Have you ever wondered why some martial arts classes are more effective than your typical karate schools’ program?
The thing that makes our classes more dynamic than most is that we understand childhood development and have been able to use a curriculum that takes advantage of this understanding!
Here are just a few benefits of Age Specific Martial Arts and what they mean for your potential ninja in training!
1. Specifically Targeted Instruction
This means that we are able to teach with techniques that are specifically meant to develop physical, intellectual, emotional, and social skill sets. Based on the work of experts in developmental psychology, we've found that it's best to split our martial arts programs into four distince age-appropriate curriculums and groups: 3 & 4 year olds, 5 & 6 year olds, 7 to 9 year olds and finally 10-13 year olds. The fact that we are able to individually target each of these areas by age group means that the students will progress faster through these stages of development as well! Also, we will be able to more effectively coach a child that is struggling in any particular area.
2. Effective Communication
Everyone has heard of “selective hearing”. Many adults have been have heard this phrase when they were growing up! We now know that your comprehension of verbal instructions is affected by your stage of development. This allows us to better communicate the instructions for our drills to our 3yr olds by getting on their level and using an appropriate amount of words per sentence, as well as, using the proper diction for their age. Similarly, it's not just about the age-appropriate techniques we teach in each of the older age-groups, it also how we communicate with the class and individual student. This knowledge also allows us to better handle everything from “melt downs” in 3 year olds to the motivation of our teens!
3. Adjustable Expectations
For many years in the martial arts (and still today), many instructors taught their classes as though all age groups are physically, intellectually, emotionally, and socially equal (or close to it). Thus, their expectations of each child were very similar. We now know that this couldn’t be farther from the truth. This means that our instructors are able to adjust their expectations of each child because we know that each student is unique. Then we can move forward and set attainable goals that will allow each child to become a better version of themselves.
Our Age-Specific program here at Dragon Gym has been designed with each child, and the brain in mind! Our goal is to use the best in science and psychology to help each child discover what it takes to become the best version of themselves!