Teaching Children Martial Arts: A Winning Approach

By guest author Matt Klein

Martial arts for children

Many martial arts schools teach children as a sidelight to their main focus: adults. They are not that interested in children, and only do it because it represents a sizable chunk of their school’s income. Children are routinely thrown into adults classes or treated as “miniature adults.” A school that can focus on the needs of children will be very successful, as there are few that get it right. To be a successful martial arts school for children, it is important to recognize how teaching them differs from the teaching of adults.

Board Breaking Tips: How Anyone Can, Why Nobody Should

My first experience with board breaking was a total humiliation. I was a ten-year-old Karate student, with six months of practice under my orange belt, when my sensei decided we should all break some wood. He asked each of us to acquire a stack of boards, one square foot by one inch in size, and bring them to our next class.

As a bright but naive child, I had no idea that the practice of tameshiwari, or breaking, was an instrument of martial arts fraud. I only knew that it looked cool, and that it required focus–or so my teacher said.

No More Black Belts For Kids!

Following is a selection from Dave Lowry’s essay collection, The Karate Way.

The Karate Way: Discovering The Spirit of Practice

We have to admit that the popular image of the black belt is inextricably woven into the general perception of these arts we follow. While we may have a more comprehensive view of the belt, we need to see that in the population outside the dojo, in the world at large, it usually means something else. When a black belt is conferred upon a karateka, that has implications in the popular imagination. And we should consider some ramifications that perception and those implications have upon what people think about karate-do.

Colbert Sensei Teaches Kids Discipline and Respect

Stephen Colbert

Don’t worry if a rule makes sense—the important thing is that it’s a rule. Arbitrary rules teach kids discipline: If every rule made sense, they wouldn’t be learning respect for authority, they’d be learning logic.

From I Am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert Sensei

Attention, busy parents: do you need an authority figure to enforce a set of arbitrary rules on your children? Visit your local dojo today!

Karate Lessons Give Child Self-Confidence To Quit Karate

Karate Costume

ENGLEWOOD, CO—After months of being taught to develop courage, inner strength, and other values of the martial arts, Daniel Finkelstein finally achieved the self-confidence necessary to stand up to his parents and quit taking karate lessons, the area sixth-grader reported Monday.