Practicing Martial Arts with Your Kids

Your kids come home from Martial Arts class and want you to help them practice, but you don't know where to start.  You have never taken a martial arts class, and you don't know what to do.  Let me give you some ideas.

Rule #1 - Keep it Fun!
First, the most important thing to remember is to keep practice fun and positive.  I can tell you, after teaching martial arts for over 20 years, that the fastest path to quitting martial arts (or any other activity, for that matter) is putting too much pressure on your kids. If you are constantly nagging at them and not keeping it fun, they will not want to practice. Martial arts provides more life skills than any other sport or extracurricular activity, so the last thing you want is your child disliking it and giving up.  Always keep it positive and fun!

Follow your Kid's Lead
If you kids want to practice with you, this is a good thing, so practice with them. Ask your kids how and what they want to practice.  Follow their lead and desires.  If you son wants to just practice kicks today, let him.  If you daughter wants to practice jumping, spinning, and a bunch of crazy Kung Fu Panda moves that you can't decipher, encourage her. Any practice is good practice.  Encourage your kids to practice certain things, but don't force them. "John, let's practice your blocks." "Sally, let's go through your self defense techniques."  If they say, I don't want to, ask what they want to practice. Any practice is better than no practice.


Short Impromptu Practice is Great
Grab your kids in a self defense technique in the kitchen, and let them put you on the floor.  Wrestle during commercial breaks in the living room.  Play spar in the hallway.  This type of practice can be the best practice and makes for great bonding moments.  

How long and often should my kids practice?
My opinion is, as long as your kids want, and as long as it stays positive and fun. I ask my students to practice at least once per week, but I rarely give a time limit. Encourage them to practice, keep it fun, and they will want to do it. When they are truly ready to end the practice, whether it has been 5 minutes or 20 minutes, then wrap it up.  End on a fun note, so that they want to practice next time. Also, remember that there needs to be a balance, so they don't burn out. Give your kids opportunities to practice with you and by themselves. Also, make sure they have plenty of other opportunities to play with their friends, do other sports, and be involved in other activities, and this will make them want to keep attending the real life skill builder - martial arts.

Be the best training partner
Be your kids' favorite training partner, not their Sifu or Sensei. Throw punches and be their "bad guy" so they can practice their techniques. Be their grappling buddy. Hold the mitts and be their boxing partner. Let them be the teacher and let them teach you. Constantly praise them for what they are doing. Don't worry about what they are not doing right. Focus on what they are doing well, and tell them. "John, that was a great, high kick. You are getting so good." Who cares if John's hands were down and he wasn't protecting his face. Next time you catch John with his hands up, praise his for that.

For beginning students, simply just encourage and help them practice. No need to challenge or push them; remembering the skills are a challenge enough. As your kids progress to the intermediate and advanced levels, your training partner skills might need to increase. Help your kids work on power, speed, or agility. Get them to hit the mitts a little harder or faster. Hold those grab attacks a little tighter, but only one step above their current ability. It is okay for them to be challenged, but constant failure will quickly drive them away from the martial arts, so allow them to win sometimes too. Help them improve, keep it fun, and create some challenge that they can overcome.  

Practicing Techniques
Be your student's "practice dummy" which is also known as an "uke" in the martial arts.  Learn how to grab them, how to attack during ground techniques, and which punches and kicks to throw. When being an uke, watch out for kicks and strikes that could hurt you. Yes, I have seen 5 year olds give instructors bloody noses and make them drop to their knees from a kick.  Remember, they are still learning coordination and self-control. Let your kids make light contact if you feel comfortable, but until they get more self-control, watch out. As you kids become more advanced, you may want to consider wearing some protective gear, like a chest guard, to help them practice. We can recommend gear and equipment to help you practice at home.

Practicing Sparring Skills
Get some mitts, muay thai pads, a bag, or a sparring bag shield.  Learn the combos and how to hold the mitts. Turn on the music and have some fun. This can be a great workout for you as well as your kids.

Wrap-up
Hopefully, this gives you some ideas on how to help your kids practice.  Stop by class to get some more ideas, or better yet, join class so that you can learn with your kids.  As the old saying goes, "A family that kicks together, sticks together."

Our Martial Arts History & Style

"Sifu, What Style of Martial Arts do we Practice?"

Occasionally, I get asked about the origin of our style. Or a student will ask about our history, traditions, and culture of the martial arts styles we practice. Sometimes, I wish there was a clear-cut answer, but there isn't. I normally just tell people we study the art of Self Defense. If they ask for more details then I can dig deeper into our history and training lineage.

Pinpointing just one style is most difficult to explain because we do not just practice one style of martial arts. However, this is what makes our school interesting, progressive, and different from all the other franchise schools out there.

