Instruction From A Nine Year Old

This past Friday night was my first I Ho Chuan class.  It was not pretty.  It was not that I thought learning the nunchuks was going to be easy, but I did not anticipate as much frustration as I felt.  It was definitely a practice that I would have liked to have been in private. I came home a little low, which I am thinking must have shown on my face, because Saturday morning I had two notes from other members of the team encouraging me and pushing me on.  Thank you the two of you, you know who you are.   So I dusted off the nunchuks and played with them all morning with fewer whacks in the head as the day went on.  After kind of getting the handle on the reverse figure eight, finally, I decided to practice the portion of the form that we were taught the night before.  My memory failed me on the second move.  Back to being frustrated.  My nine year old son was sitting at the kitchen table eating cereal watching me and then he spoke up and said “that’s not the way dad does it.”  I admit I was a little irritable and as nice as I could, I asked him if he could just eat his cereal and let me concentrate and figure it out.  He continued eating as he watched, not saying anything as I got more and more discouraged and tried to stumble through.  After about a half an hour he asked if he could show me how dad does it.  I bit my tongue and handed over the nunchuks.  Watching him, all of a sudden a light came on and I realized he knew exactly what he was doing.  He made my day!  After apologizing over and over again, I practiced over 80 times throughout the weekend.  I left the nunchuks in the kitchen beside the phone, and every time I passed by or had a couple minutes waiting for laundry or the kettle to boil, I picked them up and played some more.

I was reminded of two things from this.  The first was that my children are watching me.  My behaviours and words are not going unnoticed.  Everything, from how I handle someone cutting me off in traffic to the way I handle obstacles that come up in my training, I need to be aware that little eyes are watching and learning.  I need to, and want to build young men with character, compassion and integrity.  I think as a parent it is our responsibility to give our children a strong and positive foundation. Given the right direction, they will hopefully pass on what they have learnt to the people they cross paths with in the future. 

The second thing I was reminded of, was that what kids have to say is of value and important, whether they are 2 or 22.  The next time my kids want to show me something or have an idea, even if it’s different than how I would do it, I’m going to listen.  Sometimes we need to swallow our pride, shut up and just listen.  We might just learn something. 

Alana Regier