On Friday afternoons I teach three back to back kids classes, starting with 3 and 4 year old beginners and ending with my most advanced 6-8 year olds, who are yellow belt and higher. Yesterday I had my group of 5 reviewing one of their old blue belt katas. About halfway through I stopped them and shook my head. "That was terrible." One of my little yellow belts, a smart, skilled 7 year old boy named Lennon laughed out loud, his eyes wide, shocked. Did I really just say that? "It is not my job to make you feel good," I explained. "It is my job to make you get better. If you got up there and did your best work but it wasn't perfect I would never call your kata terrible. But that kata that you guys just did was not your best. That was sloppy. I have seen you all do that same kata much, much better. I would be a bad teacher if you got up there and did a messy, lazy punch and I said "Good job!" You can do it much, much better. So do it." The