Orange Belt

Today Madison received her first belt in martial arts, an orange belt.  You can see her above, afterwards with Bart and Christine Edge, some very good instructors and very good people.  We've known the Edges for a few years now, as they help out tremendously at KidPak, and of course we've been to their Trunk or Treat event the last few years with Madison.

This afternoon ended the Rank Camp, something that they set up actually based on Madison's decision.  Way back earlier in the year when we realized we had this week open, we talked about it with the Edges and with Madison.  We asked what their theme for the week would be, as each year they do a  Star Wars theme, and Indiana Jones theme and even a Nerf Gun theme.  One theme was pretty simple though:  a Rank Camp.  The whole purpose of a rank camp is to work the entire week, and hopefully earn a new belt by the end of the week for some of these younger kids.  And so Madison did a lot of work this week.  We saw videos of the exercise drills and the practicing moves - the only time for games was before and after the camp as the parents were dropping kids off or picking them up.  

Here is Madison using nunchucks.  This is something I as a dad never really calculated in my "thoughts and dreams for Madison" category.  It's not that I'm against it at all - I just laugh, because it doesn't quite fit within that "Daddy's little princess" dream we all have.  That is, unless you're a martial arts fan or something.  You just don't picture your little girl throwing around nunchucks, and practicing all week with them.

Today they did a few routines with the nunchucks, each student running through the different moves they learned through the week, chaining them together to make a NUNCHUCK COMBO!

This above was something also shown to us, something more practical to be honest.  Because if you're attacked in a parking lot (or anywhere), it's good to know some self defense maneuvers.  Unless you happen to keep your nunchucks in your purse and can get to them quickly, of course.  But above you can see a girl rushing Madison, and she's ready to show us all the palm strike to the face, the shoulder grab, the knee thrust, and finally the push away.  I'm aware these will get more intense as the training proceeds, and this is a good start.  She'll take this with her, and hopefully the programming will be automatic on what to do in a situation like this.  Even more hopefully, she'll never have to face a situation.  But as Edna Mode always says, "Luck favors the prepared."

At the end, it was time to split.  Actually, this wasn't the end.  This was just the long series of exercises the kids did in front of all the parents.  We were all lined up along the wall with our cameras and cell phones, cheering the kids on as they completed thirty seconds of jumping jacks, splits, push-ups, and sit-ups.  It was quite a work-out!

And yes, they got to kick things.  And do palm strikes.  Do you think anyone wants a roundhouse kick to the face while I'm wearing one of these bad boys?  This isn't a roundhouse, of course - it's a sidekick.  She practiced hard on this all week, even at home on stuffed animals and furniture that we'll have to replace.  Just kidding.  But there is more to it than just kicking something, a bit of choreography in a way.  It's like violent ballet!

Here's Mommy and Madison afterwards.  Madison is clearly ready for a break, as this was a long week.  In fact, as I type this the next day - she's still sleeping.  She worked really hard all week on this, and Bart and Christine said as much.  She really earned that orange belt.

It was a nice ceremony as well.  It was placed before the kneeling students, and they faced the other way, taking off their previous belt, in this case, a white belt for Madison.  Alas, white belt, we hardly had time to know you!  But then their teachers told the parents to come and help with the next part, so Daddy helped Madison put the belt on, because as it was explained, the parents are a big part in the training as well, also supporting the students.  

Ultimately, one end of the knot was held by Madison, while Daddy held the other side.  On the count of three, we pulled together, and the knot was tied.  It was official:  Madison is an orange belt, her first on a journey towards black belt.

She really had a great week at Rank Camp.  Bart and Christine make this camp so much fun for the kids.  If you have a great teacher, some things even like push-ups can be fun.  She wants to keep doing this, and ballet is in the rear view mirror now.  And doesn't she look great in that gi?  

We're really proud of her, and told her as much.  Her first camp of the summer is over now, and yes, she got a kick out of it.  Had to go there.  Anyway, it was a lot of fun.  We left there, and did some work for Summer Xtreme, going to Matthews Printing to pick up books and cut-outs of name tags, and then by the office to do a little more work.  

But we got home and relaxed after that.  This Summer Xtreme, things are a little less stressed on my end, due to the fact that everything seems to be okay and all lined up.  Also, I felt a voice tell me on Thursday night that it would all be good.  We'll work hard this weekend on Summer Xtreme, of course.  But tonight, we watched a movie - Madison wanted to watch "X-Men," so we did.  This was a movie from 2000, which I remember because it was out the summer Mommy and Daddy got married (along with "Chicken Run" and "Shanghai Noon").  

Madison wanted to watch it because PT Barnum was the star in this one.  Wolverine didn't do any singing, but she enjoyed it nonetheless.  These are Daddy's favorite characters, so it's easy to watch these two first movies, and this summer, we'll probably pull out those comics from downstairs - Daddy has well over a hundred X-Men comics downstairs.

Tonight we also finished "The Miserable Mill," book four of thirteen.  We'll return the books tomorrow, but I'm not sure when we'll have time to get back to the library for book five, "The Austere Academy."  Things are somewhat close to the television series, with the heart of the books there to see with the show.  Having the author involved in both is what makes a difference.  Mommy and Madison have been enjoying the books, so yeah, we'll be doing this all summer.

And so we said our prayers tonight, thankful for orange belts and summer camps and a dry day too - although it was raining hard elsewhere in the state, we had a dry day today.  There is a lot to be thankful for!