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Old 02-24-2014, 04:36 AM   #21
Eva Antonia
Dojo: CERIA
Location: Brussels
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 211
Belgium
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Re: Which Martial Art for Kids - Aikido / Taekwondo / Karate / Judo ...

Hello,

from my limited family experience with school yard fighting and violent mobbing, I think any martial art is good, under the condition the child knows how to use it responsibly. My elder son did 4 years of aikido, before he suddenly lost interest, and he grasped the principles very well. In his then primary school there were lots of bullies, and once a technique for getting out of kubi shime helped him against a classmate who tried to choke him for some reason. And he managed to do this without hurting the boy.

But that is not the important thing. What I found much more impressing that at a time, some high school children started bullying another classmate of his, a timid redhead with bad marks in school, some serious family issues and a mother having a candy store. The objective was frightening him into robbing goods from his mother's store and give them to the bullies. My boy then started a "counter gang" with a girl doing judo and another boy doing taekwondo, with the sole purpose of defending Geoffrey.

I don't exaggerate, it changed the life of the boy Geoffrey. He had been afraid of walking to school, going to recreation, and once he got some confidence again and was able to go to school without being terrorised, his marks recovered and he managed to pass the sixth grade with tolerable results and get into secondary school. His teacher said at the final parents' meeting that it was a miracle that Geoffrey had turned around from total failure to reasonable success in such a short time.

The most interesting issue was that there was NO FIGHT. It was not necessary for the bully children, who were much bigger than the primary school pupils - they just shrank back from their extortion practices when they saw that actually Geoffroy had friends, and that they were ready to take organised action to defend him. So their respective judo, taekwondo and aikido techniques were never put to a reality test.

Obviously the problem of bullying cannot be solved by learning martial arts. Bullies could always turn to someone whose attitude translates his anxiousness and find a new target. But if you add solidarity with the weaker classmates to some reputation for fighting efficiency (be it bluff, who cares), this helps a lot.

I also don't think that sending a child to martial arts class is equal to "I give you the tools, now do it alone!". Why should a child see the fact that his parents enable it to learn new competences as a withdrawal or lack of support? It is more like "I help you to acquire the tools, use them responsibly, be aware of their limitations, and if you ever have a serious problem, I'm always here to help you".

And I think aikido IS efficient, also and especially the simple "going out of the way" techniques. I remember another case a boy was attacking my boy, who simply went out of the line, and the attack of the other boy went straight into the wall. At that time, there was some damage, but completely self-inflicted...

All the best,

Eva
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