Does it annoy you when people tell you karate is for kids?

[ShoriKid]

I haven't heard that "Karate is for kids", but as one of the young men in our adult's class (aged/matured out of our kids class) told us, "People think karate is goofy." Most of his peers have only some TV stuff and film stuff to base it on. Much of that is to put karate in a negative light compared to sport fighting, or is sold as something young kids do after school. Adults training seriously isn't what they get to see. Our young man nods vigorously when asked if the adult training is different from the kid's class.

In the advertising I think it is identifying market niche. Young, athletic people want to compete. Pair that with a media both event and film/TV that sells MMA and Boxing as what serious adults do and you have them gravitating toward those activities. Karate is seen, in almost all of it's depictions as geared toward kids, or ineffective for adults. So, both sides of the divide have identified where they can effectively market and driven their dollars that way. Why spend money trying to convince mothers to take their babies to be put in a cage to be beaten? Why spend money trying to convince the young adult to put on a funny suit and punch air and scream at nothing? If you get a few out liers, that's just a bonus.

A high ranked instructor once told myself and my instructor that you have to have the rent payers to be able to train the serious students. You don't cheat them in training, just realize you can't run them off and keep the doors open by scaring them to death with intense training all of the time for everyone. Spend your efforts wisely and try to keep the lights on. This from a man who never made a fortune teaching, but turned out some good quality martial artists.

[username19853]

Many times people just use Larate as a general term. They might be doing tang soo do, taekwondo, hapkido, even jiu jitsu or Kung fu. I hear someone say they do karate and when I ask what style they have no clue.

Sometimes I like this, because I get to ask them questions about their environment, their uniforms and what they do in class and I try to figure out what style or martial art they're actually practicing.

I've had people tell me they'd rather do taekwondo because it sounds cool and when they think of karate they think of kids. That kind of annoyed me. In general though, I'm open to telling them about karate and I've even shown them certain things that are just as useful for adults as they are for kids in terms of self defense.

If they don't wanna hear it, I don't waste my time. However, I've actually gotten people very interested in Karate and 2 have actually started it! In short, karate isn't for everyone and that's fine. Football isn't for everyone, neither is reading or watching television.