Blue Belt!

 It was a great moment tonight when Paul earned his Blue Belt.  The order of the belts awarded in Tang Soo Do, which is the type of karate taught at Paul's dojo, are white, yellow, green, blue, brown, brown with a black stripe, and black.  The big difference between the green and blue belt is that a blue belt has learned to spar, or fight.   Paul has been very interested in fighting since day one in the studio, but he's had to work hard to master it.  He earned his green belt a little more than a year ago and got his last stripe for that belt in November.  Since then he's been practicing like crazy, building up the strength and stamina and experience needed to spar on the blue belt level.  Tonight he proved that he can.

This is a part of Paul's life that is totally his own doing.  Ben and I are so involved in his school life that we decided early on to we stay out of the karate world except to do everything we can to support him.  He alone decides how many classes he attends, whether he practices at home between classes, and how attentive he is in class.  He sets his own goals and achieves them, without any coaching from us.  Other karate parents seem to know all about what's going on, from what the moves are to who the best teachers in the studio are.  We, on the other hand, know nothing and don't want to know a whole lot, thinking it's best for Paul's self esteem and confidence to master this world on his own.  We pay the studio fee and for one private lesson a week, we make sure his uniform is clean every day, and we drive him to lessons.   Otherwise we just stand back and applaud when he does good.

So it's always a pleasure when a teacher stops to tell us how focused Paul is, how hard he is working, what a great kid he is.  We're tickled that he's found a social niche as well, when we see how the other students like him, accept him, and even admire him.   And on nights like tonight we are thrilled to see him light up with pride as his hard work pays off.