Something needs to be said.

I just wanted to say that rainflowermoon is a wonderful person, and a fine human being.

Oh, and she is NOT a racist.

That is all.

A busy day at the dojo

Its way past my bedtime, but I wanted to post before the day's events left my head.

Made it to the staff meeting at the Dojo this morning, but alas Dan-6-dan, and Michael-1-dan could NOT make it because of a class they were teaching at an area school, but had failed to tell anyone until it was too late. But when all is said and done, this was probably for the best as what I got done may have been more difficult with their "input".

Basicly I monopolized the whole meeting with stuff about the Kizan Kids program which I officially took over today. I won't go into a lot of details, but I got many good suggesstions from the staff that was there, and I layed out the direction I want to take the program, and it got approved. I'm really feeling like its my baby now.

Another thing that happened in the meeting is that John, my Sensei, head of the school, found out just how much I have been carrying the teaching duties for the Mat Rats that he assumed Dan was doing. I don't know where this will go, but its out there now. It came up because we were talking about me teaching the after-school program at Don Riggio again this year, and I mentioned, "I don't know if I will have time with teaching both the Kizan Kids and the Mat Rats."

"Well, Dan's the teacher of the Mat Rats," says John.

"Yeah, but I teach every class. Dan pops in, but he does what he calls 'Director's work' out in the office and talking to parents and the like," says I.

Elaine chimes in, "Yeah when I've been here during those classes, Dan spent all the time out here in the office."

The conversation ended with a short, "Hmm," for Sensei.

I'll still do what Dan wants me to with the Mat Rats for now, but I am thinking that more of my energy needs to go to the Kizan Kids.

After the meeting, Sensei had me help out with an introductory lesson. That was kind of fun. Adter that, I did something I've been wanting to do for months: I framed and hung my Black Belt Certificate on the wall, right beside those of the other teachers. That felt great.

I ran home for a quick lunch, then back to the dojo for my first Solo class of "MY" Kizan Kids. I think they went really well. The students seemed to really dig the new "flavor". It was a great feeling of being able to do it the way *I* thought best.

All in all, a pretty exhausting day.

Next Step: Business Cards with a title of "Chief Instructor, Kizan Kids" (hmmm maybe too many words and too pretentious, maybe just "Instructor"?)

Step after next: try to get paid for all this work.