Kids and martial arts

[cathal]

My dojo has only one minor, but he's 15. All the other members are adults. I've seen kids do very well at martial arts. Flexible, strong, great attitudes, as well.

[Goju_boi]

My dojo has only one minor, but he's 15. All the other members are adults. I've seen kids do very well at martial arts. Flexible, strong, great attitudes, as well.

I've seen kids do well 2 but most dont stick with it though.And most adults have a pretty negative outlook on martial arts nowadays

[Andrew_Patton]

Many kids do pretty good in Martial arts, others, well, it just seems like the parents are forcing their kids into something.

On the subject of kids actually doing good in martial arts, at my dojo we have to 11 year old blue belts, that whenever they spar draw a pretty good sized crowd of onlookers, these two are fast, and I mean fast, kids tend to be looser than adults, and these two are as fast if not faster than many of the adults in the class.

[UsagiYojimbo]

Our school is different than pretty much every dojo in town, in that we don't train kids. All students must be at least 14.

[tkdBill]

There are also a lot more children than adults in baseball, soccer, hockey, ballet, gymnastics, ...etc.

It's because kids have more time than adults, and they have parents who want them in activities.

...Thank goodness!!

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[cathal]

I've noticed some of the parents complaining that their child has done too much karate. Anyone experience this?

[Apobiosis]

Also I think another factor is that kids just have more time on their hands. Parents with stressed time schedules will choose to enroll their children before they enroll themselves, because they want their child to have every advantage, etc.

I think that's the biggest reason.

And little kids fighting...gotta love it

[JusticeZero]

I'd wonder what they mean by 'done too much karate', since that sounds like one of those things where someone has a problem, and just jumps two or three steps of logic to a sweeping general statement without analyzing it or explaining how the two are related.

[Sandan]

I kind of have a balance of kids v's adults. It's great when I get them to train together as it means that they are putting the other under pressure. Now the kids are pushing the adults.. it's great!

[jay46]

when i was at a tourney last nov i remember watching the kids fight and they were going at it full contact even though it was ment to be semmi it was crazy. they were getting hit so hard they started crying. but thats when you know u have a good student he crys from getting hit so hard but he doesnt quit.

I've seen kids do that, too. They're supposed to be doing light contact, but given enough time, they're going at eachother, tears streaming, fists flying. I just think to myself, how hard can a 7 year old in pads hit another 7 year old in pads? I can't tell if its funny or sad.

ROFLMAO

The first and only so far tournament we took our kids (7 and 11) to was supposed to be light contact. Well, my 7 year old is on the very small side. One kid almost twice his size whacks him in the thigh/butt with a round house twice so loud that people turn their heads and the tears start flowing. The sinban motions to us that he's ok and after a minute or two my son wipes the tears and gets back in there snorting mad like a bull and wins. In the final match some other big kid gets the same idea and catches him in the kidney. Waterworks again. Shrugs it off and gets back in there. (He came withing one point of winning his division against much bigger kids). The next day he had a bruise on his thigh. They sparred in full gear I might add.

Having been on the receiving end as well as seeing first hand I can tell you that 7 and 8 years can hit and kick with a tremendous amount of force.

And it was because of my kids attending class that my wife and I joined as well. We are one rank behind them. Our dojo is about 60/40 kids to adults.