Sports are well known to play a big role in the development of any child. Through sports they are being taught of many things without them realizing it. As a parent, we always want our kids to have discipline as well as learn the value of respect even at a young age. And one way to do this is to engage them in sports that emphasize such values. And when it comes to respect and discipline, kids karate class never fails to impress. It is perhaps the best sport for your kids and one that comes with numerous benefits.
Respect is one value that is being emphasized in every martial arts class. The bowing as well as the strict compliance of the unique formalities of martial arts and karate is being taught over and over again by the training instructors. This value becomes more and more evident as our child gets more into kids karate. Self discipline is also another value that this sport focuses on as well as teaches our kids to set a goal and reach it for themselves as they will be taught to push themselves more than their limit to achieve their goals and part of that goal is to achieve higher levels in training.
In karate, progress is marked through a belt system. All students’ starts with a white belt and the color changes as their skills get better in time. The most coveted color is the black belt and one that is often the goal of kids who are into karate and martial arts. For them to progress from one color of belt to another, they will have to set a goal for themselves and achieve it through consistent training and practice and having patience to be able to achieve that goal. This is how goal setting is being taught in kids karate.
A typical kids karate class would start with the kids forming into formation and bowing to their instructors. Then they will do a warm up exercise and afterwards practice their skills in kicking, punching and blocking. These skills often require good concentration as well as strict attention to master. The development of concentration and strict attention that is being taught in the martial arts class is subconsciously being carried out by our kids in other activities as well. in fact studies had shown that karate kids often have good grades in school as well as generally improved behaviors.
Patience is another value being taught in a karate class. This can be best demonstrated in class when they have to patiently wait for the next command of their instructors or wait for their turn to demonstrate the technique being taught. There are a lot of other values learned in a martial arts class. And these are just some of the mental and emotional benefits of kids karate, off course the other benefit that we really cannot discount is the physical benefit of the training as well as the socialization skills that every kid benefits from just by joining a martial arts class.
Author Resource:
Christopher Story is the author of this article on Karate Discipline .
Find more information about Karate Respect here.