A fall sports update...
Jimmy - football is not going so well, they are currently 0-4 :( The team is infighting and they are having trouble following the coaches directions. They also barely have enough kids for a team so they are constantly changing positions, which makes it hard to get a groove going. This also means the other team just needs to outlast them as by the 4th quarter they are exhausted. Their last game was the best they played yet (and against Wayzata!!) and when I asked why - their response was ... well, we weren't fighting with each other... Good life lessons. Unfortunately, rather than rising to the challenge, Jimmy wants to switch teams next year. We are hoping they get a win and a little mojo back so that he'll change his mind but... reasoning with 13 yr old boys doesn't get you very far. Jimmy is playing wide receiver, offensive and defensive line and line backer. He's still extremely passionate and that lands him about 1-3 penalties a game. Thankfully he has some good friends on the team and I swear there is a posse of 13 yr old boys at our house non-stop. (Just waiting for the day that the girls start coming over too - he's pretty darn cute in his uniform and I'd suspect there are a fair number of crushes on him at school) The season ends in a month and then it's 2 months until basketball starts. God help us...Jimmy doesn't do well when he's not actively in a team sport...
Kay - gymnastics is going really well! She's in level 5 and that means 14 hours of practice/week plus an extra "private" session (about 16 hours total). Needless to say, she's ripped. The boys are all jealous of her 12 pack abs. She is busy learning her new floor routine and beams, bars. Vault still poses a problem as she's too fast and too light and just goes flying without much control. Her 1st meet is in November and then we have meets about every 3 weeks through until February. I suspect she'll do really well and I think she's ready to get back into competition.
Billy - Taekwondo is a change. It turns out that every dojong has its own forms, style and areas of focus. In Toronto, it was all about pomsae (patterns) and sparring in order to get ready for competition. Here its more about old Korean technique, weapons, self defensive and competitions are few and far between. BUT...this weekend, he did have a fun tournament. Of course he was nervous because he only have 2 weeks to practice his new patterns and get back into sparring shape (here you can punch and you couldn't in Toronto, so that's also new). He is really enjoying his coaches and donjong but its MUCH smaller than Toronto. He did ok in the meet, 3rd place in both pomsae and sparring. In pomsae, you can tell that he had a momentary brain fart and almost forgot what he was doing but them recovered. In sparring, he's a good 2-3 inches shorter than the other kids which means he has to kick harder and higher in order to get his points. He put up a good show and it was good for him to get back into the swing of things but he also wished he had done better. I think there will be about 4 tournaments a year here (vs 8 in Toronto) and its a bit of be careful what you wish for... If he does too well, he'll be invited to the traveling team. Not so bad you think, travel around MN, right? WRONG! Its a team that travels the US. Not sure I want him making that team or not:)
