Dance Recital and Martial Arts

Today we went to a dance recital for Munchkin #2. She was in a tap routine and it was as cute as can be. Unfortunately she was in the second routine. We then sat there to watch the rest of the dances for all age groups up to high school-age kids.

I took dance lessons from when I was about 10 till college and seeing some of the older girls dance made me cringe. I began picking apart the routines and finding the weakest and strongest dancers. I couldn't help it. The dance troupes I was involved with always had professional choreographers who were actually pretty demanding. I felt kinda bad being the audience critic but I couldn't help it. Sitting there I kept hearing the voices of some of my old choreographers shrieking, seeing some of the glaring errors. "Two, three, four! Keep in time! Point ze toes! Pretty hands! Nonono... Vatch ze poztuuuure! You are dancers not cave veeemen."

Needless to say, I have a bad feeling that I'm going to end up being one of those parents that will make my poor kids practice things till perfection. God help any daughters of mine who go into dance or worse yet, track and field. I made it to states three times in high school. Once for pentathlon and twice for the 100 high hurdles. Granted, the best I ever placed was third for hurdles, but then again it was hard when I went up against a few gazelles, two of whom went on to compete in the Olympics. But I digress.

The crazy thing is, I don't think Aaron will end up being any more lenient. He was there telling me he's planning on training our daughters in MMA techniques so in case they are on a date and the guy gets too touchy and become temporarily deaf, they can pretty much get him in an arm bar, a rear choke, olmaplata or just knock him the hell out. He wants me to get ANY kids we have into Tae Kwon Do young so that way they have a base to build from. (I so need to go back and actually finish getting my black belt). He's also pretty adamant about making sure any boys we have know how to defend themselves and/or take a punch, should they need it. He's serious about this too. I can appreciate this. Lord help us all.