I have worked with kids a lot. Some of the more challenging but just as enjoyable things I have done was working as a co trainer for fencing at a primary school. I was 17 back then and an active athlete myself.
Of course we never did very serious training with the kids - it was all about the fun and my coach came up with loads of little games featuring the special child-safe weapons and some challenges for them to master.
There was this 9 year old, who was a year older than everybody else, yet twice as imaginative as all of them together, with a shy and talkative nature at the same time and no friends in the training group. He was also one of the biggest Star Wars fan we had ever met - he would wear his Yoda Shirts to class and seemed to be genuinely interested in fencing much to the opposite of most. One could say that he was about the only one who really wanted to be there. Often(which was very adorable) he got carried away and started to reenact Star Wars fights on it's own and suddenly his rubber foil turned into a lightsabre.
If there is one thing that truly brings joy to my heart, then it is seeing children playing whilst completely being one with their imagination.
After he had found out that I knew a lot about Star wars too (and after in a very serious way make sure I was on the light side of the force as well), he started to ask me a LOT about the Jedi Order.He told me that he wanted to become a Jedi and that that was why he was here.
In the following training, my coach wanted me to do a short demonstration, on what an athletic fencer can do. He probably wanted to inspire the kids (and especially the girls) and awake some passion for this awesome sport, but the wee showoff ended up being a little more inspiring than we had thought.
It was in the wee break where everyone went to drink a little water and my coach and I briefly discussed the plans for the second half of the training; when the little Star Wars boy approached us and politely raised his hand to ask a question:
"Excuse me, Miss", he asked, "but are you a Jedi Knight?"
I know some people who at that point would have said no and explained, that the Jedi are part of a movie universe and therefore not real. But I am not one of those - I am the kind of person who will fuel children's imagination.
"I am - but it has to remain a secret.."
I was seriously afraid he would forget to breathe from excitement.
He kept asking wether my coach was a Jedi too, who also confirmed the little one's idea, that I at some point had been my coach's Padawan.
Now, the odds were, that I had already talked to my coach about this particular child, for I wanted him to be patronized and encouraged because of his dedication to the sport and skills and the fact that he really wanted to learn.
Bless my coach who decided to drag this even further by lowering his voice and mentioning:
"She is here to find a Padawan who is willing to learn." Instant sparkly eyes.
Needless to say, that after some mysterious mumbling between my coach and I, which mainly consisted of "The force is strong with this one" and similar, we declared this little Star Wars fanboy a Padawan and his training began on instant. He was given private lessons of 15 -30 minutes by me during each practise and he would even show up extra early to the trainings.
From that moment on, it was impossible to have him refer to me as anything else than "Jedi Master Rica". He was ded serious about his chosen path.
To be fair, half of our practise consisted of questions on his side, regarding "what would a Jedi do if..." and "in a fight, if Darth Maul is trying this and that, what do I do?" but oh this kid really started to put his soul into it.
I was really sad that I had to stop training the children when I had my accident, but I've heard that my coach explained my absence to the little one by telling him, I had to go save the galaxy~
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