As part of the club’s ongoing development and expansion we’re starting up a new kids class and programme. In order to get it up and running we’ve started a bit of a recruitment drive, and yesterday we did the first major part of that with a full day at a local primary school. Five of us took the day off of work (well, strictly speaking four of us, one person works at the school) and got there at nine in the morning ready to spend the day teaching the kids some basic kickboxing skills and to give them a good run about. Although we had a plan of sorts for the sessions, it sort of evolved during the day and was nicely refined by the end of the day.
I’m not sure what I was expecting before I went in, I mean, I knew the very youngest (Year 1) would be the hardest to teach the kicks to, but what I wasn’t expecting was how much shorter the attention spans got as the day went on and the children got older. It was a bit of a battle of attrition by the end of the day when the oldest kids were all crammed in, but it was a lot of fun. I knew I enjoyed working with kids and teaching them, but I was surprised just how much I enjoyed working that closely with them.
After over four hours of constant warming-up, stretching, kicking, cooling down and repeating ad nauseum (broken up with a nice spot of lunch down the pub), I was shattered once I got home. Unfortunately I didn’t have too much time to get settled; Wednesdays are training days. So I dragged my backside up off of the sofa and went along for another hour of Tang Soo Do and adult Kickboxing. I won’t lie to you, I was knackered by the time I eventually got home (via Tesco for sustenance and a beer), and all I wanted to do was eat some food, drink my beer and go to bed to sleep for a week. I painstakingly prepared myself some nice little panini stuffed full of chicken, and then it happened, Isaac f**king Newton stole my supper!
To be fair, he himself didn’t, but his law of universal gravitation did. Yes, my fancy sandwiches slipped of the plate and went all over the floor. I honestly could have cried, at that time that was just about the worst thing I could have imagined. Today’s swim is off the cards I think, I’m like a total zombie and barely capable of getting off my chair, let alone swimming a mile or so. It’s games and Inbetweeners (the funniest show on TV, no question) night with my reprobate friends tonight though, something I look forward to as the highlight of every week.
I’ll leave you with what might look like a very dull photo, but to me it’s brilliant. Walls at first floor height!
Look! Walls!
Their beds are so comfortable.