Often during graduations, I would look at the seniors presenting their techniques and in my head thinking ‘I could do that but in reality, I thought my age, agility, and ‘mum memory’ would fail me.

 

For almost 4 years I sat in the parents’ room watching Jaymie train, and often joked that I would join in when he moved up to seniors as I spent as much time there like him!

Then COVID hit and the 8 months of at-home intensive training to reach his Black Belt meant I became his training partner and by default had to train twice a week too.

 

So then the day came, 8 months after being his home training partner, Jaymie graduated to Black Belt and joined the seniors/adults lesson. When the Dojo lessons returned, & after many more training sessions, I was persuaded to give it a go. After all, I was already training with Jaymie until covid restrictions were lifted.

 

One year on, 12 tip tests & 4 graduations later my initial fear that I would never ever manage to remember the techniques or coordinate the correct hand with the correct leg, I am a confident, enthusiastic intermediate student. I still have some way to go to be as flexible as my 14year, and takes a little longer to get the moves right but the instructors are very patient. Our instructional videos online help with memory retention and I finally feel I can take a tip test without a full-on meltdown.

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I thought I was too old, too tired, too busy, too unfit, too uncoordinated, too brain frazzled and would just not be able to keep up, that I really would never have considered Kung Fu if my son wasn’t already a student, but I am truly enjoying learning something new each month and I am so fortunate that I was in the right place and able to enrol.

 

Looking forward to getting to my Black Belt so that I can beat up Sifu as the kids do