SFMARTIALARTS.COM: SAN FRANCISCO MARTIAL ARTS

We’ve got one next week and one the week of April 9th-13th.

Camps are a great week (or day) of fun, exercise, adventure and martial art skill development.  We cover safety and self awareness, basic martial arts stance, kicks, blocks and strikes, introductions to forms, adventures in Golden Gate Park.

Kids from different schools, classes, neighborhoods, families, come together to laugh, learn and grow in a safe, exciting, and encouraging environment.  When they leave they’ve made new friends, developed new skills and had a lot of fun doing it.

Our last Day Camp sold out, so if a Paresh Day Camp is something you’d like your child to experience, sign up ASAP!

Camps are a great way to expose your child to something new, like martial arts, or give your child added exposure and training.  We offer Day Camps through out the year, MLK, SFUSD Furlough Days, Black Friday after Thanksgiving, and weeks of camps during the spring, summer and Holidays.

Days are filled with healthy fun, offering focused training sessions in Tang Soo Do (Korean Karate), outdoor adventures in Golden Gate Park, reading time, our infamous “self defense freeze tag” and much more.

Voted Red Tricycle’s 2011 “Totally Awesome Sports & Fitness Class” and proud of Five Star status on Yelp! Paresh is really is a totally, healthy, positively awesome place for your child to spend their Days!

Special events are even more special at Paresh.  Birthday Parties are a great example.  Kids get excited every year about their birthday party: themes, colors, kind of cake, what to do, who to invite.

Ever thought about a karate birthday party?  What could better than dropping your child with all of his or her friends off to enjoy a 90 minute or longer (your choice) party that you do not have to do anything for!?!

And, for your son or daughter- kicking, punching, self defense, board breaking and the finale of the birthday boy or girl cutting their cake with a sword.

Could it get any better?  A fun, interactive, physically engaging party that is a good time and good for the birthday crew!  Plus it’s a no hassle, no stress option for parents.

Birthday Parties at Paresh.  They’re perfect!

Call to arrange.

Kids and Karate go hand in hand.  It’ simply a great way to explore the physical, emotional and mental.  For all of us.  But today I’m writing about kids.

Paresh is one of the few, if not ONLY, studios in San Francisco that has programs for toddlers.  That’s right toddlers.  Why?  Because at their age, what they are developing, is so crucial and what we do at Paresh supports their growth in a multi-faceted experience.

Our classes create a safe enviroment to fully explore and develop physicall movements: running, jumping, kicking, punching and blocking.  These movements require focus, attention to how their little arms, legs, feet and hand step, bend, twist, point, flex.  Their brains work to create the neuron connections required for these actions.

The mental and emotional experience of being dropped off, learning how to play with others, using their words not their bodies, these are the social dynamics that they are beginning to develop.  It is so crucial that they find comfort in their bodies,  strength through their words and confidence in themselves.

This is why we offer our Family Program and Tiny Tiger Program.  In our Family Tiger Cubs class parents in toddlers (2.5-3) train together.  This class develops what I wrote of above as well as further the Parent-Child Partnership, which is so key in their growth.  The Family class is offered at three times, for three different ages groups 2.5-3, 3-4, 5-6 on Saturday mornings.  The Tiny Tiger program is a drop off program which meets four times during the week in the afternoons.  The class is for 3-4 year olds.

Dexter is 4, he’s a Tiny Tiger and he rocks.  He has learned the stripe system and often will let me know at the beginning of class what color his next stripe is, what it’s for and that he thinks he’s ready to test.

He understands skill=stripe.  He knows earning all his stripes means he tests for a new belt.  He is relating to goals, setting them and accomplishing them.  This is something we all do, everyday- from I’m only going to have one cup of coffee to I’m going to be home by 6:00 because I told my partner I would be.

As you can see, goals, setting them and keeping them is part of being a person with integrity.  Having integrity is simply doing what you said you’d do, when you said you’d do it.  Does Dexter understand this?  At four?  No, not in those words.

But he’s found a level of importance to learning and earning.  He has experienced that when he learns a skill, demonstrates it proficiently, he is rewarded with his stripe.  He learning the structure of goals, setting them and making them.  In doing so he is laying the foundation of integrity.

This is not about stripes.  It’s about life skills, it’s about the Codes and Tenets and Purposed all our students at Paresh train according to.  It goes far beyond the Dojang (studio) door.  I becomes part of the who Dexter is.

Case in point, last weekend Dexter went to Tahoe and took a snowboarding lesson at my old resort, Northstar.  Snowboarding is challenging to learn, especially at his age, when the bones are soft and balance is subject to so many variables.  But, he’s dad rides and when you’re a little guy, you often what do follow in those footsteps.

Dexter’s dad shared with me in class this week that Dexter had a hard time in the lesson.  The break through happened when he said, ”It’s like the stripes in Karate.”  Something clicked for him.  Like putting one foot in front of the other, the steps, the connection between movements, learning skill before skill, Dexter got it.

The weekend ended with Dexter riding all the way down to the base of the mountain!  When his dad shared this story with me it gave me chills.  This is why we train.  It’s not about fighting, it never has been.  It’s about a being able to learn, grow and succeed in whatever you choose.

Thanks Dexter.

Camps for floating holidays, SFUSD furlough days, Spring Breaks and Summer time are available at Paresh. Camps are open to all Paresh students, their friends, as well as to new comers, and students of other Martial Arts.

