Today was all about researching solutions. Today was Drew's class, so I sat out. I had the knitting all ready to go, and everything. And Drew got his punches in, so now he has his own pair and he's happy. So, while he was in class, I snagged Nancy, who helps Ma'am with her paperwork and administrative stuff so Ma'am can do more classwork and signing up, to ask her some questions. I ended up talking with her almost the entire class. I asked her what upgrading to leadership entailed, and she reviewed all the points about it, that it was about learning to be an instructor, and that payment-wise, while it was a lot up front, it made sense in the long term, even for Drew at his age, and all this other stuff. It all made sense, but I'm going to have to go over it and see what JC thinks before I jump in, for either me or Drew. I knew Nancy worked for a few of the other local ATA academies around here, and she said Ma'am was really the most flexible of all of them with payment plans and stuff like that, which I knew, but it was good to hear that she's that way overall compared to some of the others. Nancy herself has taken TKD, and both her kids have too, especially her daughter who is now 19. She told me about what she's seen with a lot of the kids, and how a kid like Drew does tend to do better because he can do more challenging things as time goes on, and with Drew, that's a persuasive argument to keep him interested. That's what happened with her own daughter, that she started out getting bored, and sure enough, add some weapons and gear, and she took off. So anyway, I told Nancy what happened on Monday, and she said that she's watched me in class, and she knows I'd do okay for my rank and age easily. She had gone to Spring Nationals last weekend with her daughter, and had seen other color belts my age go, and some of them messed up SO royally that she felt that I had a very good chance of doing well, just by completing my form. One woman, she said, asked to start over (zero points overall), and another got stuck, and ended up doing her form backwards! Oy! I've never done that badly, at least not yet. And this was in a national forum! So, I'm feeling a little more encouraged about this. I have to think about it, see what JC says, if he's willing to go along with the payments for this stuff in the long term. I mean, in time, if I do my instructor time as I should, then I can eventually get paid to teach others how to do this, and that wouldn't be too bad. I've invested in one business, why not another? It would be like going to get a degree, but instead of a paper degree of the traditional kind, it'd be a black belt degree, first degree, to be exact. That might be worth it, and something I think I could do.

Of what I did see with Drew, I think he did okay. He didn't seem to be acting up too much, and I always find that if I'm preoccupied and not watching too much, then he tends to do better. I think. :-S He seemed to be holding his own today, and that's what he needs to do. I know he's happier having the punches and mouthpiece now, for sure. I think I'll take a Friday and Saturday class to make up a class or two, and see how it goes.