What styles do we study? For simplicity, we practice an eclectic/blended style of martial arts with a basis in practical self defense. Before I go into the more detailed answer, let me say that what we teach and practice in class is dynamic. We are not a school that is holistic to one style and one curriculum. Our philosophy is a combination and practice of practical self defense aspects from several martial arts styles - striking arts, grappling arts, weapons arts, and internal arts. Our curriculum is constantly improving and evolving to include the most current and practical self-defense concepts and techniques for today's world.

Below is a breakdown of the history of our two major focus areas - striking arts and grappling arts.

Striking Arts
The short answer is we practice Kenpo (American & Chinese).

Here is the long answer. Let's begin the long answer by looking at the lineage of a few styles. One origin of our style comes from the lineage of Ed Parker's American Kenpo. Our lineage of American Kenpo has been well blended over the years with other styles and resembles a distant cousin of American Kenpo. Mr. Parker passed in 1993, and since then many different branches of American Kenpo have developed. Actually, if you view our students practicing next to traditional American Kenpo students and Kajukenbo students, our students more resemble Kajukenbo students. (Kajukenbo - stands for Karate, Jujitsu, Kenpo, and Chinese boxing aka Kung Fu.) While our stand-up self defense techniques include many American Kenpo techniques, many of our forms come from Shaolin Kung Fu, commonly referred to as Shaolin Kempo or Chinese Kempo. Now, our sparring on the other hand, rarely resembles traditional American Kenpo or Shaolin Kung Fu practitioners. Our sparring is not competition/tournament based, and includes aspects primarily from Karate, Kenpo, American Boxing, and Muay Thai Kickboxing.

Here is an image that clearly depicts many Chinese martial arts lineages. You can see the common relationship between Kung fu, Kenpo, and Kajukenbo. There are many great websites that detail the history of Ed Parker and the origination of his martial arts knowledge as well as information about Shaolin Kung Fu & Kajukenbo.

Grappling Arts
We also practice ground & grappling arts defense skills. The two main grappling arts out there today are Judo and styles of Jujitsu. We practice the self defense aspects of many ground defense and grappling arts.  Judo and Jujitsu are like cousins, with the same lineage, and over the years they have become slightly different, but still resemble each other.

The history of these grappling arts prior to the Feudal period in the 8th Century are not well defined.   However, it is clear that around the 8th century, the Japanese refined the ground arts of the time into a system called Jujitsu (aka Japanese Jujitsu or original Jujitsu), which was primarily used by the samurai during war time. When samurai war skills were no longer necessary, a man named Kano, adapted Jujitsu into an art that could be practiced more safely.  He called this version of Jujitsu - Judo or presently known as Kodokan Judo or Japanese Jujitsu.  In the late 1980's Judo became the national martial art of Japan and Olympic Judo became quite popular.

Another very popular style of Jujitsu practiced today is Brazilian Jiu-jitsu (BJJ).  BJJ was developed from Kodokan Judo by Helio Gracie in the early 1930's.  Helio learned Kodokan Judo, however, he was a smaller man, and found some of the skills difficult to execute.  He adapted these techniques into a style he could more effectively execute and incorporated many of the ground techniques of original Jiu-jitsu back into the art.  He coined the style Gracie/Brazilian Jiu-jistu.

In addition, there are several other styles of Jujitsu being taught today, such as Danzan-Ryu Jiu-jitsu and Can-Ryu Jiu-jitsu. Each has their own niche and take on the art.  However, all these styles of Jujitsu all relate back to the original Jujitsu from Japan.  All-in-all, we practice the self defense aspects of Jujitsu, whether it be BJJ, Kodokan Judo, Can-Ryu Jiu-jitsu, Danzan-Ryu Jiu-jitsu, etc.

Wrap-up
In conclusion, our striking/karate style is mostly Chinese based. With a mix of skills from American Kenpo, Shaolin Kempo, and several other styles (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, etc.).  We use takedowns from Judo and our grappling defense style comes from a mix of Kodokan Judo and Brazilian Jujitsu.

While the exact origin of the martial arts is difficult to pinpoint, if you really dig you may come to the same conclusion I did, which is most martial arts come from a few distinct origins and all other martial arts styles are just different branches of the same family tree.

Want to know more?  Jump on the web and do some research for yourself.

My Favorite Martial Arts Books

Over the years I have collected a list of my favorite martial arts related books.  I hope you enjoy. Happy Reading.

Books related to Self Defense

 The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker

Books related to Martial Artist's Philosophy

 Moving Zen: Karate as a Way to Gentleness by C.W. Nicol

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

The Art of Happiness by Dalai Lama

The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff

What to Say When you Talk to Yourself by Shad Helmstertter, Ph.D. 

