MAMA: Adventures in Martial Arts and Motherhood

On Thursday mornings I volunteer in a first grade classroom at my daughter's school. It is an ICT class, which stands for "Integrated Co Teaching", and basically means the class has two head teachers, plus an aide. The students are a mixed population of special ed kids, or more accurately kids who have an IEP (individual education plan) and have been identified to need some extra help, and general ed kids. Every public school classroom has a variety of learners in it, but this ICT class also includes a boy who cries frequently and most of the time would rather lie underneath his desk than sit at it. It is a tough environment for these teachers and they are all absolutely fantastic. Yesterday one of them showed the class a short video from Sesame Street, that starred Elmo and a rapper named Common singing about "belly breathing". You may have seen it on my Facebook page but I shared the link at the end of this post just in case. This is not the first time I

If you were anywhere near my Facebook account this weekend you may have noticed that we did some karate. There are multiple photographic records of this event. If you missed them, because you were doing something more valuable with your time than scrolling through Facebook, here is by far the most interesting of the bunch: This cool pic was created by a friend of Sensei Jennifer Rennie, a fellow Kenshikai karateka. It shows the magic that is created when 40+ people in gis show up to work out on a Sunday morning. (Apparently some really high level practitioners can hang from the ceiling like bats!) Ok obviously what this photo really shows is some pretty slick photo editing software. But the actual event, known as "Kagami Biraki", was kind of special. Wikipedia, the deeply wise source of all useful information, says: " Kagami Biraki  (鏡開き) is a  Japanese  traditional ceremony which literally translates to "Opening the Mirror" (from an abstinence)