Teacher Night

I'm a few days late writing this one, but we met Aaron and Robbie's new teachers - or at least Robbie's new teacher. Aaron has Robbie's old teacher, so we made short work of getting reacquainted with her. She did a good job with Robbie, even though they weren't a match made in heaven, and she hit it perfectly when recommending his third grade teacher, so I'm happy Aaron has her.

Robbie's new teacher is still an unknown quantity. She seems nice enough and Robbie likes her, so first impressions are good. On the downside, she spent the classroom portion of meet-the-teacher night giving a presentation on how her class runs. It was informative, but she left no time for mingling and simply getting to know her better. Though I may be doing her a disservice, because Rob ran out of patience and we left about fifteen minutes early. On the good side at least one of the mothers I know with older children absolutely loves her. We will see. I am glad to notice more signs of independence with Robbie's homework this year. Last year he started doing his math in school before he came home - but I was thinking that was probably because his fourth grade teacher encouraged it. But he's doing it again already, so it seems to have become an established habit. Not only that, but at least one night he came home with his spelling homework already started. Now if only I can get him to pack his own backpack reliably...

Karate is a swelter this week. Our new location is an old building with unreliable air-conditioning. So far it's been out more than it's been in. Fortunately the Jazzercise people keep about six monster fans set up. The room sounds like an airfield, but at least there's moving air. I'd have been ready to fall over after sparring without them. As was I was just soaked. While we were in the park, sensei was allowing t-shirts & pants, but now that school has started and we're indoors, it's full uniforms.

I've started Sunsu and I'm really liking it so far. Though it inspires interesting comments from Sensei: "You look like you're cupping your boobs! Move your hands lower!" He still doesn't seem to have decided whether to pursue Tokomine no Kun or Kusanku Sai as my next weapons kata. If he doesn't start with one or the other soon, there's no way I'll have it down by the Lennox Legacy Tournament, which would leave me stuck with Simple Sai (I've done Tsu Yoi Bo three years running now). Erk. I hate finishing up learning katas just in time for tournaments. There's no time to get feeling really comfortable with them and they're much more prone to falling apart.
On a more optomistic note, I'm thinking of drilling Seisan in mirror fashion (left to right), and talking either T (blue belt, my age) or one of the purple belts (both young teens) into joining me for the team kata competition. I think two people doing mirror katas would look really cool.