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Old 10-18-2010, 06:52 AM   #22
amoeba
Dojo: Aikido Netzwerk
Location: Düsseldorf, NRW
Join Date: Oct 2010
Posts: 80
Germany
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Re: training kids in Aikido

Well, I guess it's right that there's a lot more fluctuation in the kids classes, but I woudn't put that down to aikido. In my experience, kids generally try out a lot more different stuff - try out whatever their friends do, and so on. But I think that's a good thing. We get lots of new children that want to try training and most of them are pretty quick to decide if they want to do it. Some don't like it - those won't come back. But the ones that do like it normally register for class immediately. Of course some drop out again after a while, but a lot of them stay quite long!
Adults, on the other hand, tend to think and ponder very long before they decide to try. They want to be 100 % sure (although I think you can quit two months in advance at our dojo, so it's not as if they couldn't stop again if it's not for them...)
To them, it seems like a really big deal to register for a martial art, they wonder if they're fit enough, if they have the time... and a lot of them never register at all.
While for the kids, it's kind of common to start and try new things - maybe they've already done gymnastics and swimming and dancing... so it just comes naturally to them to give new things a chance. I'd like that a bit more in the adults, too!

Of course, there's loads of reasons kids quit: parents moving, too much schoolwork, puberty... but we still have some children that have been training since the dojo was founded almost three years ago and I really hope they will stay. In other places (like here in Stockholm) I've seen some impressive examples of what can become of children that actually stick through puberty and manage the transition to the adult training - and I'm really jealous! (Although I wasn't that old when I started myself, but it still feels kinda strnge to practice with an 18-year-old who's trained four years longer than I have...)
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