Inside vs. Outside

This morning was pretty cold, so I prepared to do the little Panda class inside. This meant that I brought the drum gong and cymbals. It was nice, being able to do it inside. I got a good stretch. But the toys in the room were a little bit distracting, and the space was more limited. I mainly did it inside because I thought that was the responsible thing to do. I would be fine, and my son would be fine, because he had snow pants on. But not all of the other kids had that type of gear I don't think. But then the little kids still ended up going to the playground to play. I think I heard some of the teachers wondering aloud, "Why didn't we go outside for Kung Fu?" But my mandarin isn't so hot so it could have just as easily have been, "No wonder we didn't go outside for Kung Fu." The truth is, by the time they went out it had warmed up a bit, and at that point, yes it would have made sense to hold the class outside, but the class was already over.
I have noticed too that sometimes when it is too cold, the kids actually move around less and seem not as in to it. That's sort of counter intuitive because if they moved around more, they would be warmer, but they are small children. Actually maybe it's just Noah that does that. In any case, last night our little playground Kung Fu class was so disappointing that I took him home and told him he would have another chance to earn his graham crackers by practicing Kung Fu art home. But as it stood right then he wasn't getting any. There was much crying involved and he claimed he wanted to stay at the playground. (I don't see why, he wasn't doing anything there) But at home he did do a good job performing Kung Fu by himself while I accompanied him with drum. So he ended up getting his graham crackers.
The little Panda class did not do as well inside as I would have thought. I think it has to do with the fact that we usually aren't inside and so they aren't socialized to the inside format. When space is limited, lining up matters more. Sitting to the side so the person doing Kung Fu matters more. Not crowding the teacher matters more, and individual performance is a larger part of the class. Nobody really felt that comfortable doing Kung Fu by themselves. Some kids did eventually warm up to it but they were much less mobile than I would have thought. Mainly they just did punches while standing there. I was surprised. But everyone wanted to play gong and cymbals so it wasn't like they weren't interested. I now make it so that, in order to play gong or cymbals, you first have to do Kung Fu, and I just make to people do Kung Fu at once.