Obstacle Course Activities

[Truestar]

This is our favorite thing to do with our Little Ninjas. It offers easy management, and easily focuses work on each skill that we try to teach the younger kids in our programs. The plus side is is that it is a majority of activities, so the short attention spans are generally fed to efficiently.

I recently suggested to my instructor that we set up some 4 or 5 templates that we could set up uniformly each time, he agreed it would be a good idea but has a lot of things on his hands and may not be able to generate enough time to create them like I could. So I'm looking for ideas!

Does your school run courses? What activities do you include? (Heavy bags, jump ups, balance beam stuff)

Fire away!

[ninjanurse]

I use them frequently but do not have a set template either. Most of my stations focus on balance skills, gross motor movement, and hand-eye coordination.

Some ideas:

Jump over a belt or rope at varying heights

Run across several boxing mitts place in the floor (we call them "rocks)

Jump over kicking paddles set at varying distances

Punch or kick through plastic rings

Set up several cones and have them run from cone to cone-I use blue on one side and red on the other to help visual/motor patterning

Shoulder rolls over blockers or a ball

Kicking/punching combos on standing bag

Jump kicking and blocking: an instructor wanders through the course or remains in one area and attacks them as they go by with a blocker or uses xray paper as a target

[Truestar]

Cool thanks for the ideas. As of now equipment is limited but I'll definitely keep those in mind.

There's a lot you can do with a set of cones!

[joesteph]

What my instructor has done with the Little Tigers (starting at age four), going from one to the other:

1. have the hand-held square targets on end for them to jump over

2. set up the full-body length kicking targets as a tunnel

3. jump over a bong (bo) held low

4. do punches and kicks against a WaveMaster

5. finally to BOB, who's taken off the base, so they can box the "stranger's" ears

My boys (age six) have participated in this, and once they get started, they really get into it. I think they like the tunnel and WaveMaster best in this course.

[Rateh]

Sometimes it's fun to have a pointless part of the course. We used to take the top off one of the little wavemasters and have the kids hurdle over it like a horse (stand it on end, place your hands on it, and jump over with your legs apart). While doing so they had to yell a silly word that we assigned them. This was at the end of the course and always brought some happy giggles and made the students try harder through the rest of it.

With young kids you might include colores, numbers, shapes, or animals as part of the course. Like punching to three counting it out loud. Or placing three peices of tape on a bag each a different color, and calling out color combinations where the student chooses to kick or punch the colors in the combination you call. This can be tailored to the age of the child in question. With animals you can have them walk like an elephant, growl like a tiger, wiggle like a snake, etc.

You can also have them do stuff between stations. Like front kick between stations, or hop on one foot, or moving forward front stances, walking backwards, etc.

For a real fitness course have the students do something while waiting for their turn to go through the course again. Jumping jacks, running in place, push-ups, continuous practice of their own selections of techniques, etc.

Team course is also something I really like to do. Join the students into teams of 3-4 students. Have the students do the course as a team, so that each person must do a station one at a time before moving on to the next station. Have the students practice a few times then have a contest between the teams, time is added to the score for moving on to the next station before your entire team is done with the one before. (The kids will call out to eachother to warn them if they start to go to early). Winning team gets to do push-ups (surprisingly even knowing this the teams will work hard to win).

Good luck!

[bushido_man96]

You could have them roll from section to section as well, if you practice rolling or breakfalls. Forward roll to one station, back roll to the next, etc. to shake things up. Have a blocking station, a target pad station for hand techniques, a blaster for flying kicks maybe. The possiblilities are quite endless.

[joesteph]

Sometimes it's fun to have a pointless part of the course. We used to take the top off one of the little wavemasters and have the kids hurdle over it like a horse (stand it on end, place your hands on it, and jump over with your legs apart). While doing so they had to yell a silly word that we assigned them. This was at the end of the course and always brought some happy giggles and made the students try harder through the rest of it.

With young kids you might include colores, numbers, shapes, or animals as part of the course. Like punching to three counting it out loud. Or placing three peices of tape on a bag each a different color, and calling out color combinations where the student chooses to kick or punch the colors in the combination you call. This can be tailored to the age of the child in question. With animals you can have them walk like an elephant, growl like a tiger, wiggle like a snake, etc.

Wow, Rateh, you sure know how to get kids to have fun! I don't know what you do for a living, but do you work with children?

[Rateh]

Thanks! I work with developmentally disabled adults for a living, so it is kind of like working with young children in older adult bodies. My absolute favorite thing is teaching karate to kids though, and my dream is to one day own my own school.

[Tiger1962]

I would recommend / suggest activities that are presented as "fun" but will also help them in improving their stances, kicks, punches & endurance in class. Any combination of these can be presented in the form of a "race" between each other or as "stations" in which they rotate from one collection of movements to another. Also using the equipment your school has that they normally use in class, but again presented in a way that they view as "fun" but will help them improve in class.

Example: they line up and run and do jump kicks to a target that another adult is holding. This should help them practice and improve their jumps and kicks and also aim/focus. This is what I've done when I've taught class.

Hope that helps!