She'll do just fine

My 6-going-on-36-year-old daughter has been bugging us to start karate class. Since her brother has been playing flag football since school started (football practice is every damned afternoon after school and not at the school but at the park across the street from Frank Beard's - ZZ Top's drummer - "Top 40" ranch) and since she has opted not to play soccer this fall, we decided she should have the opportunity to do some kind of sport stuff between now and the time she enters sixth grade and can play football, too. [Damn! That's a seriously long and rambling sentence!] So, yesterday I took her to an introductory karate class to see if she liked it before committing to REALLY start doing it regularly.

Before the rest of this exposition, though, a bit of background. First, my daughter is physically small for her age because she simply didn't grow for almost a year after surviving an e. coli infection at the age of 2. Second, she is missing the two outside toes on her right foot due to an accident. Third, she is an "old soul" and not at all timid or stupid; not either one of those by a LONG shot. Finally, the only karate class that we could manage to attend time-wise was one that was for kids ranging in age from 7 to 14 - and she's only 6. Over the phone, I explained all of the preceding to the owner/sensei at the school, and he ultimately agreed to evaluate her and possibly allow her to attend this particular class of older kids if he thought she could handle it. So, the session was both to see if she liked karate class and if karate class would like her.

We dropped her brother off at football practice and went to karate. As expected, she was the littlest one there. She was also only the second girl in a class of twenty kids; the other girl was 14. Including her, there were three beginners - white belts - and all of them did very well (or it looked like they did to me). By the time class was over, she was hooked and wanted to come back every day. But we had to see if she did well enough to come back at all, so she (OK, she and I) asked for the sensei's evaluation. He said that she did very well and was welcome to attend the class and then told her, "Give me five!" as he held out his hand. She laid a good hard five-smack on him and he grinned. Then my shy, retiring daughter loudly said, "Now I want to give you a REALLY BIG five!" He held out his hand, she raised hers and as she swung hers down, he pulled his hand aside and said, "You missed!" She said, "Again!" and the scene was repeated. She stopped and looked at him for a moment and then said, "One more time!" He held out his hand, she raised hers ... and side-kicked him in the shin with her right foot and just grinned while slapping his hand because he was too stunned to move it. He lost it then, laughing and saying, "Oh, she'll do just fine here!" Yes, she certainly will. Tuesday and Thursday are now karate days - if you're looking for her, she'll be the little fireball in pink sparring gear.