How I approached teaching Youth Karate

 

 

I really never followed anybody’s lead about teaching kids.

 

When I was a beginner, all of my instructor had young people in their classes, they trained and learned alongside the adults. True many of those young were the instructors relatives or their friends, but that made no difference as to how they trained.

 

When I began teaching the best choice was to offer my services to the Scranton Boys Club. And it took off, not a huge program, rather around 25 members. All training together and as time passed they were an entire range of kyu ranks. As a boy, there were many parents who gave their time and efforts to many programs for the young. I used that as my model and also taught for free. But the quality I was working on with the kids , was not simplified. My program was the first program to bring young women into the Club for training.

 

In my other time I was training with many different people in many different styles. While some had youth students, most while doing so, would admit that they really felt karate training was for adults. Many tried to convince me, very hard, to teach real adult karate. They considered my teaching a youth program foolish.

 

Then in 1985 I had to relocate to New Hampshire. Immediately I restarted my program through the Derry Boys and Girls Club. Having a recommendation from another Boys Club did not hurt. I continued to teach the Isshinryu as I was taught it, but used my experienced to add supplemental training to slow down the pace for the students, allowing more time to develop greater personal skill.

 

Again the classes were mixed ranks, without a problem, It did keep on my toes. A short time later I began a separate adult program. That program followed the same course of instruction as the youth program. But what an adult can do in say 4 years (and that varid by the individual), the time frame for the young was 7 to 9 years to reach shodan.

 

That is not to say everyone made it, adults of youth.  But I became to realize the greatest thing the kids could learn was that they could and did learn through their own efforts. Most youth stayed only 2 or 3 years before finding personal reasons to move on. And of course that was right for them. But the lesson had been imparted and that would not leave them.

 

It was not a shortage of material for them to learn, but the reality that all of them had numerous class mates in other karate programs, and while they had reached yellow belts in their own training, their friends were then black belts in those other schools. Personally it was not a skill question, for as time passed some of those black belts joined our program, and though they may have had a black belt, it didn’t even clome close to the skill levels they were working on as yellow belts.

 

At the same time I realized it probably made it difficult around their friends who were black belts. So I restructured things a bit and chose to use a junior black belt program. What was formerly a green belt, now with restructured ranks would be a junior black belt.

 

Over years I had a few that reached that level. I was curious whether that would mean more of the students would reach sho-dan. But as time passed, it did not increase the individuals who reached sho-dan. Even being more skilled as time passed, most students still had reason to leave for other activities.

 

Not that I considered that failure, for I had long realized that even those who reached shodan would 100% leave in time. For jobs, military service, college, marriage and such. It was not the nature of kids sticking around their home town for life. But that is also a sign of success teaching the young. That they are able to make decisions and then move on in life.

 

 

My own son was one of those students, 9 years to reach Sho-dan (he also had many other activities he participated in). Then off to college, still training and in 2 years he reached ni-dan. Of course the time came for him to make adult decisions, about work and about what activity meant more for him in his life. He made that choice, it wasn’t karate, but it was something he was passionate about.

 

I noted always what other schools were doing, but never made my decisions on what others did. I just always taught the best karate I could.