It's Only a Fail Because...

Noah has been doing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with me. He absolutely loves it. 

He had been asking me for a while to train with me, but I didn't think he would have the focus. Also, I was pretty sure that the majority of his motivation was to get a gi (the uniform people wear in BJJ). 

But, seeing as gis are expensive, I wanted to make sure that Noah was serious about training. So I made a deal with him that he had to finish an entire class without getting distracted by the other kids who were at the gym playing. The first class he came to was... kind of a bust. He did the warm-ups and some of the drills, but then he wanted to play with Luca and some of the other kids that were there. He didn't finish the class, therefore he didn't get his gi.

Devastation ensued. 

Noah, being the strategist that he is, asked me if he could come to afternoon classes with me. Usually, there aren't many kids in afternoon classes, so he said he wouldn't get as distracted. I agreed. And he did awesome! 

Noah has been coming with me to afternoon classes since then. He has been to two more classes and has learned an armbar from mount and guard, an omaplata, learned some things about retaining mount. He even did an inverted armbar. Like his Mommy, he is now loves Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Here are some pictures of him doing an omaplata.

This morning, when I was looking at Failblog while we were eating breakfast, we came across this picture.

"That baby in the yellow shirt is doing it right and that other baby is struggling to get out, right?" Noah asked.

I said, "Yep."

Noah said, "And that baby is doing the armbar just like I do."

Me, "Yep."

Noah said, "Did he let go when the other baby tapped?"

Me, "I don't know."

Noah, "Well I think he'll get in trouble if he doesn't let go. He will break the other baby's arm. And that's not nice for somebody's arm. Unless if it's a bad guy. It's only on Failblog because he didn't let go when the other baby tapped."