Karate kids

Many of the participants in the martial-arts classes in this country are children. The trainers in this field generally teach one or two groups of teenagers and adults and the rest of the time they invest in children who are already coming to the clubs at the age of four.

In most cases, all the parents want is for their son to expend a bit of energy and aggressiveness in a karate class or for their daughter to acquire self-confidence after hurling other children into the air in judo training. However, many trainers note that there are other positive aspects to martial-arts training, such as improved behavior in hyperactive children, treatment of motor problems, improved coordination and balance, the inculcation of discipline and more.

In 2000, the Sport Law came into effect, obligating anyone who engages in training for physical activity to be licensed as a sports instructor. The martial-arts trainers' course at the Wingate Institute, for example, includes classes on physical training for children and instructional methods. However, veteran trainers stress that the course is no substitute for a parent's personal impression of the trainer himself and his approach to children.

"After one or two training sessions I can tell parents about their child's problems if there are any," says Arthur Gribetz, the chief Tora dojo trainer in Jerusalem, a method based on Japanese karate. Gribetz notes that karate training "is very systematic and it teaches students to feel the body and the breath," and therefore also helps decrease excess muscle tension, improves motor skills, teaches distinguishing between left and right and more."

Shalom Avitan, chairman of the Karate-Shotokan Association in Israel, says that any sport in which there is correct training, with the appropriate trainer, contributes to a child's development, but the acquisition of self-confidence is not to be taken for granted. "Self- confidence is built up over time," says Avitan. "It is necessary to train for at least a year and a half or two years to start to see results, and that on condition that the trainer is a professional and aware of the children's needs. If you throw a small child into combat with children who are bigger and more experienced than he is, this isn't going to contribute to his self-confidence," he says.

How is a child's behavior improved by teaching him to strike?

"I don't teach the children only to kick and use their fists," clarifies Dennis Hanover, one of the veteran martial-arts people in Israel and the founder of Dennis Survival, an original Israeli method for self-defense. "It is important to me to strengthen their character, so they will grow up to be people who know how to defend themselves and also to respect the other."

The age at which it is desirable to begin to train is controversial. The competition in the market, which offers a tremendous variety of classes, and the temptations of technology lead trainers to accept very young children so as not to lose them. Thus it happens that training groups are opened for children of five and six and even of four. For the sake of comparison, most of the leading trainers who are active today started their own training only when they were eight or nine years old.

What can be taught to children of five?

"The martial arts are technical methods that require physical capabilities and high concentration abilities," says Isidore Peled, a Seventh Dan in Karate-Shotokan and the head of the trainers' certification program at the Wingate Institute. He adds that until the age of nine or 10, classes for children should concentrate on the development of motor skills, a small amount of technique and the rest of the time should be devoted to games. After that it is possible to begin to work on the specific field, be it judo, karate or any other method.

Yona Melnik, a Seventh Dan in judo with more than 30 years as a trainer under his belt, notes that though it is possible to work with 5-year-olds on technique in judo training, apart from the competition in the market, there is no real reason to start so young. "It is better for a father to play ball games in a park with his child. He will undoubtedly pay more attention to him than a trainer who is responsible for a whole group," says Melnik. "The problem is that nowadays the parents are busy and they chuck the child into classes too young, and that's how it looks."

Melnik adds that the dropout rate among children who begin too young is very high, because after two or three years they have had enough. Hanover thinks differently. He is among the first in Israel to have begun working with 4-year-olds and in his opinion this is precisely the age to begin. He notes that his best students, among them some who have been training for 20 to 30 years now, started with him at the age of four. "Today it is much more important to start early because of the computer," says Hanover. "If you don't accustom a child to physical activity before the computer sucks him in, it will be much harder for you later on."

Eli Leffler, who was one of Hanover's first students, is even more decided: "Children of those ages are extraordinarily receptive, and I also talk to them about other aspects of self-defense, like not talking to strangers or opening the door to them, safety rules for surfing the Internet and so on."

Leffler says the issue of dropping out has more to do with the variety of stimuli that exists today and with the fact that the martial arts are demanding. "You don't have the fun here of soccer or basketball," he says. "Someone who wants to progress has to practice certain exercises, again and again, and to work hard. Persistence is also connected to the family - without the parents' support it doesn't work."