Man oh man did the kids wake up silly this morning. When asked to put on his underwear, Lyric put it on no less than three silly ways:
And Zephyr decided he would "prank" me by making today's morning activity, Sweet Ninja Moves, look like it said "Stupid Ninja Moves".
I didn't mention it actually says "Stuped Ninja Moves". Prank: returned.
But despite the modifier, it was time for Sweet Ninja Moves. This was an activity designed by Lyric based on something Robin said during an episode of Teen Titans Go, and holy moley, if you've ever heard a 3 year old say "check out my sweet ninja moves", you know what cute is. Lyric designed it as a way to just jump around and pretend that he was fighting bad guys, but I took it and added some more structure to it. The idea is I try to teach them some element of martial arts. It should be noted that although I received many years of martial arts training as an elementary school lad, I am in no way a qualified instructor of martial arts. Fortunately, at this point in development for the kids, the instruction can be so basic that I'm pretty sure I'm giving about as accurate martial arts training as the most advanced sensei.
Today's lesson was about punching. I let them stand shoulder width apart, had them point their shoulders forward, and showed them how to do a karate punch: one arm out, elbow straight; one arm back, elbow bent, and then switch arm positions.
The point of this was to give them a bit of physical education, and for them to realize that there's a lot of stuff they can focus on in their body to achieve good technique. I wasn't the most enthusiastic student of karate when my parents forced me to take it as a kid, but I still completely remember the promotion I went for when I was 13 in karate and how focused I was that day, and I don't think I've ever been more focused in my whole life. That alone makes me think there's some value in teaching your kids this stuff.
I also taught them the foundations of the "Kiai", the short scream that you do at the end of a set when doing Karate, which was just a pretty fun thing to teach. And with that, I got out some construction paper so that we could break boards! Zephyr filmed this session with Lyric:
I tried to get Lyric to take a video of Zephyr breaking a board, but he kept on covering the camera with his fingers. We'll get there eventually.