Leadership Training is great for all ninjas
Hello karate families. I am here to talk to you today about my experience with Cassie’s leadership team exposure. And I can’t say enough about the program and its effects that it’s had in Cassie’s overall experience through karate. It really, I feel, takes karate to a much deeper level and exposes her to pushing back, past new boundaries, setting goals, personally and in her karate also.
It also helps give the Ninjas exposure to community service. And also the huge benefit, I feel too, is that she has mentorship, goes on a much deeper level with the kiddos too. Every couple of weeks, we get to also do weapons training, which is something new within the last year. Cassie so far, has been able to learn how to do Kamas, and work with those and become competent in doing different tricks, and even a kata with the Kamas. And now she is just starting to work with the bo.
So, every time that we go to leadership, she’s excited. She is learning new challenges for her self improvement, and being a leader to everyone that she comes in contact. Not even when she’s just helping out in karate class, but also taking those leadership levels to the real world, and when she goes to school. She recently was challenged to do a video presentation in her classroom, with her teacher’s permission. And gave a presentation on how to be a nice kid and how to do a polite introduction. I know at my age, doing an oral presentation in junior high on a book that I read, I was shaking, I was very nervous, feeling butterflies and sick to my stomach.
And here she is, eight years old, and asking permission to her teacher to do this. And practiced it at home, and took it to her classroom, and had all of the kids interacting, and practicing the polite introduction during it. And even brought her teacher to tears that she was spreading such positivity and helping kids learn how to make friends and be nice to one another. And challenging the whole class to do this for a week. It’s just amazing. And this is just one of the things that she’s done.
The major thing that she really loves about leadership is helping out in the younger kids’ class and leading them in their exercises, and helping Shihan during some of the drills that he does during the class time. She really looks forward to that and that mentorship and coaching that he has given her, to feel confident. It’s just grown like ten-fold. I can’t even describe to you how much it has improved her self-esteem and confidence and how she carries herself and how she talks.
Cassie came into karate a very quiet, meek girl, who even in our comfortable family setting with just her sister and dad, and myself, we would always be like, “Cassie, we can’t understand what you’re saying, you’re talking too quietly.” And now she goes from that, and being in karate for three years and leadership a year and a half, to where she is the loudest kid in class. Not afraid to be in front, leading the younger kids’ exercises, and asking them to please be louder.
There’s so many positive benefits to it. So if it’s anything that you are unsure of, or wanting more information about, I just have such positive feedback to share with you, and the experience that it’s given Cassie, and continues to give Cassie. And just the real-world life applications that Shihan puts into place and changes them up, all throughout the year, and gives them leadership goals that they can practice in the real world, has just really grown Cassie as a person to have such self-confidence, and feel more secure in herself. And to really be a leader in her school, and to all she comes in contact with.
So that’s my take on it. And I am very, very pleased with the program overall. So thank you Shihan for this opportunity to tell everybody how much leadership has meant to our family, and karate overall. Happy holidays everybody. Take care. Bye.