Sam-san, "Crotty" Kid

Sam is now officially a force to be reckoned with, the newest “crotty" kid on the block. He signed up and suited up at the Bergeron Karate Centre last night, where Carter has been a member for a few months. Sam had to mull it over, weighing the pros and cons of involving himself in an activity that is simultaneously cool art, cool sport and cool self-defence. In the end, his worries crystallized thusly: “What if everyone else has an outfit, and I don’t?” I thought he might be concerned about performing for his sensei or not keeping up with the tip-earning progress of the Little Dragons group. On the contrary, he needed to know he’d fit in fashion-wise…

So there he is in his cool “gi,” looking the part. The class started while he was still trying to tie the thing up in 4 places, but he came scampering out of the change room to join the “courtesy, discipline, respect” bows-in-progress with an air of such entitlement and capability that I was teary with pride before he even introduced himself to the instructor. From the get-go, he was unusually (for him) engrossed in the training: he didn’t so much as glance at us for at least 20 minutes … and we were sitting 5 feet away. After that, he shot us only occasional looks of happy self-satisfaction, a smile that seemed to say: “I’m nailing the high block, hey?”

Our son was, in fact, almost unrecognizable. Where’s the boy who hangs back from the group and loses interest within minutes, finally wandering away to do something on his own? Sam-san is clearly here to learn. He wasn’t fazed in the least by being the only newbie. He half-fumbled his way through most of the stretch exercises and the motions of ready position (instead of quickly crossing his arms across his body before firing them out and down, he pounds his chest like a dominant ape - it’s pretty cute). He never lost confidence, even mouthing along while the boys around him counted off their sit-ups in Japanese. And his comfort level with the instructors was made obvious by the fact that when it was his turn to walk the circle in “Ninja, Ninja, Turtle” (the ancient Chinese equivalent of “Duck, Duck, Goose”) he turtled his sensei and raced him back to his seat.

At times, his supreme efforts to mimic the sensei made us giggle. When the boys were posed together in a faux photograph and asked to stay perfectly still for 10 seconds (an exercise in discipline) the group was a stony tableau, right up until the instructor slowly raised an imaginary camera to his face to take the picture. Kneeling in the disciplined front row, Sam mirrored his actions precisely, lifting his own camera to his face. You could see the cogs working: “Copy the tall one. Copy the tall one..”

The sharp learning curve aside, he’s already showing signs of sheer genius, of course. Just try to strike a super-slo-mo kitten blow to the side of his calf and watch the block, baby! (actually, the block is delivered in a relatively respectful and subdued manner; it’s the follow-up high five, powered by pride, that has the quality of agile attack). But who knows how far their initial interest will take Sam and Carter? For now, it’s a lot of fun to watch them jump into something so eagerly. And in such cute outfits.