Camps are a great way to introduce new students to the Martial Arts, generically referred to as Karate.  Students will be exposed to all facets of Tang Soo Do, a traditional Korean Karate.  From the basics (stance, blocks, kicks and strikes) to hyungs (forms) self defense, sparring and staff.

Karate Camp is a great alternative to traditional Camps as it is’s focus is on health, self defense, self awareness and as the students say at the end of class “to become a better person, Ma’am!”

All Karate Camps at Paresh are fun and engaging.  Each day consists of a morning reading time, four training sessions, snack (provided), lunch (brown bag), time outside in San Francisco’s beautiful Golden Gate Park and the weeek completes with a Demonstration for their families.

Consider signing your child up for a Karate Camp at Paresh this year.  It will be one of their best experiences of 2012!  Sign up here!

My family has been visiting for the past week.  It is so wonderful to be able to share time, conversation and even silence together.  Watching my parents interact I quickly see myself in them and am constantly touched by how close, how similar, how much we share.

Martial Arts are familial, passed down from generation to generation.  Today, this lineage is less present here in the US, but that does not mean it is weakened.  The connection, the passage of time, the bonding between parent and child, traditionally father and son, is still available to us.  Training with your children is an amazing way to grow together, learn together, spend time together.

I am honored when I look out in our our Teen & Adults classes and see father and son, mother and daughter next to each other.  We are creating a new tradition, here in the new world, in a new age of Martial Arts.

On Saturday mornings in our Family Classes, again, parent and child together, developing ancient techniques, bringing the mind and body together, cultivating that which is the true sense of the Martial Arts: connection with the self and the world around you.

May the Martial Arts always be familial.

What a weekend!  We had Day Camp on Friday and then hit the road early Saturday morning to compete in Fitness Fanatics‘ Fourth Annual Wine Country Karate Open (WCKO).

First, Day Camp was a blast!  We had four great training sessions, complete with a solid sparring session and trip to the Children’s Playground in Golden Gate Park.  Let’s just say some happy and tired kids went home Friday evening.

The WCKO was great, Master Jim DeBaca’s team of Black Belts did an amazing job running a smooth and very organized tournament.  From the Judges meeting to the Cross Championship Awards, they did a great job!

Team PMA was fantastic.  I was so proud of our students, our Black Belts, our Instructors and our Parents.  Everyone was friendly and respectful, it was an honor to be in a Paresh uniform and to watch everyone compete with just poise, power and perseverance.

The Paresh Team sent 25 competitors to the floor on Saturday and went home with 40 medals.  Everyone is a part of this success, regardless of the hardware around their next or in their hands.  The team, parents, instructors included, made this day a huge success.

Ko map sum ni da!

Yesterday he held our first Gup test of 2012.  In the Junior division we had six students testing for their first time and five students testing for advanced rank.  Juniors are always a mixed bag of energy, especially on testing days.  Some come in with wides eyes, very cautious and hesitant others come in some are so excited they don’t know what to do with themselves!

This test was exciting with all the new students testing, two of which were students that had graduated from our Dragon Program.  They two were not new at all, both having been Dragons for over a year and having tested in their respective program.

But a Gup test is different.  There’s more material, a longer testing time, higher expectations and greater intensity.  In short it’s a big jump and the bar is high.

One student in particular rose to the occasion.  They all did, the test was one of the best tests in a long time.  But one student, one of the Dragon graduates, really stepped it up.  She was focused.  She was confident.  She was strong and powerful.  She was present.

It’s the last one that made the difference.  Present.  She showed up.  She showed up in a way that she had never done before.  She impressed the panel with her intensity and her focus.  Amelia made her move from Dragons to Juniors on Saturday, officially, with closing the event by earning “Best in Test”.

Losing is hard.  Losing someone is even more so.  Losing a parent, a healthy one in their prime is beyond what any of us every dream of.  This past week we lost a father.

 

Our PMA community member, Scott M., whose son Matthew is in our Juniors program,  suffered a tragic cardiac event last week.  The damage to Scott’s brain was extensive, and he has died.  We are a close community and Scott was often in the studio watching class, so we share the burden of this profound loss with Matthew, his mom, Shaun, and the rest of their family.  I will have colorful cards of paper available at the studio this week and next for anyone who would like to write a note of support and love to the family.  These will be collected and delivered next Friday(2/17).  

As I did with the loss of a PMA parent last year, I will share the news with the older students (Juniors and Teen/Adult classes) and invite them to offer support for their friend using the colored cards as well.  Everyone grieves and processes loss differently.  Children process loss differently than adults.  Your child may or may not wish to talk about this at home.  Depending on their age and temperament, some children prefer to do some processing on their own or with their peers; some go into their rooms and spend time with toys, music, or pets; some want to talk to adults.  Even if they aren’t talking, you may notice your child staying a little closer to you than normal; sitting in the kitchen instead of their room to do their homework, wanting a hug more often than usual, or asking you to tuck them in.  Or you may not. 

I have included a link below that can serve as resources for how to talk with children about death and dying.  I am continually amazed and grateful for the power of this community, and know that our show of love for Shaun and Matthew will mean a lot in this difficult time.  Thank you all for your strength.

http://www.hospicenet.org/html/talking.html