Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Today was a pretty good day for Drew. I actually sat and watched his entire class instead of gabbing either with Nancy or Ma'am. I kept myself occupied by putting two new catalogs together for a GNO, but I digress. Drew still has the "wiggles" in class, but he's not the only one. Mr. Anderson was teaching today, and he had 5-- count 'em-- *5* student instructors to help him with a class of about 20 (give or take a few). The problem was, Mr. Anderson was teaching class, and doing fine, but the two Alexes (Alex V and Alex S) were the only ones helping most of the time, and they were mostly just walking around supervising, especially Alex S. Miss Chunko was helping most of the time, but not all the time. And Miss Kawaski and Miss Zimmerman were goofing off more than instructing. It was really a shame, because they could easily supervise 4 kids each as they worked on skills and keep ALL of them on track, but they didn't. I felt like saying something to Ma'am, but didn't feel like it was my place to do so. But Drew was paying attention most of the time, and when he did, he was not jumping around as much in his spot, and he was trying to be one of the guys sometimes, and I could see that he understood what he had to do, and he didn't get upset when he was instructed to behave otherwise or was corrected. This really is progress, when you look at it. I think if the class wasn't so big, he'd do even better, but oh well. I watched him with his punches and mouthpiece, and he's more the aggressor than the defender, which is fine. Miss Zimmerman did work with him on that in learning how to deflect punches, so he did get a little individualized attention. Before we left to go to class, Drew was asking if he had kicks (leg and foot pads) for class, and I had to explain that he wasn't getting them anytime soon, but when he started kindergarten. He seemed satisfied with that at least. But I'm pleased to see him make progress. Despite what JC thinks, he is making progress, and he is doing well. At least, I will give credit to Mr. Anderson, who in seeing that Drew and several others have the "wiggles", he has them do some things like running in place and jumping to "get the wiggles out" at the start of class. Drew likes that, and he likes the sparring. He was a little disappointed that he doesn't get to use the bo staff at this point, but I reminded him that in September, he'll get all his weapons. I was also surprised that he wanted to say hi to Ma'am. She had come in after class had already started. He was a little shy, and wanted me to come with him, but he was sure to say hi to her. Hey, that's fine with me, and of course, she was sure to say Hi back to him. I think he's feeling a little more confident in what he's doing there, and he's feeling like part of the group too. He's been there for almost a year now, so let's hope so! He's excited that he'll be getting an all color belt in two weeks. I think I have to get him to practice just a little bit though!

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