me all this carta’s, dancing the four directions, complete with ki-i’s (thats those yells you hear them make).

And all the time he’s as keen as a bean.

Never have I had to motivate him.

He loves the grading - says he’ll probably be crying the next grading as its gonna be so tough.

He’s been an orange belt for three lessons.

This is his world - of discipline, doing everything as a group.

Ten push ups for everyone when one person takes too long or mucks around.

For his scorpio wildness the paradox is he loves strong boundaries, loves the container his Sensei holds.

If only he could train wednesdays as well as Mondays - such is the life of a co-parented child - here for half the time - ferried off to there for a completely different life - how adaptable are children - hopefully not traumatically so.

But here on this sun filled morning - his world is alive, vibrant and motivated by an ancient Japanese pratice that held it’s county in stead for hundreds of years.