Eden and Tae-Kwan-do

We came to a point where a decision had to be made about what to do with Tae-kwan-do. She was loving it all, except when they had to jump so it was making it very unpleasant. Here's a little back story...

When Eden was little, we had a couple different physical therapists that would come work with her. Typically, a person's natural reflex when they are falling is to put out their arms to catch themselves. Preemies don't have this natural reflex and will instead just fall on their face and are much more likely to hurt themselves. As a toddler, the physical therapists would come and try to tip her over and teach her to put her arms down to catch herself. It never really caught on great though.

So add this lack of the natural ability to catch a fall, to (1)the fact that for years she has been extremely cautious when it comes to physical things, and (2) her trach made her endurance and ability to be super physical really difficult anyway because she could never really catch her breath. So physically, she has a lot going against her.

She has loved tae-kwon-do, all except the parts when they jump because she is so scared to fall (and I don't blame her!)  She has tried it several times in class, and unfortunately did have two really bad and painful falls. Because of this, she gets so stressed before class starts because she knows at some point they will have to jump. It broke my heart to see her struggle with it because she wanted to be there and do everything else, but unfortunately can't really progress if she skips all the jumping things. It was getting to the point that she was getting stomach aches in class because she was getting so nervous so we just had to call it quits.

I'm so proud of her and all the progress she made. I'm so proud that she was brave enough to keep going and trying and pushing herself to be better. For now, we will take a break and enjoy our summer and we will see what, if anything, she wants to try next.

Great job Eden!