Back
to Main Index
|
Kids and Martial Arts by Wayne Muromoto I don't have children in my classes. There are two reasons for that. One: not a lot of youngsters these days seem interested in my brand of martial arts. They are the koryu, and there are no tournaments, contests, or public accolades in these arts. Two: for that reason, I don't encourage and I have rarely accepted children because of reason one. They would get bored out of their minds if they enrolled in the class, so I have in the past directed them to other martial arts schools in the neighborhood that have lots of kids and sponsor a lot of tournaments and exciting competition. But there is a time and a place for kids in martial arts, and I support teachers who do take the time and effort to train them. I've done a bit of teaching martial arts to young people, and in my past I've been a high school and middle school teacher, so I see the importance of disciplines like martial arts, if they are well taught. Young children, in their adolescent stages, need to learn structure, self-discipline, and how to work in a group. They need to learn a competitive spirit in an environment of fair play and sportsmanship. As they mature, the child has to learn that his/her needs cannot be met through throwing tantrums, hitting other people, or screaming and yelling. This may sound counter to what happens in many martial arts schools, where rows and rows of young students scream and punch and kick each other to smithereens, but that happens in the context of sparring or training, not in a personal fight. Kids also have to learn how to follow instructions, lead others, think on their own, focus their concentration, and strive for excellence. All the positive attributes are what I have seen in teenagers who excel by the time they are seniors in high school. Students who went through a revolving door to their disciplinary counselor lacked one or more of those traits. Worse, many young people do not learn these learning skills even if they manage to go on to college. Currently, as a college instructor, I've seen kids on the verge of being kicked out of school because they lack such basic learning skills. And when I was tutoring homeless children, I saw that a lack of learning these skills from their deadbeat parents led directly to the failure of many children, through no fault of their own. In my opinion, if a martial arts school that open their doors to youngsters are worth their salt, then they should focus primarily on these mental skills first. Let's face it. It is a rare instance when a 10-year old black belt, no matter how skilled he/she is in kata, could really defeat a 300 pound adult who would take one swipe at the erstwhile pip-squeak and knock him on his butt. So by a simple fact of physical development, youngsters cannot compare in sheer physical strength to an adult, at least until most of them become teenagers. And the worst thing we could be teaching a child is that learning martial arts will allow them to beat up other people if a disagreement occurs. There was a recent trial of a parent who got into a fight with another parent over their children's hockey team. The scuffle led to the death of a parent in front of his son and the other kids on the team. It was a sad situation. I don't know who was to "blame," except that fighting over a game certainly does not teach a kid much about sportsmanship, does it? So martial arts schools, especially because they teach controlled forms of self-defense and fighting methods, should be insistent that children learn to control their behavior and responses to provocations, and to use their skills only in self-preservation, never to settle a quarrel or a brawl. Of more importance, then, a martial arts teacher should have a balanced set of criteria in which a young child is judged not just on physical skills, which will be limited by his age and physical maturity, but also on mental skills acquired in training. These mental skills will, in fact, serve the child better in the rest of his/her life and contribute to the students' success overall. Whether such schools stress competition or just training, or limit belt rankings based on age or not, are secondary issues that a parent should consider. Is it karatedo, aikido, judo, kendo, tae kwon do, hapkido, gung fu or knitting? It doesn't matter, as long as the child is interested in the art. What is of primary concern should be whether or not the child is learning life skills in the context of the dojo. Martial arts schools that teach kids should, strange as it may sound, teach them how not to fight.
|
Copyright 2003 by Wayne Muromoto and Tengu Press. All Rights Reserved.
