Investing in future

Teaching martial arts to kids is something I have always been reluctant to do. My main issue is that, the way I see it, it just doesn’t work well in mixed groups, i.e. it requires a dedicated children’s group. The nature of the material taught is not even among the top priorities here, but rather the training methodology and dynamics of the class, if you’re going to keep the kids’ interest and have them stay long enough to reap some benefits from training.

There is, however, an avenue of training with children that only occurred to me recently – private sessions. Namely, my own son (10 years old) has shown some interest in my weapons training and I agreed to teach him some. Obviously, this sort of approach has its ups and downs.

On the positive side, we are able to squeeze some training whenever it is convenient, and possibly more importantly, it doesn’t have to go on for a full hour, or whatever designated duration. It makes things easier with keeping them focused, although some variation in training is still required. That said, I find it neat to have two or three activities planned and then rotate through them in 2-3 minute intervals. The biggest point to remember, as it seems to me, is that the kids basically need to know the purpose of the activity if you want them to do it with any semblance of attention and commitment. For example, isolated footwork drills or swinging sticks along predetermined angles can be a drag, but replace the stick with a sword replica, instead of abstract angles put some kind of target to elicit the same movement, and move the target a bit –and you’re in a game!

The downside that prevails, in our particular case, is the attitude during the training session. My son has this high-curiosity type of personality and will easily slip into the “why this, why not that?” rabbit hole that wastes time. On the other hand, if I cut him short and make him proceed without an answer he will have hard time getting back to focused work. It may be the main advantage of group work, as the children will somehow feel less inclined toward endless rambling with other peers around.

OK, so, how does this experience transfer to teaching kids privately, as clients? Honestly, I have no idea. It’s not something that really piques my interest, for many reasons. I do have ulterior motives in teaching my own, though. Namely, besides all the right reasons for doing it, in terms of benefits for the kid, I actually hope to “build” my own training partner in a few years, that could, hopefully, help push my training further and maintaining a good regimen year-round, regardless of training seasons and vacations, or the availability of other training partners.