(Retroactive reflection 10.14.19)
It's hard for me to even encapsulate in one post all that Summer Camps 2019 was for me. Being Summer Camp Director was probably the most significant leadership role and responsibility that I've ever taken on. Months of planning and preparation and forethought and stress went into those five weeks, and that was only half the battle, because once camp started, there came a whole other host of problems and worries and tasks to attend to. By the end I was exhausted. I was ecstatic. There are dozens of stories I could tell about those five weeks - like the time a kid found a pack of cigarettes on the walk back to the school from the park and shouted quite loudly "illegal drugs!" or the time that a child, in a twenty-four-hour period, gave himself a black eye and wet his pants during hide-and-seek because he didn't want to leave his hiding spot. But all of those stories would take hours and more blog posts than my poor fingers could type, so instead I'll just list some things I learned. Isn't that the point of reflection, and experience, and life overall? To find a few tidbits you've learned that you can take away with you?
"By far Harry Potter camp week has been the BEST AMA camp experience ever. (child's name) has loved it. And if Ms. Zoë is the mastermind/creative genius responsible for this summer camp, she is absolutely amazing. Truly a gem. Bravo."
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One of the responsibilities I was honored to take on at my job this year was control over our children's self defense program. I assisted previously in leading numerous kid's "bully defense" workshops, and had more experience working with kids directly than my coworker who ran our self-defense program, a kickboxing and Crossfit instructor. One of the major changes I wanted to make to our children's programs was to make the language and ideas we were presenting in our workshops consistent with our adult programs. For instance, in our teens and adults workshops, we present ideas about trusting our intuition in self-defense situations. I felt this idea was important to include when talking to our kids as well, if in slightly different terms. I worked with Annie, the head of our self-defense program to update the lesson plans for our quarterly children's workshops to reflect some of these changes. I then got to put my new ideas into practice while leading a workshop in mid-May. We will continue to experiment and tweak this curriculum moving forward in order to offer the best possible programs for our kiddos.
(Retroactive reflection 10.14.19) Shockingly, part of being a martial arts instructor is actually keeping up with my own martial arts practice. I've been pretty good about this over the years, attending my own class at least twice a week, for exercise as well as fun. However, what I have not been nearly as good at is keeping up with my testing. The way black belt testing works in American Kenpo, the system I practice, or at least at my school, is this: From white belt to brown belt, you advance in rank every three months. At brown belt, the process slows down considerably, and it takes about twelve to eighteen months to advance from brown to black belt. There are two levels of black belt, junior (for ages sixteen and under) and adult (for sixteen and up). Once you're a black belt, you can get 'degrees' on your belt, in order to keep training and advancing. One year after you get your black belt, you can test for first degree, then two years after that, second, and so on, all the way up to tenth, the highest kenpo ranking. I earned my junior black belt at twelve years old. By an unlucky series of events and timing, I somehow missed nearly every junior degree test offered, and went straight from junior to adult at age sixteen in fall 2016 without having earned any degrees. This seems to have foreshadowed my path of advancement through kenpo. By spring 2019, my boss was (jokingly) exasperated. At that point, if I had tested on time, I could be at second degree, but alas, I still had just a regular adult black belt. Through some hefty peer pressure by my coworkers and karate friends, and a promise by several of them to test alongside me, I was persuaded to sign up for my first degree exam just three months before the test was to take place (far less time than a usual prep cycle). In preparation, it definitely helped that I already knew most of the curriculum I needed, being so long overdue to test, and having taught a lot of it to students regularly. Even so, my coworkers and I committed several classes a week and even extended practice sessions on weekend mornings to practicing and polishing and prepping. I completed the written portion of the exam, attached below (and actually turned it in on time - more than many of my coworkers could say!) We even convinced my boss to rearrange the schedule for the day of the exam so that we could also teach our usual kids' classes beforehand. By the time the test came around, I was more than ready mentally. But memorization and preparation is only part of the black belt exam. The other part is strength, both physical and mental, to survive a six-hour testing day, to test endurance and flexibility, power and intensity. It had been a long time since I had been on this side of the exam, rather than seated at the judge's table with a clipboard and diligent notes. With the support of my friends, both from karate and from outside who had come to watch, I survived the day, and received my rank. I even stayed for the graduation ceremony that followed for the children receiving colored ranks, despite being encouraged quite forcefully to go home.Though exhausted and sweaty, I was happy. I was proud of my accomplishments, my dedication and my follow-through. Who knows, maybe in two years, I'll actually test for my second degree on schedule!
