The energy from the children’s class is powerful.  Twenty happy, flushed smiling faces, all wanting to talk at once and tell sensei what they’ve been up to since the last lesson creates a level of chaos that frightens lesser instructors and leaves them depleted after their struggle to contain and direct the chaos for 45 minutes.

But sensei has a different method, it’s almost like he is one the kids, but maybe the leader of the gang, he immerses himself gleefully into the sea of energy, floating easily within, and almost imperceptibly guiding the flow….  Often it seems that the children are deciding what to do – and yet if you look carefully, you can just see the work of sensei’s guiding hand…

“What shall we do now?”  The hands shot up 

“Janine?”

The energy from the children’s class is powerful.  Twenty happy, flushed smiling faces, all wanting to talk at once and tell sensei what they’ve been up to since the last lesson creates a level of chaos that frightens lesser instructors and leaves them depleted after their struggle to contain and direct the chaos for 45 minutes.

But sensei has a different method, it’s almost like he is one the kids, but maybe the leader of the gang, he immerses himself gleefully into the sea of energy, floating easily within, and almost imperceptibly guiding the flow….  Often it seems that the children are deciding what to do – and yet if you look carefully, you can just see the work of sensei’s guiding hand…

“What shall we do now?”  The hands shot up.

“Janine? 

“I lost my tooth last night… look!”  Janine opened wide to reveal the yawning gap.

“I hope you left it under your pillow for the tooth fairy.”

“Yeah…  I got 50p and an IOU for the other 50p on Friday!”

“The tooth fairy must of run out of change!  Sensei smiled benevolently as he realised that she came from one of the poorer families.   Come on now, what shall we do next?”  The hands shot up again 

“Reece?”

“Paul keeps poking me in the back..” 

“Paul…   we don’t want the ‘time out’ corner again do we…  Paul shook his head.  And remember that grades are only kept with good behaviour…. 

“C’mon guys…”  The hands shot up again.

“C’mon kids – let’s go, basic techniques!”  Sifu’s voice was infectious; the kids loved the repetition of basics and counting in various languages….

“Punching in Chinese!”  The children all shouted as they punched…

“Yat – yee – sam – sei
 – ng – yuk
- chaat
- paat
- kau!”

“Good….. Front kick in Japanese!”

“Ichi – ni – san – shi – go – rokku – zitch – hatch – kyu – jyu!”

“Well done guys!  Sit down…. legs crossed and arms folded.” The kids sat down immediately with their legs crossed and arms folded, wide-eyed and eager to learn.