Teaching my son martial arts myself

[sensei8]

Yes, you could enter your son in an open tournament for varied reasons. But, if your son has limited sparring experience, he'll get ran over by those who don't have limited sparring experience.

A lot of open tournaments determine where competitors fit the best, and in that, they'll want to know the years of experience. Now, that's fine unless the sparring experience has been limited because that's going to be like throwing someone in the deep end of the pool knowing they've limited experience with swimming.

The sink or swim method, imho, is not how students need to learn. This could totally discourage for any future within the martial arts.

[wolverine uskf]

I love the fact that someone else wants to take the time to teach their kids this way. I find that i'm actually more of a perfectionist with my boys, because there is only 2 of them, and they want to learn. Now i know i can't give them rank, but i can feed their love of the martial arts with all that i have learned over the years. I tried to get my kids to study under someone else, but they want to learn from me, and i'm very proud to be the one they chose. They don't care about rank or tournaments, although they are becoming very good young kickboxers, and grapplers. Good luck in your quest to teach your son, i believe if more kids learned the respect for themselves and others, that the martial arts teaches, that we would have a better world to live in.

[bushido_man96]

The only thing I would be worried about as a father/son student/teacher pair is that kids tend to get burned out by their parents more quickly than they would with a seperate instructor. Parents can tend to want to push their kids harder than others would, perhaps expect more, and perhaps make them practice/participate more than the regular class would. That is something to keep in mind when teaching your own. You don't want to drive them to the point that they no longer enjoy what they are doing. That is when they will shut down.

[wolverine uskf]

You do have to worry about the ballance between teaching to soft, and pushing to hard. Thats why i only teach the boys 1 hour a day twice a week, sometimes we run over if the boys are really enjoying what we are doing. I believe this can be done, you just have to remember, your teaching a child, so no matter if he's yours or a stranger, keep it fun but still serious.

[dwarf2]

My children when they were small i took them to a school app. 30 miles from where we live. It was a good thing to see other opinions on sparring and basic self protection. There grown now and they talk about how we went to the classes and I went to a class. I had my own school at the time. I know if i had someone want to spar and want to pay me, i would refuse. If they get hit and hurt, i would be in trouble. Then because i dont know these new people yet, and they have no control in sparring and they hurt someone then im in trouble . If you know that something could hurt someone and do nothing and allow it , I think it is called vicarious liability and in court you would be at fault.

[wolverine uskf]

In our sue happy society, i can see the sparring problem being an issue.

Back befor public dojo's this is how the martial arts were taught, father to son. If they only had 1 child they had to sparr with the kid themselves.

I have always sparred with my boys, and when i want to give them a different look, i change stances, styles, and intensity levels.

No it's not the same as having another kid to sparr with, but if your just teaching them what you know, and don't care about tournaments they can learn just as much.

This is just my opinion, but i believe as long as the kid wants to learn, and is enjoying learning, thats all that matters.

[Dobie1979]

I love this topic. If I'm blessed with kids, I plan on teaching them everything I know. As for the point scoring thing, I think its overrated. I would teach my children these things for defense purpose and to give them confidence in themselves.

[dwarf2]

My chidren were home schooled and they worked out with me most of the time. If you have children this can be the best time of there lives. I had them go to another school for the competion and by the time my oldest son was 13 or 14 he already knew how i would move and what kicks i would use and he got to where he could read me pretty good,