1,000 hits

Yesterday, at teh Kung Fu park, before our Qing Ming Easter, our little Kung Fu playgroup was somewhat of a disaster. Before other children arrived me and Noah hung out, played digging and did some playfighting with our hands. I tried to see if I could bring just one pool noodle because I wanted to introduce more material that didn't require me to bring so much stuff, or make me stay on top of the kids. So I was going to have them do push hands in their own way, and maybe even do slow motion sparring in their own way. Basically to learn more through play, with the emphasis on these drills being much more about not hurting each other at all, than being "realistic" Then I figured they could just use a pool noodle against me and i could just use my hands for the high speed stuff. After all, I always lose in the end and I'm not going to hurt them with my hands.


Well we started with the hello song. That was good. We did some stances, that was good, we did the wheels on the Kung Fu bus, then Noah wanted to skip to horse. Then he only wanted to do horse. Then he threw a tantrum. I tried to make it end by ignoring, moving on, or just doing horse over and over or whatever he wanted. The rest of the class moved on to relays and he was still tantrumming and now there was really no reaon to it. It made no sense, and it wasn't ending. He said he wanted to take all the turns. Basically he no longer wanted these other kids here. But even if the class is just him and Dai dai, he still has to take turns right? If I wasn't his father, he wouldn't be acting like this. And if I was just a parent in the playgroup and not the teacher, I would just remove him. What happened instead was I had to stop the playgroup. We were only 24 minutes in. Our group had started to last 45 minutes long. But then, that was with more props like heads, instruments, and other stuff. I was embarrassed and frankly angry with Noah.


Later when we left for Qing Ming he got mad because we didn't do the Goodbye song. How are we going to do the goodbye song? You were successful in your tantrumming, you destroyed the class. It's gone now. It's reputation as being a functional class is gone. You won.

Later on I talked to him about it. It made no sense. Jonah is 2 years younger and did fine. Would he do this at the little Panda class? If he did, Baba would be screwed.

I asked him what did he want. Did he want me not to teach the class anymore? This wasn't a rhetorical parenting question. The class was made for him, so he could have Kung Fu friends. Originally I had held classes at home, and he cried then because of the pressure of having all the Kung Fu teacher's attention and pressure focused on him.

"No no no."

Did he want to teach the class. That way we would follow along with him and do whatever he wanted because he would be the Sifu. At first he said yes, and I made up my mind that next week I would just help him teach class. But then he backed out of it and said maybe he would do it when he was an adult.

"Next week you're not going to be an adult."

Anyway, in my mind, next week we are going to teach the class together, and even create an itinerary together. We are going to write out what happens first then what drill comes next, etc. so that we will stick to the Plan. Actually as I write this I realize he might have tantrummed because we added new material he wasn't familiar with. He has that type of personality where things have to be done in a certain way (his way). I have observed this of his Gong gong too and frankly, it is very much the dominant Asian stereotypical personality. I'm not saying all Asians are like that. I'm just saying the ones that tend to control the society tend to be like that. So that if you are not like that in Asian society, people tend to think of you are deviant and even you yourself think of yourself as deviant. America is complicated because there is simultaneously the same ideas of confirm, but also thinking outside the box is valued in culture if not in the school.

Actually I guess the West is just as Conformist as the East. It's just that whenever anyone wins by thinking oustide the box we call it American. But our society is all about conform too.


Well, having decided that Noah would teach I let the subject drop for a while. But then washing bowls, I just couldn't Let it go. I went to where Noah was relaxing watching Peg + Cat and said, "Because of what you did at Kung Fu Park you are going to do 1,000 punches."

"Okay" he said.

And guess what, after Peg +Cat he even started without me, because I was still doing some chores.

I made him start over. Jonah joined him for the first 300 hits on the pad. And as Noah continued, different types of strikes from different forms came out. I asked him if he wanted to kick and he didn't. But the hand techniques were very dynamic in style and form. With the upper numbers he became more drunken and Tai Chi-ish with his strikes and many more double handed strikes came out.

In fact he probbaly did more like 1,400 strikes because the beginning punches I was counting for every four hits because he was punching faster than I was counting.




This type of individual training is actually quite advanced. So I guess I should just encourage him in this way. Maybe eventually do 1,000 hits every day. What else do you want? Just getting down in stance I guess.

But the class is still important for social reasons. But since he is the type of student that is willing to do 1,000 hits as long as I stand there with the pad and count. Then yeah, I suppose he is ready to teach the class right?