Casting something away.

Last night was "Moh Goon" Night for me and Shao and Jonah. Basically on Saturdays I have a Kung Fu Playgroup in the park and on Wednesdays I try to get Noah to do basics and Luk Lik, the first form, at the Kung Fu school. It should only take about 15 minutes to do this, then do Kung fu Journal, maybe some lion dance with David, so a total of 30-45 minutes including snacking and all that, and then get out of there so we don't get home too late. That's not how it went down last night though because Noah just kept on eating and eating and wouldn't listen and started crying and promising he would do whatever I said every time I threatened to leave. Basically He did most of the games and drills quite well. Nothing new there. And the Basics, which he had been doing okay, he refused to do. Actually it was just the 10 basics each that he refused to do. He did quite well with counting to 100 and doing 100 chahp saus, toi jerngs, or punches.

Why am I so married to the basics as I learned them and to the forms as I learned them? The kids keep telling over and over, we will do the games that you have made up, the songs you have made up, the 100 Kung Fus, the 100 of one basic and various drills, but we won't do the ones you did every day when you were first learning. Those basics are a lot like those paper mache lion heads I just threw away. The trash men looking and admiring them before dumping into the garbage truck to be compacted and smushed into nothingness.

It was difficult to throw away those things because I had worked very hard on them, and they had a lot of potential to be used, when the kids were older. But they can't use them right now and they can't work on them right now, so they are just taking up space.

The basics that I studied are similar. I spent a lot of days and years doing those basics. I am partial to them. I like them. I want my kids to do them and do them well. But perhaps they are not ready for them. But they are ready for wheels on the bus,  the monkey kind game, fighting drills, and doing one hundred of one technique. Maybe they don't do those 100 punches well, but they are willing to try, where as to do ten each basic is a battle.

I promised myself we wouldn't be doing this Wednesday Kung Fu night anymore until June. In June, not only will there be daylight savings and all that, but Noah will no longer be going to school. So we could do a Kung Fu afternoon, like from 3-4pm, and still get home. Or maybe even 1-2pm or something like that. That would be fine. Plus it would give Noah something to do. But right now, the time is too late and the battle to eat all the old Uncle's sponge cakes while they try and drink tea and converse in Taishanese about everything from farming, cattle, and village politics while Jonah stick his entire face in their sponge cakes and makes cookie monster noises when they are distracted.

This morning Noah and I did a Kung Fu routine and again i tried to make him do it the traditional way, but as soon as we did noodle swords, 100 of one technique (which is a pretty traditional way of training though simplified) and the Monkey King game, he did it. So I guess I have to put my basics and forms to the side.