Dear Editor,
SKM is excellent. It’s interesting to read about such a
range of views and opinions about karate. Your editorial is always written with
thoughtfulness and open-mindedness: important traits to have both in and out of
karate. I’d really appreciate it if you could publish this in the next issue:
In issue 119, I was particularly interested in the late
sensei Bjorn Grunstein’s view on why children shouldn't do karate which he
mentioned in his interview. I mean absolutely no disrespect to him by saying
that I disagree.
He stated in his interview that: ‘To teach children karate,
a major part of karate must be disregarded’. In my humble opinion, he would be
right if a child’s perception of karate and the way a child trains was the same
as that of an adult, only without the same level of maturity; however I don’t
think that this is the case.
As somebody who
started training at ten years old, I’d say that, far from not being mature
enough for karate, karate helped me mature. It gave me the self-confidence and
sense of self-worth that I’d previously lacked along with the discipline and
resilience needed as one gets older. Children can gain from karate as much as
adults can, but they gain different things.
Therefore, for instructors, I don’t think disregarding parts
of karate comes in to it, the main thing is to be aware of the fact that
different ages train in different ways: what they need to work on and how they
benefit from karate. The sensei I train
under often says that while adults should work on flexibility and being more
relaxed, children should work on concentration. Not all instructors feel
comfortable with teaching children, which I have nothing against; it takes all
sorts to make a world. I have done a small amount of teaching within the club I
train at, since becoming a 1st Dan, here is what I found out: teaching
is massively difficult without even bringing the age of the students in to the
equation!!
Oss,
No comments:
Post a Comment