Jiu Jitsu Blocks

Mica's been doing really well in Jiu Jitsu. He continues to get colored stripes on his belt. It's different than karate. Jiu Jitsu mixes wrestling (ground fighting a sparring) with blocks, rolls, kicks and punches.

Sensei says mentions that they should try and make it easy on themselves. They do a lot of moves just learning how to step away from someone coming towards them.

Last week they practiced their arm blocks. Mica's getting so much better with this! Last year when he first started he was all over the place. His form didn't have follow through. Now I see new kids coming in being just like how Mica was. Mica's asked to come to the front to be a leader. It's amazing how much he's changed.

A Good Week

I have to say that Isaak's bounced out of his troubled times. He's been much easier to deal with. It was like a few weeks of a crabby 4 year old. Now he's better. He still is doesn't like us out of his sight. He's going though some stranger anxiety. For instance I was down stairs doing laundry. Isaak freaked out because he didn't know where I was. It's that kind of stuff. At least he's not having temper tantrums like he was a few weeks ago. The boy hasn't wet the bed for months now! :) We're so happy about that!

Isaak is very into wanting to write. It's really cute! He asks how to spell things all the time. I can't always tell what he's wrote, but he's getting better! 

Last week we had Isaak's preschool conferences. This week we had Mica's 1st grade conferences. Conferences were strange with Mica. I've heard my co-workers say that conferences are boring. Now I get what they are talking about. Mica's teacher just said, "He's good at pretty much everything. You guys are doing a great job with him. She showed us a folder of papers and that was it! He loves art, writing, technology, music and P.E.

The only thing that stood out was a self evaluation they did. They colored things yellow if they felt they did good with the topic, orange if they were just ok with it and red if they need to work on it a lot. The thing he colored red was listening. His teacher said, "He listens really well in class!"  I think Mica gets so involved in things that when he's told to do other things, he has trouble changing his mindset. I think that's pretty normal for any boy his age.

Mica also got a yellow stripe on his belt for jiu jitsu. They do stripes before changing the color of their belt. His Sensei also started handing out stripes for good behavior type things the kids do. A few weeks ago Mica got one that says, "Good Discipline". This week he got one for, "Good Form". His Sensei doesn't pass the word stripes out often, so it's great that he got these!

Jiu Jitsu

Mica's now in Jiu Jitsu. We're waiting to buy him a robe, uniform, whatever you call it until he's done with one class. We wanted to know if he was really into it, or if it's just a passing phase.

For the meantime he's the one in the middle, with the blue shirt.

I have to say that he does love it. He is learning. The kid sucks at doing the monkey roll. Come on he's an apel, apes are in his genes right? He sticks his little butt up in the air and just has a hard time going into a roll. Maybe it's his forever long torso that he has trouble flipping over. I'm thinking it's fear.

If this were a college class, I think I'd make a prerequisite to Jiu Jitsu, a tumbling course for sure.

Now that Mica's in Jiu Jitsu, he thinks he knows his stuff. HA HA - NOT! Isaak thinks he's ready to take this class because he's four now. It is for ages 4 to 11. I'm thinking he'll start with tumbling.

I do have to say it's pretty cute watching Mica punch, kick and count to 10 in Japanese. He'll get the monkey roll down soon enough, I hope.