If you have ever been to VKE, you must be aware of our core philosophy that we can count the number of seeds in an apple, but can we count how many apples are there, in one seed? Similarly, it is unwise to anchor a child to certain limited activity that can’t utilize the quarter million neurons generated by that child’s brain per minute? (Glenn Doman ~“How to Multiply Your Baby’s Intelligence’), which is exactly what was done to us by our traditional education system. With the freedom of choice, any child, lead upon by their parental faith and belief in the secret power within the little ‘self’, can master any number of skills, sooner than anyone could perceive.
And proving this philosophy to be hardcore fact, Ayan Bairagi of PYP2 – Crystal, who is been training as a club level footballer, basketball player and an aspiring Pianist, has added another title of ‘Shotokan Karate Champion’ to his name, after bagging a Gold in ‘Kata’ level and a Bronze in ‘Kumite’ level Shotokan Karate Championship. Against 500 participants, he climbed up the hierarchy with persistence and marked another well-deserved victory. Now an Orange belt karateka, Ayan has now been selected for the next big Shotokan Karate Championship event about to take place this December.
This recent victory of Ayan was obviously not his first. Since the age of five (5), he has been practicing Shotokan karate and has won multiple championships before. This in itself should be considered as an astonishing feat for a 5-year-old as Shotokan is a martial art form which requires extreme focused concentration and fluidity. The word ‘Shoto’ in Shotokan literally means “pine-waves” (the movement of pine needles when the wind blows through them) He has also been practicing basketball and football and participating in interclub competitions. But this has never tamed his love for music and his desire for practicing keyboard.
As the founding father of the Shotokan karate art form, Gichin Funakoshi himself mentions in one of his philosophical texts, “The ultimate aim of Karate lies not in victory or defeat, but in the perfection of the character of the participant.”
We need to ask ourselves, as a family, as a school, are we raising our millennials of today as just another sheep of this massive herd called ‘human society’? Or as good human beings with character, richly endowed with truth, honesty, humility, respect, compassion, patience, along with the desire to discover the divine light from within them, accept failures and successes, equally with balance and a smile?
Think!! Reflect!!
