On Children in the Dojo…

My karate juices have been flowing today. mentioned that someone let the Rabid Chihuahua out today, and after training I spent much of my afternoon sitting around thinking about the way things are now versus the way my brain interprets the past. Then something happened that inspired me to sit down and put this out there… actually several somethings.

Last night the D&D group came together for a Christmas celebration at our house. We started talking about Karate, since at one time or another all of us have trained or are training currently and the conversation shifted to children in the dojo. We all had our complaints about their attention span, their speaking/acting out of turn, and their general “your rules don’t apply to me” take on being in there with other people. There was a pretty rigidly defined consensus that things are definitely more irritating now than they used to be. I don’t know if we blame society, sugared bevereges, lack of strong parenting, or all of the above, but something needs to get done about it.

At one point, the topic was breached that there should be a youth only class. The problem with this is not so much the number of youth that we have, but the Most Likely Candidate to run this class is a genuine, certified, Stormtrooper cookie jar weilding weirdo. I think he’s good with kids for the most part, but the problem is that they don’t get so much karate as they get a good talking to when he teaches.

I think this is a very good idea, so I’m going to put this request out there: if there are enough support to warrant it, I would like to see the youth be taken seperate from the rest of the class. This doesn’t necessarily have to be in another physical room (which would be the best option), it can just be taken to one side of the dojo. I have gotten feedback from people outside of our sphere of friends that say that it would be nice not to have all the kids around when they’re trying to train, and I can say that I can understand this sentiment.

Now, for an aside… I’ve been doing this for a long time. When I started, I was eight. I think that my training has been furthered greatly by having the opportunity to train with Sensei Brewer and Hartman all throughout my career and the fact that they considered me worthy to do this meant alot to me growing up. That’s why I’m somewhat conflicted about this idea… I didn’t consider myself a distraction or “in the way” when I can coming up through the ranks (maybe I was, I dunno). Maybe we can make the adult/advanced side of things by invite only, that way the well behaved, serious, worthwhile children can be allowed to join the other side of things and serve as role models for the kids that jack around all of the time.

I guess what I’m saying is that I want to see the children that are constantly causing disruption, getting in the way, and not serious about Karate moved out of the way of those that are exhibiting real drive and a serious attempt to learn what the higher ranks are laying down. In leiu of damning them to a life of lecture and osu being used as a question, I will volunteer my services during the first class if we decide to go down this path again. That way I can keep them out of the way of the lower ranks so they can get good training, and I can train in the advanced class and on the weekend.

Things need to have some revision, and I’d like to hear everyone else’s thoughts on the matter. If you can follow my rambling long enough to get to the root idea I’d love to hear your thoughts.