A Very Rockstar Taekwondo Tournament Prep

A Very Rockstar Taekwondo Tournament Prep (or, When Your Normally-Aggressive-Competition-Averse Child Decides He Wants To Compete In A Sparring Tournament)

How Rocky trains at home:

*To Eye Of The Tiger* pic from dieselcrew.com

How Rockstar “trains” at home:

*To Crickets Chirping*

(Closeup of his screen)

Rockstar really, really wanted to go for this sparring tournament right the day before his first day of school.

Me? N-ot so much.

See, there are kids who really, really want this stuff. They really want to win. They thrive on being number one, and are willing to fight for it. Rockstar……. wants to put on his gear and have more “real” sparring sessions. AND he hopes he’ll get to bring home something <Rockstar shrug>

Taekwondo, in itself initially a bit of a gamble for a kid who used to be really bothered when someone bumped into him, has been great for him. A sparring tournament in Shatin, New Territories….. not exactly the same thing. I was quite worried Rockstar would somehow have an experience so off-putting (to him) he didn’t want to keep up the actual sport and gradings. But he came home one day insisting he wanted to go for this thing.

And he trained for it through summer… With friends he was used to training with (none of whom he would meet in the tournament), with instructors who’ve been with them since they first started, even as the number of time slots for this thing keeps growing to meet demand

Now, having two kids with very different personalities helped me understand how people who don’t have kids with personalities similar to Rockstar’s would think my whole obsessive compulsive thing about adjusting my kid to certain “challenges” is just weird.

It’s a no-brainer if you think about it, but really, your child’s inherent personality makes such a very big difference to how you have to handle them. (Caveat: Don’t think that just because something works really well for another parent it’s gonna work exactly the same way for your child unless you can see the similarities…) I first learned that when JD and I trained at the HK Canine Working and Agility Club – the trainer explained how you never really “train away” the dog breed’s inherent characteristics and personality, the training just “overlays” it. For e.g., a Border Collie, bred to swerve and turn as they chase around after sheep, will navigate an Agility course and follow relevant instructions much more easily than a Husky, bred to simply keep running and running. JD’s inherent personality was “too” shy, she was hiding under furniture and crying a lot, and we thought the training of an Agility course would awake her Border Collie instincts, thereby helping her get over the shyness. It did.

(I was obsessive compulsive about JD when Rockstar was born too, because she was very attached to me and I figured I couldn’t live without either of them, so couldn’t risk them not getting along. Ergo, How To Get Your Dog To Accept Your Baby.)

JD and me pre-kids

I don’t think I have to do any of this with the Miss at the moment, though. She needs something… different. Rockstar would rather never learn to swim than risk drowning. The Miss would rather drown than risk never learning how to swim. Rockstar is Trip Over A Rock, Never Sky Dive Off The Cliff; The Miss is more You Better Hurl Yourself Over Before She Gets There Because She Is Going off That Cliff, So Help Her, Whether Or Not She Has A Parachute On. Oh, and better wear your own parachute perpetually, because she’s taking you with her – WHEEEEEEE!

And so with the elder offspring…

Comparing paws.

JD: Seriously, this is a disaster – lemme give you a little fashion advice…

I tried to get him comfy in all the gear beforehand <sheepish> And so he went about his regular business for a few days in gear. With a confused dog in tow.

Next up…

We Shall Talk About Fight Club.