Teaching Kids vs Adults - Part 1
I feel its near impossible to find a school in the Dallas area that teaches real adult self defense and has a separate martial arts program for kids. Actually, I don't know of any in Dallas that do an excellent job of offering both. What most schools call "Adult Self Defense" is actually them mislabeling some type of kid-style sport/tournament karate, and trying to pass-that-off to adults as "adult self defense". Most of the time I think adults sign-up for the "adult self defense", but soon figure out what they are really being taught, which leads to why 90% of adults quit a karate program within 6 months of starting one. My opinion, it doesn't have to be that way!
My approach is different. I like focusing on teaching only adults, and how they can end a fight quickly, especially if they are dealing with a younger, stronger, faster opponent. Most adults have busy lives and they don't want to spend years training like a professional boxer/fighter does. Its not necessary for an adult to spend that much time developing a professional fighters type "skill set", to adequately deal with ending aggression quickly.
So what is it I teach adults? They are immediately immersed and taught what most Karate schools won't! The short term goal is to make them Street Lethal! To sum it up, we focus on CQC techniques, trapping, and nearly every dirty fighting trick/secret known. This includes every illegal Karate tournament technique you could imagine, and every illegal UFC/NHB type technique. Simply, anything that will end a confrontation quickly so it doesn't become "a fight"! Think of it as an immediate unilateral termination of aggression where there are NO rules of engagement! Alot of this is stuff you don't want kids knowing or doing to one another, should they have a school yard brawl. Last thing you want is 10 yr old Billy breaking a knee, elbow, or ankle of Bobby's, because Bobby called him a name.
Bottomline, if you find a school that has "all ages" type classes (teaching both kids and adults), they have to water-down what they are teaching due to the kids (non lethal techniques), or they have to pace how they teach a mixed class so the kids can keep up. Eventually this often ends up boring many of the adults, who will often quit. I have seen this too many times to even count.
My opinion, for an adult to find training that teaches them how to seriously disable street thugs, and offers the sport/tournament stuff for kids, they will likely need to consider separate schools for each. Out of hundreds of schools locally, I don't know of any in our area I would recommend that do both well!
Again, my focus is to only teach adults, because I feel that's the market that's most neglected, and where traditional martial arts has sadly failed the public most often! There are a hundred kids schools, yet I don't know of even one street-effective-adult-only school here in a city of 1.2 million (Dallas)!
In my opinion, adults don't have to train like a professional fighter to become street effective. Yet there are tons of local schools that either try to make adults into full contact fighters, or they are mislabeling the kid-style sport karate they teach, and trying to pawn-that-off as adult self defense! On a personal note, I feels that's a complete abomination!
There is a simple mix of techniques I feel adults can quickly become skilled at, that most schools don't teach them. That is part of what I teach, my immediate short term goal with my students, and the difference in my school vs. 99% of the other schools in the Dallas area. I guess you could say that's why I decided to call my school "A Better Way of Self Defense".
My approach is different. I like focusing on teaching only adults, and how they can end a fight quickly, especially if they are dealing with a younger, stronger, faster opponent. Most adults have busy lives and they don't want to spend years training like a professional boxer/fighter does. Its not necessary for an adult to spend that much time developing a professional fighters type "skill set", to adequately deal with ending aggression quickly.
So what is it I teach adults? They are immediately immersed and taught what most Karate schools won't! The short term goal is to make them Street Lethal! To sum it up, we focus on CQC techniques, trapping, and nearly every dirty fighting trick/secret known. This includes every illegal Karate tournament technique you could imagine, and every illegal UFC/NHB type technique. Simply, anything that will end a confrontation quickly so it doesn't become "a fight"! Think of it as an immediate unilateral termination of aggression where there are NO rules of engagement! Alot of this is stuff you don't want kids knowing or doing to one another, should they have a school yard brawl. Last thing you want is 10 yr old Billy breaking a knee, elbow, or ankle of Bobby's, because Bobby called him a name.
Bottomline, if you find a school that has "all ages" type classes (teaching both kids and adults), they have to water-down what they are teaching due to the kids (non lethal techniques), or they have to pace how they teach a mixed class so the kids can keep up. Eventually this often ends up boring many of the adults, who will often quit. I have seen this too many times to even count.
My opinion, for an adult to find training that teaches them how to seriously disable street thugs, and offers the sport/tournament stuff for kids, they will likely need to consider separate schools for each. Out of hundreds of schools locally, I don't know of any in our area I would recommend that do both well!
Again, my focus is to only teach adults, because I feel that's the market that's most neglected, and where traditional martial arts has sadly failed the public most often! There are a hundred kids schools, yet I don't know of even one street-effective-adult-only school here in a city of 1.2 million (Dallas)!
In my opinion, adults don't have to train like a professional fighter to become street effective. Yet there are tons of local schools that either try to make adults into full contact fighters, or they are mislabeling the kid-style sport karate they teach, and trying to pawn-that-off as adult self defense! On a personal note, I feels that's a complete abomination!
There is a simple mix of techniques I feel adults can quickly become skilled at, that most schools don't teach them. That is part of what I teach, my immediate short term goal with my students, and the difference in my school vs. 99% of the other schools in the Dallas area. I guess you could say that's why I decided to call my school "A Better Way of Self Defense".
posted by Erik Mann at 2:39 PM
2 Comments:
I would agree with your points on the lack of effective adult self defense at most martial arts schools. However, the question comes down to business. Is there enough interest in the market for adult self defense even though there's a need for it? I read one report that most adults do not even consider self defense to be a need. And the other question is how long can these adult self defense students be retained? Students coming in to learn just self defense are often in for short term courses and seminars so it would be very difficult to get enough long term 'customers' to support a viable martial arts business unless one is willing to keep recruiting new faces for short term sessions all the time.
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