Wagon boat

Today we took the wagon into Chinatown and little Panda to do my weekly class. I also brought a half of a foam noodle and one of their bows. But I unstrung it for the train. Technically if you keep it strung it loses it's power. But Noah liked to have it strung at all times, that is when he sued to remember that he had the thing, so that's not why I unstrung it. I just didn't want it to look like a real bow, on the train.

The kids stepped and beat each other over foot placement and who got to hold the noodle and somehow managed to work it out before we arrived for the class. It was hot today, so my strategy of doing a lot of one at a time stuff while the other kids sat in the shade and sang the drumming songs while clapping cymbal beats was smart I think.

Today they performed sword with the pool noodle, and then another thing I did right after that was Fong Jeen relays. They all lined up and shot the arrow (pool noodle) and the idea was that they would then hand the bow to the next person in line,  run to retrieve the arrow, give the next person in line the arrow, and then get in back of the line.
It didn't quite work like that. But for some reason the little kids did better than the older kids. Basically with the older kids, everyone wanted to retrieve the arrow like it was a big deal to do that.

Of course most kids didn't get much bow and arrow time, but I feel like my class is more of an introduction. To moves, to concepts, to the idea of drilling. I teach them how to practice, but then they have to practice. And probably they won't practice as young children. But when they get to be young teens and start "working out" instead of playing, they may dig back into some of these drills and do them.

People around my neighborhood, older kids would always to push ups and sit ups and then instead of squats they often did horse stance and Toi jerng (palm strikes) usually for just about five minutes. But it was something they had been exposed to and felt comfortable with. Plus they liked the idea that they were getting two things done at once.

Well we rowed our wagon boat home (the noodle and the bow turning into oars and ate a lunch of noodles gai lan and a fried egg. I boiled some chicken too. It smelled funny but it was frozen. It didn't exactly smell rotten, just strong. Maybe it was organic or something.
Then when I bit into it, it just tasted strong, not bad. But I did feel some reaction in my stomach. So it's a good thing I cooked it separately and  didn't feed it to the kids.

I always feel bad about throwing away food. But it's stupid to poison myself. That's even worse than throwing it away.

Well we will probably wagon boat back out to the Stony Brook Sprinklers for the afternoon session of Kung Fu Dad's family home day care.