Taekwon Do

For the last year or so Alex has been begging to do Taekwon Do. Now that we are settled here in Phoenix we decided it was time. To say he loves it would be the understatement of the year. He adores it and thinks about it, talks about it, and practices it every day. His confidence has already bloomed and he is really excelling in it. We found a great place to take him that is about 3 minutes from where we live called Arizona Kicks. Master Karstadt is the owner and Master (7th degree black belt) of the Dojo(sp??) and his son John Karstadt (3rd degree black belt) is Alex's instructor for now until he moves up in ranks. John is SO great with the little guys and I look forward to going to watch Alex each and every time. Here are some pictures and videos of our growing guy.

Alex and his little friend Tyler with their instructor Mr. John Karstadt. Alex adores him. I think he is one of his heros. There is a huge photo in the school of Mr. Karstadt when he was 6 years old flying through the air with his leg out breaking a board. Alex thinks it's totally awesome. 

Tough guys

 

Look at that form! He told me after the second or third class that doing the push ups was his favorite part. Now that they do a lot more of them, he says he doesn't like them anymore because they make him so tired. Now he likes the "punching and kicking and yelling and earning stuff."

I just think the variations of push ups here is hilarious. 

  

Another one of his favorite things is to kick the bags. He looooves this. 

Most people wonder why one kid has a black belt with a white stripe instead of just a white belt like all the other little guys. The school does a program where you can sign up for the Leadership Track. From what I understand, you put your kid on a track to black belt leadership and all of your belts will be the normal belt color rank striped with black in it. The funniest part about this little guy is that he is the silliest one in the class! :) It cracks us up. 

Sorry about the sideways video for the first half. The second half is Alex reciting the Student Oath. The students have to memorize it in order to earn their school patch for their uniform. Alex was all about that. He looooooves stuff like that.

Jumping ahead in time a bit, yesterday his school put on what is called Master Karstadt's Kick-A-Thon. We found people who were willing to sponsor Alex in a charity kicking event where people can pledge to sponsor, for example, 5 or 10 cents per kick that Alex can complete in 20 minutes. All the money that is made goes toward the purchase of Thanksgiving dinners for needy families. Joseph was kind enough to take the packet to work and ask for pledges there. Master Karstadt said the little guys usually do about 200-300 kicks in their 20 minute slot, so we decided to pledge 10 cents per kick as did some of our sponsors. Well, yesterday was the Kick-a-thon day. Alex was to kick from 10:00 am to 10:20 am. Joseph was his counter and the girls and I cheered him on. At about 3 minutes before his time was up we went over near him and really cheered and clapped to encourage him. I whispered to Joseph..."Where is he at?" Joseph mouthed to me, "about 1100."  WHAT?!?!?!  Ummmm, I think we had better change our pledge! He ended up doing 1223 kicks total! He was so excited and we were, of course, beaming with pride. When Master Karstadt asked him if he was tired he said, "No. I'm fine." :) ha! I'd be tired. I think we'll tell the attorney from Joseph's law firm that he can change his pledge too. :) On Monday Joseph is going to take Alex to his office in his Taekwon Do uniform to hand out thank you cards. It should be fun. Then, the day before Thanksgiving we'll all go to the TKD school and fill boxes of food to take to the families in need. What a great way to give back. We really like his school! Here is a photo from Joseph's camera of Alex while he was doing his kicks. Blurry....but cute. I wish I had had my camera to get a video. The energy in the room was palpable.

Look at that focus. He didn't kick on this bag the entire time. They let Joseph hold a smaller bag for him to use most of the time, but he wanted to do a few big kicks on here like all the big kids who were kicking with him!