Quote:
Mary Malmros wrote:
I think it's fine as long as you set expectations appropriately. Young kids are not going to learn aikido, but they can learn the fundamental building blocks of movement that ultimately add up to aikido. Even older kids are not going to learn more than a few techniques. They're not going to want to train if it's not fun pretty much all the time -- don't expect them to. If you're okay with letting kids be kids, and not getting too stressed about whether they're doing "O Sensei's aikido" (they're not), it can be a good time for all concerned.
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To add to what Mary said, I ran a kids "aikido" class for the Qld Sport & Recreation Dept's After Hours School Care Program (for 7-12yo) at our community center; 1-2x a week each school term over a period of 3 years.
That was exactly my experience.
What we ended up doing was adapt the QSR's community coaching sample games resource. We took many of their original games and modified it to incorporate VERY basic martial arts principles. The kids were quick to adapt to the "change up" rules, and had just as much fun - and in the process learnt some basic movement, coordination, and balance skills that could be readily applied to any form of athletic/sporting activity.
Creating a game-oriented program that incorporates *some* basic martial-arts orientated principles and movement is a lot harder than you would expect. For starters, it makes you really think about the "basics" far more deeply. And then dumbing it down sufficiently for an unenthusiastic young audience and still remain "interesting", can be quite a challenge.
Ultimately, it's about engaging your audience. If it's fun and entertaining, you'll get good feedback - and very likely get invited the following year to run the program again. If it's boring and serious, there's a plethora of other activities to choose from.
