The After School Program requires a lesson plan for each week’s classes. I had already written plans to take us through the end of the year. The kids had been learning the required materials and subjects laid out in the plans. I was quite pleased with their progress.

In the middle of class the door flew open and in walked the Program Director. The students all turned and faced her, bowed and shouted: “Please Teach Me”. The Director was clearly surprised and pleased with this show of discipline and respect. She expressed her thanks for the welcome and then announced that there will be a Winter Holiday Spectacular Show performance on December 17th and we were to take part showing the new Martial Arts Program.

I realized that whatever I had planned for class over the next few weeks had to be revised to prepare the kids for the show. The plans needed to be accelerated. I wanted to have the students perform Kata as well as the blocking I had just begun teaching them. We began to work on the show material immediately.

For the next two weeks, the basic exercises were bypassed and we went straight into Kata practice as well as working on blocking routines.