Martial Arts at St. Joseph's

Well, after talking about doing this for months, Junior's little brother and I went over to St. Joe's to check out the martial arts class offered there by the U.N.I.O.N. Impact Center. Junior's bro was among the oldest in the class, and he's about nine years old. There were some teeny-weenies there, maybe three or four year olds. They had a hard time sitting still for meditation.

JB (I'm going to call him that from now on--I've had trouble coming up with a psuedonym for him, so that will do) paid attention, sat still during opening prayer and meditation, and tried hard to keep up with the roundhouse kicks, jabs and crosses. He even struggled his way through a set of pushups. JB is a little on the heavy side and I don't think he gets too much opportunity for exercise, but you could see he really wants to do this.

We showed up in the middle of a six-week cycle, so he was at a disadvantage trying to learn everything at once. Next week the instructor says they will practice striking into pads (so far they're just throwing into imaginary targets).

I used to study karate, so watching the class got me fired up to practice a little with JB between classes. He's going to need to do it more than once a week to get anywhere. I just made a resolve to fight the battle of the bulge this winter, mostly through my downtown yuppie gym where I can swim, but maybe a little with JB, too. We'll see where this goes.