(Reflection done retroactively, 10.14.19)
Every December at my karate school, we award 'End of the Year' awards to our students. These are usually based on a number of character traits, including Positive Attitude, Perseverance, Leadership, Courtesy, and more. We also do 'student of the year' awards in our various age groups and levels. I look forward to this process every year - in 2018, I started writing my list of nominees in July. I love getting to recognize our students for their achievements, and even better, for the small acts of kindness and goodness they perform every day. "Black Belt of the Year" is the most coveted of our awards at AMA. Black belt is the highest rank in our school, so already there are years of hard work and dedication involved even to be considered in the category. The black belts in our school are on the whole committed and talented and wonderful. Of this spectacular group, I never imagined that I would be the one singled out for recognition. This award was meaningful to me in a number of ways. For one, as mentioned above, I hadn't even considered myself to be in the caliber to receive this award, given my competition. I also was given the award in the midst of one of my biggest challenges to date working at Alpha and as a teacher (my coworker and I were running a week of "winter camp" for a particularly difficult group of children and understaffed to boot). This award was exactly the motivation I needed to push forward and finish out the week, to remind myself that I was talented and capable and this challenge would not be my undoing. Finally, this award was meaningful because it was proof that the time and passion and energy I pour into my job, the hours spent there over other activities, the effort I put into little things, like hand-writing postcards to students or learning every single child's name, and big things like assistant-directing summer camps or taking on the role of head instructor for our Saturday classes for the fall, did not go unnoticed. It was proof that I was recognized and valued and appreciated in a community I adore. On May 17th, I got the opportunity to co-run a leadership training for our team of 2019 summer camp staff and volunteers. Though as this year's summer camp director, this was well within my job description, I was ecstatic. I have been wanting to run a leadership training since the moment I became an instructor at Alpha Martial Arts, having spent years in the leadership program myself as a child, from the moment I was eligible at age eight until I was hired at fifteen. My coworker and I poured hours into this training, crafting a descriptive lesson plan (included below) based upon previous camp trainings we've watched our boss run, and ensuring we had everything we needed for this event to run smoothly. Though initially worried about how well we'd gotten the word out, I was delighted by how many staff and volunteers attended. Our activities ran as smoothly as I could have hoped, from our talk-through of a typical camp day and what leadership roles might correspond, to our practical training on the floor, practicing teaching basic moves and reprimanding naughty 'campers' (acted out with far too much joy by volunteers from our team). I am pictured above (wearing my bright pink shirt, always one to stand out), talking the group through an activity on good-finding: purposefully trying to find things to compliment that a student does well amidst anything they might be doing wrong, as a method of building confidence. I am totally in my element here: comfortable despite the crowd, excited and passionate about the ideas I'm sharing. We have another camp training coming up in June, and already, I cannot wait for what it will entail.
I have a part time job teaching kenpo karate classes to children. This is my fourth year working at this job, and my tenth year training in martial arts in general. My job is one of my great prides and joys - I value very deeply the opportunity to instill in my students the same kind of confidence, self-discipline, leadership, courtesy, respect, and kindness that I myself learned there as a child.
Over my time working at Alpha Martial Arts, I have been given more responsibilities and important leadership roles as I've grown as an instructor. Recently, I was put in charge of running one of our monthly Parent's Night Out events, where around twenty-five children between the ages of four and twelve are put in our care for three hours as we feed them pizza and attempt to control the chaos. For this particular event, the usual person who is in charge of PNOs got sick at the last minute, and we weren't sure whether he'd be well enough to attend or run the event. Since I was the next-highest ranking instructor, and had spend the past summer chasing after wild kiddies as assistant director of our summer camp program, I was tasked with potentially running the event in his stead. I got to work - crafting a lesson plan for the evening based on my boss's outline, tasking myself with running our craft for the evening (pumpkin decorating) and delegating other responsibilities to my coworkers, checking to be sure we had all the supplies our other coworkers had purchased earlier in the week. I was ready, and my team was as well. In the end, my coworker who was supposed to run the PNO ended up being well enough to attend, but I still ended up taking on more responsibility than usual - I hadn't done all that planning for nothing! I led about half of the activities for our kiddos, and took care of behind-the-scenes work while others were in charge - like assuring that the pizza was delivered, and we had enough plates and such for all our kids! I was very proud of the event's outcome - everything ran relatively smoothly, and the kids had a blast. I felt like I had found a nice balance between being in charge when I needed to, and letting others run the show. I love working with my coworkers - we all get along well, and are able to share responsibilities so no one feels entirely overwhelmed. In the future, I look forward to continuing to take on leadership roles in my workplace, and having a blast with kiddos at the same time! Pictured above are some photos I snapped of our students and their pumpkins, as well as a couple on our karate mats. I have a part time job teaching kenpo karate classes to children. This is my fourth year working at this job, and my tenth year training in martial arts in general. My job is one of my great prides and joys - I value very deeply the opportunity to instill in my students the same kind of confidence, self-discipline, leadership, courtesy, respect, and kindness that I myself learned there as a child.
Our students have the opportunity to earn new belts every three months, if they have passed their previous two monthly tip tests (progress checks). Pictured here is me passing one of my long-time students on her test for brown belt. Brown belt is the level at which students begin the intensive process of black belt prep at our dojo, and must display quite a few extra skills in addition to their regular curriculum in order to pass this test. Thus, this occasion was momentous for both this student, and for me as her instructor. I've been teaching this kiddo for quite some time, and have been so proud impressed in her focus and commitment and how much improvement she's shown over time. I can't wait to see her test for her black belt in a little over a year! |
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