Kids have a lot of energy and they need a healthy outlet to burn off all that energy. Sports seem to be the typical go-to when parents are thinking about their child’s extracurricular activities. I was a sporty kid, but not the “I need to play on a team outside of school hours” kind of kid. We’re talking about mandatory gym class sports or in the neighborhood with friends for fun.
As an adult I still enjoy engaging in sporty activities. Anything from frisbee throwing to pickleball, swimming & diving, mini golf, and everything in between. I know, you’re still stuck on the fact that I said “mini golf”. It’s a sport I promise.
Summers as a child meant chlorine and sun bleached hair, tanned skin, and pruney hands and feet. I spent most of my day in the deep end diving off the springboards. You name it, and I did it off those boards. There wasn’t a flip or twist, forwards or backwards, I didn’t try. I was fearless on the boards. My grandparents would visit me at the pool once a week and watch from the other side of the fence (members only pool) while I showed them all the dives I was working on. My grandmother would smile and wave and tell me how beautiful my dives were and that I’d be in the Olympics one day! She was serious. I wasn’t. I just did it for fun.
The truth was, I wasn’t that good. Not Olympic good. Fearless, yes. Perfect, no. Remember when I said “fearless”? I forgot to mention I was terrified of the high dive. I could jump off of it fine. Diving off, not so much. I did in fact dive off of it once, by sitting on the edge and falling forward. That was the first and last time I did that. Apparently my fearlessness had it’s limits and my limit was at the end of a high dive.
Not all kids are sporty kids. Some are amazingly talented and go on to do very well in their respective sport. Some kids just play for fun or because they have to. What about the kids that don’t gravitate towards sports?
Martial arts is for anyone and everyone. Even your non-sporty kid. Quite honestly, the non-sporty kids do really well with martial arts. It’s not as easy as just selecting a martial arts school to try. It’s about picking the right teaching style of martial arts school for your child. Is it a competition based school or a technique based school? Do they focus on helping your child grow outside of the dojo (character building) or do they only focus on your child’s progress in the dojo?
Those are two very important questions to ask. Which one of those is best for your child? Which one will help develop your child into a responsible, respectful, and confident, young lady or young man?
See you next week when I dive into this topic further.