What kids can do.

[Linda Heenan]

Look at this ten year old and be amazed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS0QYq26V2g

He isn't one of ours but he makes me wonder if i'm putting enough effort into our kids. There's more than one way to look at it. My mother was a stage kid, singing and tapdancing on stage from the age of two and totally sick of it by the time she was twelve. I hope this kid loves it and goes on to be a Chen master.

Kids have more flexibility. If they start taijiquan even at highschool age, they are already struggling with some body mechanics. I train the difficult things such as low stances, with the kids and tell them to keep doing it all their lives and never lose it. Still, this video makes me wonder that I've neglected their training from lack of understanding of what a kid can actually do. We hope to raise up future sword champions and leave the art with a generation better trained than our own, to advance the art, rather than let it deteriorate.

You know .... I think I'm going to spend most of today practising and as much of each following day as possible too. There are so many distractions but I just got shocked into remembering not to waste a moment

[Dan Pasek]

Linda,

Thanks for posting that very skilled child’s performance. I do not have children, and do not teach any, but I also am amazed at what some can do! At such a young age, I suspect that maintaining interest while advancing their skill level may be a teacher’s primary goal. Interested children and youth can do amazing things, practice endlessly (to a degree that would tax adults), improve quickly, etc.

Another martial art that I train in (ILiqChuan) recently started a thread on their forum concerning teaching children. If you are interested, the link is here:
http://members.i-liqchuan.com/content/t ... program-ny

As to the Chen style clip, I wonder what percentage of students reach that child’s level. There are many children in china, and comparing the level of the few children that you teach to the level shown on the clip may be an unfair comparison. But if the clip motivates you and your students, then it is all good!

Thanks for your interest in teaching future generations,
Dan

[Linda Heenan]

I really enjoyed looking at your program and I like the red bag settling strategy enough to use it. Our kids are fairly disciplined now but when they started they were easily distracted and loud. Once you have a settled and listening group established, new kids coming into it take less time to develop a learning concentration. I noticed the high proportion of adults to kids. This is very good. Kids are dangerous little creatures and more watchers makes it easier to prevent incidents.

I hope you continue the kids work. There is vast potential out there largely untapped. How will we know who is going to be interested in continuing if they never find out about our arts in the first place. Well done!

I'm fairly sure the boy in the first video didn't attain that degree of skill in a group. He's probably had fairly intense one on one training from a skilled teacher. How fortunate he is. I love to teach our kids one on one as often as possible. If it's too rainy to go out, I phone a few of them and ask them to come for special instruction. They develop more quickly that way. It's all good, group, seminar, or individual. One thing I build into our kids from the start is the responsibility to pass on what they learn to newer ones and to pay it forward for one on one training by practising alone and being available to help with beginners. So in our classes over here, there are always child instructors working alongside me and parent helpers for extra watchful eyes.

[Scott M. Rodell]

I had the opportunity to work with Linda's group of kids all day yesterday. They ran in ages for 7 to 17 & I have to say it is great to see young children & teens learning the sword forms & really doing swordplay. To be sure, its not like a typical adult class. I've never done an hour of skimishing in my adult sword classes! And you might not be that surprised to learn that any child's game, even hide & go seek, can be turned into a sword game. But one thing is for sure, kids are much more willing to jump in & take a challenge. When I said, which one of you wants a go with me, they all were ready to go. Adults are often worried able losing or being hurt, the kids were all, "well I'm going to get killed, but why not?" Why not indeed...

[taiwandeutscher]

Great to hear, especially as here in Taiwan, we hardly find any youngsters in private settings anymore.

The ministry of edu tries to integrate CMA into school curriculums, but with doubtable success, giving credits for a short term Taijiquan classes with some 15 weeks, each with 100 min. What can you learn in such a short time?

And fluctuation is very high, even at my univerity real good teachers dropped out for that reason.

So the next generation of masters is white skinned?

Linda, when ever available, pics/vids from your group, I'm always interested to see.

[Linda Heenan]

We do have some promising kids. It is questionable if anyone in our day and age could become a genuine master. We have a seven year old with both the personality and learning ability to make it if he was sent to live and train with a master before he gets too much older and caught in the cycle of the modern world. I doubt his mother would be prepared to give him up. In fact, in our world, I doubt any master would be prepared to take in a child and raise him as a son, giving up a lot of his life just to supervise the training of a future master. Isn't that what it would take? Isn't that what used to happen? You can't produce future masters with one two hour class a week and their own daily practise, supervised only by an older student such as myself. Yes, there is potential, but the sacrifice necessary to bring it out is too great. People do not want to live like that anymore. I'll train the kids to the best of my ability and expose them to the best teaching as often as I can afford to do so. It will be interesting to see how far some of them go.

Pictures soon....

[Linda Heenan]

Try getting out of this one...



Using the advantage of small size.



The Skirmish begins.

[Linda Heenan]

Sword form.





Jan has been in training for only 6 months but he was willing to square up for a bout with his teacher.



Eleven year old Peter is in his sixth year of training.

[Linda Heenan]

Joshua demonstrated the miao dao form and then got ready for his match with the teacher.



Catherine, a new beginner, starts to learn Four Corners Drill.



Some special instruction for twelve year old Emily, only female winner of a TCSL tournament, who took out the junior youth title last year.

[CERogers]

Awesome pics guys! I like those swords too. I wished we would have had those when I got my elbow smacked by Ian at the retreat.

[Linda Heenan]

Hey Courtney, I hope that elbow is improving. My finger is almost better now, after a year. What do you reckon, we ought to have some of these padded swords on hand to lend the boys next time we fight with them ? Here's the pattern:

http://www.chinese-swords-guide.com/how-to-videos.html
http://www.chinese-swords-guide.com/foam-swords.html