Show week!

This week was 'show week' for the kids in their various gymnastics/dance/karate classes. It's the end of the semester so they invite the parents and siblings and grandparents and second cousins and anyone else the family would like to have come into the gym during class to see how they've progressed. Duncan will be moving from the parent/child class to an independent class starting next week. He is happy to walk on the balance beam, work on the uneven bars, do forward and backwards rolls, monkey jumps (lead up to cartwheels), donkey kicks (lead up to handstands), bear walks, wheel barrows, and more. He is also very happy to run around on the red mat like a madman. :)

Sayer did okay in her karate class. It's the first semester they've offered it, and none of the kids in her class did a teriffic job with the kata/routine they performed. She's having fun with it, and it's reinforcing various gymnastics skills, so it's all good. Maybe after another semester things will start to click a bit more.

In her dance class, though, Sayer was the star! To be fair, she was the oldest child in the class and will be moving up to the next age group next semester.

Not only is she gaining in skill in dance and gymnastics (it's a combo class), she's very, VERY, self-confident. At the beginning of class they asked the students to sit in a circle and say not only their name (which is the normal beginning of class), but also to introduce the family members who'd come to see their performances. They went around the circle with each child telling their name and introducing and waving/blowing kisses to their family. They were about 3/4 of the way around the circle when they got to Sayer. Of course she gave her name, but when the teacher asked 'and who came to watch you today?' she did *not* follow the example of the 6 or 7 children who had gone before her and say 'Mommy and Duncan.' Oh no. What did she say?

'Everyone who is here today!'

Yep. She's ready for the stage. :)

So they did a 10 minute ballet routine, followed by a 10 minute tap routine. These routines were all done as a group with no solos. Sayer did very well. Then we moved to they gym to have a tumbling routine and a bar routine. These routines were done by each student in turn, and it was clear that they were having the children do their routines in order of skill, not age. Sayer went last for both routines. Her routines had the same basic steps that the other students had, but hers were a slightly higher degree of difficulty. And she *rocked!*