Yesterday, due to a snow storm, 7-y-o Emma, (yellow belt rank) was the only student in my 10 am karate class.  We had great fun. She did good work on her punching, kicking, self-defense, kata, and running laps.  She worked hard and then, at the end of class, we got ready to play the game where we try to grab a colorful strip of cloth from each other's belt, while also defending our own strip of cloth.  It doesn't really have a name, that game, but yesterday Emma changed it up.  (I think this girl has an imagination that matches my own!)  She said that I would be the wild duck and she would be the fox.  (Laughing so much right now.  I'm much bigger than she is, much faster than she is, and am a lot more skilled than she is, yet she cast herself as the fox and me as the poor little duck.  So funny!)  So she chased me around the mats trying unsuccessfully to grab my green cloth strip (and getting a ton of exercise in the bargain), and then sometimes I chased her too, pretending that I was a big and unusually ferocious wild duck.  We both made our respective wild animal calls and really had a good time.  She didn't like the fact that she never did win at the game, but she had to accept it and be willing to try again next time, so her character development got some exercise, too.  Sometimes I do let the kids win, but yesterday the duck really didn't think that fox have an easy time of it!  ha ha ha!

Emma makes me smile.  She is easily distracted and has lazy forward stances, but she has good, strong punches and a generally cheerful attitude.  I really like teaching karate.