A story from camp

For kids who are interested in the martial arts. Moderated by "Seisan Sister", who is 13 years old and a seasoned Uechi competitor and according to her father, a very serious martial artist.
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seisansister
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Joined: Thu Jun 09, 2005 2:23 am
Location: the dojo

A story from camp

Post by seisansister »

:D Hey there everybody! I just got back from camp and I have a story. 8)

On the first day of camp, me and my friend were talking bout karate and this 8 yr old boy came up to me and said his name was Lucas. He was supposidly the meanest little boy there.. i heard he was mean to councilors and other kids. He was a cute little boy with red hair and lotsa freckles. My friend drifted away to talk to another girl and thats when this little boy, Lucas started talking to me.

He told me that he took a jujitsu and karate mix for 3 years. He told me about his sensei and his karate pals and how excited he was when he got promoted. His dad had let him sign up. He showed me some of the moves he remembered, one of them being a roundhouse kick. He did a great roundhouse kick and I ended up showing him a few kicks that I was good at. He had lots of questions about tournaments, his mother never let him go because she thought they were setting a bad example for her son. I told him how I had to compete with my best friend for first place and he got all excited when I told him I won.

Everytime I saw Lucas he would walk up to me and I'd walk him to his next course while we chatted. He asked about my school, my sensei, my friends from karate, and all about my belt tests. I'd show him moves and he'd show me moves. He was my new little friend.

On Thursday he explained how his mom made him quit karate even tho he loved it so much. His mom picked him up early from karate early one day and saw him sparring with his friend. His mom freaked out and he was forced to quit. He told me how he locked himself in his room and yelled at his mom for days. He got back from school one day and she told him that he was signed up for Yan Po karate. He had never heard of this type of karate before, but he told his mom that he'd try it out.

He got to this new "karate" class and they weren't doing kicks or punches or anything he's learned. They got a new belt every month and the belts never reached black but they got rainbow once they went to class for a year. He thought this was crazy and he knew it wasn't real karate. He told his parents and his mom told him it promised safe classes and there was no violence. He begged his parents to let him go back to his old school, they wouldn't, so he quit Yan Po.

He talks about karate so much and I can tell how much he loved it. With determination like that, he deserves to be a karate kid. He talked with me all week and he learned from me and I learned from him.

Karate tells kids to defend themselves, not hurt others! Good senseis stress that kids don't practice on others unless they are being hurt. Let me know what you guys think of my story..

:B-fly: Seisansister
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Mills75
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Hello

Post by Mills75 »

I agree with you Seisansister and I'm glad you had fun at camp. It's to bad about Lucas having to postpone his karate for now but such is life and he may return someday and stay. I don't like to question parents and decisions they make for their kids but I just wish the sensei would have inquired about why Lucas had to leave class and then he might have been able to find out the situation and explain to the mother that karate was about self protection and not about violence.

I have to agree that leaving nan po karate sounded like a good idea because without some type of learning in self protection techniques it doesn't really seem to be something your friend was interested in and I don't blame him for that.

It's hard being younger and parents do the best they can but they are just people afterall and sometimes they make mistakes also. Hopefully if the mother learns more about the interests of Lucas then she'll feel good about letting him rejoin his class and get back to his learning.

I would hope if she knows her son really cares about martial arts that she'll take the time to do more research on it and understand it's a great thing for young people and not something hurtful. Much of it depends on what the sensei believes and is embedding in young people also.

Great story and thanks for sharing.

Jeff :D
Jeff
Danny Smith
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Joined: Fri Dec 17, 2004 9:50 pm
Location: Tishomingo, Oklahoma

Post by Danny Smith »

Great story!

I'm going to get some of the kids from my dojo
to post on this forum. They may have an interesting story or two 8O .

I did have one Mom come in with her Daughter
some time back. Mom did not like my class at all.
She asked me just what kind of karate class is this anyway? What is with all of the punching and kicking
and yelling? This is not what our other class was like.
I had to explain to her that this was not a "day care"
like a lot of "karate classes" now days.
She wanted to be able to leave her 4 year old daughter
there for a couple of hours to "play" karate,
as she called it.
She wanted to know where all the games were and all of the red and blue uniforms and the "cardio kickboxing".
I told her that this is not that kind of Dojo.
Needless to say they didn't come back to train.

Tomahawk.
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JimHawkins
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Location: NYC

Post by JimHawkins »

Very cool story Seisansister.. 8)

Too bad you couldn't have chatted with Lucas' parents, being such a great young karate role model yourself I'll bet you could have made them see the light.. ;)

Keep up the good work on the forum! :D
Shaolin
M Y V T K F
"Receive what comes, stay with what goes, upon loss of contact attack the line" – The Kuen Kuit
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seisansister
Posts: 49
Joined: Thu Jun 09, 2005 2:23 am
Location: the dojo

I wonder..

Post by seisansister »

:idea: Hmm here's something I thought of when I re-read your comments and my entry. Why is it that kids can recognize when the karate class is real or fake but parents think its all the same? Do kids have a secret knowledge of these things and why? How do kids realize that a class is not real genuine karate, when parents view it as baby-sitting or that there's only one type of karate and that its all the same? Lucas knew that this nan po was not a real karate way.. but how? He'd only been to one other school before.. so how did he know that this wasn't just another way of karate? :?: Just a thought I had..

:D Also wanted to thank you guys for commenting and visiting this forum! 8)

:B-fly: Seisansister[/b]
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JimHawkins
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Re: I wonder..

Post by JimHawkins »

seisansister wrote: How do kids realize that a class is not real genuine karate, when parents view it as baby-sitting or that there's only one type of karate and that its all the same? Lucas knew that this nan po was not a real karate way.. but how? He'd only been to one other school before.. so how did he know that this wasn't just another way of karate?
Hi Seisansister,

You know a long time ago in Okinawa folks trained karate with no free sparring at all, only kata training... This departure from its Chinese roots is strange but true according to historical documents. Later, they added in lots of other stuff like two man sets and drills and sparring.. So the "true way" of karate is often in the eye of the beholder. :? ;)

But from the sound of it Lucas' mom nearly had an aneurysm when she saw him sparring... 8O Perhaps she was unaware what the training involved and upon seeing the sparring she feared for the safety of her son. In any case she didn't like what she saw, so it sounds like she went out and found a 'safe dojo' for Lucas to train at. Of course this wasn't what Lucas was used to and so it turned him off.

Lots of us when we were kids were not allowed to train in 'the arts' and had to wait till we grew up to get in on all the fun... :P :lol: 8)

Think how lucky you Kombat Kids are.... :)
Shaolin
M Y V T K F
"Receive what comes, stay with what goes, upon loss of contact attack the line" – The Kuen Kuit
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