Demonstration at Chaparral Elementary 2008-2009
In 2009 we were asked a few times to do a demonstration for our daughter Nico’s elementary school to get the kids excited about trying something new. (Nico is currently a 2nd degree blackbelt)
Not knowing how to do anything halfway, I wrote out a script to incorporate both Karate and Soccer into our 10 minute demo, and rehearsed the speaking and physical parts until we had it down (so we never read from notes).
We used the students from our karate school that attended the elementary to assist us in our demonstration in order to keep it in control, rather than have the entire school grades 1-5 running around.
We started with the karate, demonstrating warm-ups some kicks, blocks and self-defense. Then I took the mic and said, “now Master Zacharatos will magically turn into “Coach Zacharatos” all while Master Zacharatos took off his blackbelt and karate jacket, which revealed his Zacharatos ‘soccer’ t-shirt under it, and put his coach whistle and baseball cap on, then we transitioned into our soccer part of the demonstration.
In another demonstration, we did our blackbelt katas, and demonstrated escrima sticks “star wars” style with light up sabers! Showing the kids that in many of the action sci fi movies, alot of the high tech weapons you see, are really just the same moves in ancient weapon techniques we teach with the bo staff, escrima sticks, and nunchucks.
I saw the school video taped the demonstrations, but unfortunately I never got a copy of the videos, but did get some great photos. It was a great and fun experience, and always being prepared, not trying to wing it, always pays off!
