Teaching

Well, I didn't exactly run a class on Tuesday. Apparently the word had gotten out that Sensei would be out, and only one boy showed. I think I've mentioned him before - the one who needs a rheostat so we can turn him down a notch or two. We had an interesting private session. He's about halfway through with Seisan, and I worked with him on it intensively for an hour. I was frankly astounded. For a kid his age (12) to work for an hour on a short section of kata, with good concentration, and no complaint at all, is really noteworthy.

Once we got off of Seisan, however, things got less wonderful. He was trying to talk me into teaching sais (which I barely know anything about myself), bo, knife practice, juggling(?)...anything and everything he could think of. He wanted to break boards, he wanted to kumite. He even offered to tell Sensei that he had just "watched me and figured it out" if I would just teach him some more advanced kata.

I found it interesting, but tiring, reining him in. I told him in no uncertain terms that jumping ahead in kata was not permitted, and used myself as an example. He found it completely incomprehensible that I would return to being a white belt after having been a brown. Surely there must have been some way I could have convinced Sensei to let me keep wearing it? When I told him that going back to white was my choice, not Sensei's, he was completely flabbergasted. The idea that I shouldn't be wearing brown if I couldn't live up to what a brown belt implies, seemed to elude him entirely. I could have faked it, couldn't I?

I hope he gets some maturity (and common sense) soon. He's going to be a fabulous karateka when he does, but until then, he's in constant danger of injuring himself by trying stuff he's not ready for, or of getting kicked out for bypassing Sensei to try to con his way into learning said stuff.

In other news, Sensei's surgery went well. He gets the huge club-like forearm protector off in about ten days. Then it's a matter of healing and rehabilitating. The student one senior to me will be teaching the next two classes, and he's cancelling Sunday, but he hopes to be teaching again by Tuesday.