Welcome back to The State of Stillness, now in blog form! If you’ve made it this far, you are now on our new website which is still very much under construction, but feel free to take a look and get an idea of what’s on the horizon.
Calendar: The Annual Chilly Wrap is on Wednesday, October 29th! Depending on the weather, the Chilly Wrap involves a nature walk and a dip in a chilly pool, followed by wrapping up by the fire and smores. The Neos traditionally jump in together, but you’re welcome to spend some time with us in the pool and by the fire, if you’re feeling adventurous!
Training review:
We had so much fun closing out the summer, between runs, parking lot training sessions, pool training, and our annual Back to School Sleepover (B2SS)!
The B2SS was a hit, and marks the most challenging weekend training for the Neos to date, as they woke up early for a Shaolin fundamentals review and training that really pushed the class (and their legs, haha).
As our littles become teens and tweens, their training will increase in intensity and maturity.
A recent nosebleed in class sparked a lesson what it means to train as Warrior Kids (hint: it means that if you train long enough, you’ll bleed). Over the years, we’ve seen bumps and bruises, cuts and scrapes, and the occasional menstrual leak. While we try our best to keep everyone safe and avoid bloody accidents, we encourage students to be comfortable with the inevitable, and celebrate these moments when they happen, because bleeding in class is a sign of the growth you were pursuing when it happened.
Additionally, as the wheels of puberty begin to turn, certain considerations become even more important.
We’ve always encouraged students of all ages to come to class with a clean body out of respect for their training partners, and this becomes even more important as our hormones kick in. Recent workouts have had us DRIPPING in sweat, and while sweaty contact is to be expected, fresh sweat and body odor is much friendlier to others, and safer for all from a microbial standpoint. We always clean our feet before class, but showering is even better, and is especially important if you’ve been very active or outdoors before class.
One of my favorite aspects of our work is sharing the opportunity for kids to grow together in a happy, healthy, and safe environment. It truly warmed our hearts during the B2SS to see the kids having such a great time being kids together; showing off their favorite stuffies; roughhousing; sharing stories they wrote to share at the B2SS; eating and sharing food with each other; and even braiding each others hair! Please enjoy some of these brief memories (plus some throwback photos) below.
Looking ahead:
As the weather begins to cool off, we’ll have fewer trips to the pool, and more class time indoors. We will still have some outdoor training, so students should continue to bring their usual packing list: short uniforms, socks, running shoes, water bottle, bathing suits, and towels. On indoor days, the short uniform will suffice, as we are currently ramping up our self defense and wrestling skills. One item we will be adding to our training bags this month is our 3-ring binder with paper and pencil.
That’s all for now! See you in the next update!
