The End of Taekwondo {Riley}

Sadly, Riley’s taekwondo career has come to an end. On June 9, he turned in his sticker chart: 45 classes completed. That meant he was finally going to get his trophy.

He missed a week of class because of our annual family beach trip, but he was back at it on Monday, June 19. He earned his last stripe that night (white, for forms), needed in order to be eligible to test for his next belt, and he got his trophy. He was so excited.

Rory, meanwhile, just wanted my phone back so he could continue watching his digger videos.

  

Riley went back and forth about whether or not to continue with classes. Some days he wanted to keep going; others he was ready to stop. However, since we paid for all of June and since he was now eligible to test for his next belt, I told him he had to at least finish out the month.

He ended up deciding that he wanted to stop. So on June 30 I took him to his last class. He also tested for his orange belt that night, and Dana brought Claire and Colin to watch him. Riley picked Claire to hold his board that he had to break. She did a great job!

Master Matt presented Riley with his new belt and flower. Then he sat down with us to watch the rest of his friends test for their next belts and then finish up class. (I think there were 8 testers that night; it was very crowded.) Oh, and he ended up winning his last round of dodgeball and got to hand out the stickers!

We took some photos and broke the news to Master Candace that Riley wouldn’t be coming back. Candace looked very disappointed at this; she said she hoped he would change his mind.

We told everyone goodbye and headed to Tutti Frutti for a celebratory treat. When I told Riley what Master Candace’s reaction was to the news that he wouldn’t be coming back, he was thoughtful for a moment. Then he said, “Well, I actually kind of like karate now. So maybe I’ll just take a break for a while and then come back to it.” Very interesting.

Regardless, I am so very proud of my Riley-bean for sticking with taekwondo for more than a year and for keeping up his end of our deal we made last June. He certainly came a long way in those 45+ classes, and I really do think he learned a lot. We shall see if he actually returns to class or not.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!