Kiyop

Sammy developed a facination for fighting sometime after he began his love affair with Spiderman. I think it was seeing Spidey taking out all those bad guys. Since then, he's also discovered Power Rangers, Fantastic Four, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Superman, Batman, and others. (As parents, we don't care for a few of these.) He also has a habit of finding fighting type games online, some of which we've had to ban for their violence level. He can be seen slinging web and fighting pretend bad guys throughout the house. He truely loves it.

So we made the decision to get him involved in martial arts training. Not only would it be fun but it would add many other benefits: physical fitness (strength, muscle tone, cardiovascular health), responsibility, discipline, attentiveness, focus, respect, safety, and self-defense. Thus, we began the search.

We started at the YMCA because the program was accepted as part of our homeschool-public school parent partner program. Aikido was the only class that accepted his age so we began there. The class was canceled too often so we have moved on to taekwondo at a local do jang. Sammy loves it and, after only 3 classes, received his first stripe on his white belt. After receiving 4 stripes, he will be able to test for his yellow belt. He is learning the steps in the required routines very easily and practices several times a day at home. He only needs to work on his power and crispness in each move.

The photo above was taken today during class. He's posing in the eighth step of an 8-step white belt routine. On the last movement, you yell "Kiyop!" Sammy's an excellent Kiyop-er. ~smile~

**Note: Kiyop is Korean for yelling and is pronounced "i-ya."