Karate Sunday

Spent the whole of Sunday at Islington (pronounced exactly as it is spelled) because Big H had his first ever karate upgrading event.

Mr S commented that I was more nervous than Big H and I suppose he was right, although I tried my best to hide it from Big H so that he won't feel it too!

Horror of horrors: Although I wanted everything to be perfect, still something went wrong: we arrived at the venue without Big H's white belt and so he had to go through his upgrading without his complete uniform!! Poor Big H! And he nearly didn't want to do it too because of his missing belt!!

While he was standing in the row of white belters during his upgrading (they were doing it in groups of 6 or 8 children), he still kept looking at me, indicating that his belt is missing and asked me to borrow a belt from someone! But no one was moving around and the hall was completely quiet so I can hardly go around and ask any of the other kids who were already sitting on the mat in the centre of the room to borrow their belts!!

I was trying to tell him with 'sign language' that he should just do it and forget about his belt but I guess it was obvious to everyone that we were 'talking' to each other so his examiner called out his name loudly and told him to look straight ahead and not talk to the people outside the mat! Oopps!

And when they started, Big H looked like he didn't really want to do any of it - he kept hunching his shoulders and not doing his moves properly but that only lasted for a few seconds because somehow or other, he 'got into' doing the movements and did actually follow all the instructions which was amazing to me because some of them were given in Japanese! I couldn't believe my 6 year old son can understand what that instructor was saying!

Belt or no belt, Big H did his 'kata' well enough although I have to say some other kids really looked like they were born into doing all those punches and kicks and karate chops. A little girl who was wearing a red belt and looked to be about 4 years old looked like she was ready to murder someone while she did her moves - her facial expression clearly showed that she was concentrating and dead serious about the whole thing. It was quite amazing to watch!

At the end of the day, the instructor announced that Big H passed and got his red belt (although we haven't actually bought him one - we were supposed to buy one for him outside the hall but there was no stock for the shorter ones suitable for little kids like him) and we took a picture of him, holding his license book, albeit without wearing any belt...

In the morning, everyone had a 1.5 hours training first before the upgrading started at 12.30pm.
And then they let the parents in for a photo op.
Can you spot Big H sitting on the floor? His sensei is the Italian guy standing on the left.


Practicing his kata before the upgrading began..

"Kiyai!"

Little H took these pics of Big H practising using their camera.

During the break before the upgrading, we had lunch at a Turkish restaurant at Seven Sisters. Food was glorious, seriously!

The upgrading started at about 12.45pm. Big H was in the 1st group of white belts to be called!

While waiting for the other kids' turn and also the results.


After the results: Big H with his license book - he's a red belt now!


Outside the venue: Big H with a karate stance and Little H with his Monster pose..