Jedi Academy

We signed the kids up for summer camp at the Evergreen School this year, which is new territory for us. Both kids are enjoying themselves very much, but Jordan especially hit the jackpot: He spent two weeks in Jedi Academy. This camp, for 10-13 year olds, builds all the physical and mental skills that a Jedi needs, including running and conditioning, meditation and yoga, beginning fencing, lightsaber technique, and hand-body-eye coordination training. 

Here is Jordan demonstrating his cool fencing gear and proper form. Fencing was not at all what he expected: first of all, there is an overwhelming quantity of rules, and second of all, it is not swordfighting so much as poking. But he loved it, loved the gear even though it was hot, loved the footwork even though it was confusing, and worked hard enough to have a sore right shoulder most days.

Lightsaber fighting is a whole different thing because you attack with the side of the blade. They learned a variety of "lightsaber forms," which are defined patterns of attack and defense moves. The lightsabers they use in this course are beautiful, really works of art, and surprisingly whackable.

Here is Jordan warming up with Ethan, a friend of his from boychoir who happened to be in the same camp.

The grownup in the supercool black body armor is Shayé, their instructor. Shayé is also a teacher at the Evergreen School during the school year, teaching science, math, and fine arts, as well as fencing. He has Jordan's complete respect.

And a good thing too, because Shayé made them do all kinds of crazy stuff in the conditioning sessions, like plank pose and pushups on the wood chips. If they complained that it hurt their hands, he told them to meditate while doing it. He taught them to pay attention to the sensations in their hands and spread the sensation gradually through their arms, shoulders, body, legs, toes, and so on to dissipate it. Jordan has since used his Jedi mind-calming techniques on his own, and taught them to Aaron.

The second week, they did two additional extraordinary things. One is that they choreographed a lightsaber fight scene from one of the Star Wars movies. Parents were invited to the dramatic performances on the last day. Here is Jordan with his new buddy and scene partner, Orion.

The performances were each just a couple minutes long. Each one started with a bit of dialogue, erupted into a lightsaber fight, and ended when one of the characters was killed. Most of the choreography went into planning the fight, which includes not only lightsaber techniques but also moves like "force push," "force choke," "force lightning," and so on. You may remember Darth Vader using "force choke" regularly on his commanders, and the Emperor using "force lightning" on Luke. Here is Jordan and Orion's scene for your enjoyment.

The other extraordinary thing has to go in a second post.