Homeschool PE Options: Martial Arts
My littlest one, just five years old, is now into her second week of JuJutsu (sometimes written “JuJitsu”) classes. While martial arts are now much more popular than when I was a child, I don’t find a lot of other parents whose kids study JuJutsu. The most common seem to be Karate and Tae KwonDo, although I do sometimes see kids in Judo as well.
Martial arts are great for kids of all kinds, and this is a super homeschool PE option. Classes are usually pretty easy to find even in smaller communities. If you can’t find a school that specializes in martial arts, look for classes through your community center or YMCA. Classes may also take place as part of an extra-curricular activities program at elementary or high schools in your area.
With a good instructor, kids get a great physical and mental work out. Classes also offer time for socialization – not necessarily socializing, because it’s important to pay attention during classes both out of respect for the instructors and in order to keep everyone safe. But kids do practice things like encouraging others to do their best, friendly competition and showing good sportsmanship, and of course following rules and rituals of the dojo. In some styles like JukaidoKan JuJutsu, students learn the Japanese vocabulary along with physical techniques. This exposure to a foreign language is not only fun, but it opens children up to the possibility of learning other languages without placing the emphasis on conjugating verbs or selecting the correct pronoun, or worrying what gender a noun is!
All physical activity is good for children. Getting active is part of a healthy lifestyle, and a good cardiovascular workout helps to provide oxygen to those growing brains. Martial arts generally offer a good warm-up period and training in safety measures. Discipline is very often a focal point, and this can help a child who is a little unruly in other situations to settle down a bit. Because the belt system is widely used, kids have something to strive for without feeling that they have to be as good as any other student in the class. In fact, good instructors will allow more experienced students to take on some of the teaching so all students get the benefit of more individualized instruction. A close bond can be formed between a less experienced student and those who have reached a point at which they are asked to assist in the teaching. This bond can exist just as much outside of class time, as it does during classes.
My littlest one seems to be forming such a bond with one of the more experienced students, a young man in his early years of secondary school. Another of my daughters has been taken under the wing of a sempai, one of the senior students who is working towards his black belt. Both the older girls have earned special nicknames that they wear with pride, and the littlest is working hard to find her place among the students and to find a name that will emphasize her strengths too. She is pleased as punch when she “trips” her Daddy or one of the other students who are so much bigger than she is! And for those who are saying these guys are just letting her throw them, yes it is true in the beginning they do cooperate and let her use her newly learned techniques to throw them to the mat. But this doesn’t mean that one day she won’t be able to really fight regardless of her size. When my girls did their yellow belt test the senior students were told to really struggle, and not to “tap out” unless they really felt pain. My middle girl was just six then, and small for her age. The partner she was paired with was a grown man.
One of the great things about our small dojo is that the class is a mixed group of students from all ages and ability levels. So my girls study alongside their Daddy, and they get to see him being physically active. We know that kids are more likely to adopt healthy habits when these habits are modelled for them, by parents and by other people they look up to. Instead of seeing a bunch of little kids with parents lined up in chairs against the wall drinking coffee (the scenario throughout most of the activities I did as a child) our girls see people of all ages being physically active. And far from this being a scenario where the bigger people play with a handicap to give the kids a reasonable chance of winning, in JuJutsu even very small people can achieve. It’s not a team sport that pits participants against one another throughout the duration, but rather an individual activity spiced up with learning techniques and practicing both sparring and ground fighting.
So everybody in the dojo is challenged as much as possible. There is a lot of strenuous exercise – complete with real sweating, red cheeks and breathing hard. It’s wonderful for kids to see older people faced difficult challenges and having to struggle to meet them. They learn that just being older or bigger doesn’t make things come easily, and they learn to face their own battles with a positive attitude. There is a grace to repeatedly attempting a difficult technique and not quite getting it, but dusting oneself off and trying again. Children need to see an adult critique his own performance, no matter how wondrous it seems to those who have not yet reached that level of expertise, and say that it’s good but there’s still room for improvement. There is even something to be said for seeing a grown-up injured, as much as we hate to see our friends hurt. It teaches them that adults aren’t invulnerable, that we have weaknesses too, and that even a really tough guy needs help sometimes. If you’ve got a child who fusses over breaking a fingernail, it also helps them to put things into perspective, and to learn not to give in too easily! I recommend martial arts in a good school as a homeschool phys.ed. course, or as after school enrichment for kids who are attending school outside the home.
Oz will be writing about his experiences in JuJutsu, among other things, here at Blogalogues. Besides being my husband and father to our four beautiful children, he is a dual Canadian-American citizen whose family has lived with one foot on either side of the border for generations. Oz is a history buff and martial arts student, a teacher and storyteller. He faces life with humour and just the right amount of attitude, but he’s also a model of honour and respect for heritage. Oz is presently involved with homeschooling our three daughters, keeping an extra keen eye on our special needs son, and promoting Jukaido-Kan JuJutsu. You can find his writings at Duel Boot. Please stop by, and leave him a comment so he’ll know you were visiting!
Cheers!
September 20th, 2009 at 06:59
[...] Physical activities are an important part of every homeschool curriculum. Even if the homeschooling parent is not an athlete, there are lots of ways to include sport or even unstructured physical activity in your weekly plans. Our girls attend twice weekly JuJutsu classes and we also try to get out to the occasional park day with the Montreal Homelearners. There are a large number of sports groups in the after school hours, and in many communities gym days organized for homeshooled kids. In New Orleans, homeschoolers can even take part in tackle football – a fact I’m sure would tickle Ed! [...]
October 20th, 2009 at 03:36
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by ruby3881: #Martialarts a great PE option for homeschoolers. Read about the benefits, and our experience with 3 girls in #JuJutsu http://ow.ly/pUsE…