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Stephen R. Covey

Everyday Tao: Living with Balance and Harmony by Ming-Dao Deng

Books related to Martial Arts Technique

Ed Parker's Infinite Insights into Kenpo (Series) by Ed Parker

Essential Anatomy: For Healing and Martial Arts by Mac Tedeschi

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: Theory and Technique by Renzo Gracie

Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu Self Defense Techniques by Royce Gracie

Jiu-Jitsu University by Saulo Ribeiro

The Gracie Diet by Rorion Gracie

Books related to Martial Art Sport

My Fight/Your Fight by Ronda Rousey

Open: An Autobiography by Andre Agassi

Sound Like a Good Read

I Got this. To Gold and Beyond by Laurie Hernandez

Background:

All of the books listed here, I have read and many are in my personal library.

Over the years I have been required to read several books for advancement in the Martial Arts. Some of the books I enjoyed and have found beneficial. (I have included some of those books here). Others were dry and unreasonable (they are not listed). 

Positive Teaching

[Original Article Written Nov 2015]

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to observe another martial arts school's youth class, ages 5-13 years old.  I was appalled by what I saw. Let me explain.

As many of you have heard me say, it is more important to find a good instructor over the style of martial arts.  I tell this to a student anytime they move and have to look for a new martial arts school.  And this fact was very true for the class I was observing.  The school had a very popular franchise name with a great reputation, but what is on the outside doesn't always make the inside.  Here is what I observed and what makes Flying Tigers different and special.

At Flying Tiger Self Defense our certified instructors go through a rigorous training process that lasts at a minimum 2 years and 100+ hours. The training they receive consists of 5 levels, where the instructor must apprentice and learn from a certified instructor, learn and practice teaching skills in actual classes, and then they are evaluated on their teaching skills. Depending on the age of the student instructor it can take several years to earn one's Red Jacket and become a certified instructor. Our students are not required to become teachers to earn their black belts because not everyone has the patience and desire to teach. And our belief is, that just because you are a black belt, that does not certify you or give you the skills to teach. But for those who do want to teach at our school, they learn interpersonal skills that will last a lifetime and will transfer to an endless number of jobs and careers.

So what did this instructor do so wrong? To start with, within the first 10 minutes of class the instructor yelled at his own children no less than 10 times. His unprofessionalism was so bad, it sent chills down my spine and made me want to run to the door. As he "instructed" the class, he stood in the front of the room barking orders. Never once did he get on the student's level and help them. Remember, he was teaching kids, not adults.  And worst of all, his instructions to the kids consisted of, "No, don't do that. Don't move like that. That's stupid. No one would ever do that," and "No, no, no, no, no."  As an instructor that tries to avoid all negative verbiage while teaching, this was like hearing swear words explode out of his month. I couldn't believe parents were paying over $125/month for this class so that their children could be yelled at for an hour non-stop.  I wouldn't pay $10/month to put my child in this class.

So, how is our teaching philosophy different? First of all, our level one instructors learn and must demonstrate how to teach using positive phraseology.  This means the instructor says, "Johney, great kick.  Now just keep your hands up," instead of saying, "Johney, stop dropping your hands when you kick. You'll get hit in the face.  Stop being so stupid."  Second, we tell our instructors to treat, "no," like it's a swear word.  Why? Yes there is a time and place for the word "no," but it isn't in a learning environment.  It is a great word for safety, "Johney! No, you will burn your hand." So instead of telling our students, "No, that's wrong. Don't do that," we teach our new instructors, to tell the student what they are doing right and explain how they can make it better.  "Johney, I can tell you are working hard to learn this technique.  Now, to make it better try putting your thumb here. Great, nice job."

On the drive home from the class, my husband asked me how I would have handled the misbehaving kids in the class. I explained that kids will behave in whatever fashion gets them attention. This means that if the kids who are misbehaving are getting attention, then Johney is also going to misbehave so he can get attention. Instead, we teach our instructors to ignore the misbehaving kid and praise the behaving kid. "Johney, you are doing a great job staying on your spot today.  Nice job.  High-five."  Now Timmy who has been goofing around sees Johney getting attention and wants a high-five too, so Timmy starts to behave and stand on his spot.  So then what do we do?  Give Timmy a high-five.  This makes the environment more positive and hence more fun for all.

Now, these are just three teaching techniques we use in our classes.  There is a long list of other teaching skills we use and teach our instructors.  All-in-all this experience made me grateful for the instructors I had, who taught and certified me to teach positively.

-Sifu S

Nov 2015