75% of kids will leave organized sport by the age of 12. For many it is not even their choice.
Some will get cut, and some will choose to leave, often not because
they don’t enjoy playing anymore, but because they don’t enjoy the way
in which they are forced to play. Youth sports have been taken over by
adults who are out to satisfy their interests, not those that actually
play the game, those that they are there to help, the kids.
Youth organized sports have fallen far from their original intent,
to let kids play. Youth sports have become the game of adults, whether
it is parents screaming from the stands or coaches screaming from the
sidelines. Players get benched, they feel pressure to win, and they
don’t feel free to experiment for fear of screwing up and getting
yelled at by coaches and parents.
Youth Hockey is a example of what can happen, parents fighting, refs
quitting due to abuse, kids fearing for themselves if they can’t
perform. It has become a way for adults to live out a fantasy of being
in charge of a team, of winning at their sport through their children.
Their model is based of professional sports, where winning is the
primary goal and bending the rules to do so is standard. After all
their ability to win is directly related to the ability to keep their
job.
But this isn’t why kids play. Kids play to have fun. Who wins is far
less important then having fun doing so. Studies have shown that the
vast majority of kids would rather play on a losing team then spend
time on the bench on a winning team. Games that kids play when left to
their own devices reflect this. Rarely is there a clear winner, score
keeping is often forgotten about and the rules will change to pick up
the action if necessary.
Young athletes are not just miniature professional athletes, they
are kids, and it seems that many adults involved in youth sports have
forgot this. Trying to get kids to play at adult professional standards
is not the way to keep them playing. With kids the goal is skill
development, physical activity, creativity, social contact, and most
importantly fun.
Children rarely participate to win, in 1999 Sports Illustrated asked children why they participate in sports, the results where:
72% – It’s fun
22% – For exercise
18% – To be with friends
12% – For Fitness
9% – For the competition
7% – To stay out of trouble
6% – To be popular
From this survey it seems that competition is viewed very low in the
priority list. What is important is having fun, exercising and being
with friends.
The reason many quit is simple; they no longer have fun. This is often
due to over organization and pressure placed on them by the adults who
run the programs.
Sports have several intrinsic values that are a part of the sport.
They are internal, within the sport itself. Sports by their very nature
are physical, they are competitive, they are fun, and they develop a
sense of teamwork and sportsmanship. External aspects can also be
attached, these are the statistics tracking, trophies, belt colour and
the league play structure.
External aspects can add to the experience, but they can also take
away from it. If one person gets a trophy how many don’t? If one team
wins, how many loose? If that desire to win the trophy and to win the
championships gets too strong problems will arise. Playing will turn
into working. Players will fear making mistakes and getting benched or
even cut.
They will learn to break rules to win if they can. They will see
coaches screaming and parents yelling at them and their friends when
all they want to do is play. Imagine your boss at work standing over
your shoulder yelling instructions at you and criticizing every mistake
you made. Now if you have a hobby picture the same thing, someone
coaching you as you cooked, telling you the recipe as you cook and
yelling at you if you deviate, threatening to pull you out of the game
every time you get stuck in a sand trap, or giving you a hard time
every time you miss a shot at pool.
The hobby would quickly stop being fun. It would become someone
else’s game, played through you. Kids sports are their game, the adults
have a role, but it is not to take the game away from them. A chef
could train you, a pool expert could coach you and you would get better
and learn from this. But their role would be to offer advice and
constructive criticism, to help you get better and develop your skills.
Not to try and use your skills to win the game with them in charge.
They would likely encourage creativity and let you make mistakes, and
you would have fun and learn while doing it.
This is the way youth sports should be as well. The coaches role is
to help the children develop skills and to provide the conditions for
them to do so. Competition is a great learning tool, so long as it is
used as a learning tool. If winning becomes the focus and then coaches
take over thinking because they know best, children become pawns in a
game. They feel bad when they lose and the other team becomes not only
the opponents, but the enemy as well. Sportsmanship is lost and the fun
disappears.
Within the martial arts world this is no different. I have seen
clearly biased judges, instructors and parents who looked like they
where ready to start a fist fight with referees over a bad call,
competitors faking injuries so that the other person loses a point or
gets disqualified and intentionally hurting a person to physically and
psychologically disable them. All of which was done at their
coaches/parents approval and often on their advice. Competitors who
knew that they didn’t score react as if they did, hoping the judges
couldn’t clearly see that they didn’t and award the point. Star
athletes break out in tears after being beaten by someone else.
It is not that competition is inherently “bad,” it has just become
“bad” based on an overemphasis on winning. Every hockey season we see
news stories of abused officials, out of control parents, and abusive
coaches. Something has gone wrong with our youth sports programs.
Children are being treated as professionals, and sometimes held to a
much higher standard then those that do this for a living with coaches
that are paid to win and lose their jobs if they don’t.
Now winning is part of the game, or rather trying to win is. In any
game there is a goal and ways to accomplish that goal. Without that
goal there is no game. The players of the game compete to accomplish
that goal, that is their function. But actually achieving that goal is
far less important then trying to accomplish that goal. And when the
game is over, it is over. If everyone had fun then the game was a
success, regardless of who won.
Watch a group of children play, it won’t follow the rules, the rules
will even change as the game goes to keep the action going and the game
fun. Easily dominating the opposition is no fun, nor is being easily
dominated. Kids will often change things to make if more fair if this
is happening They will develop social skills, a sense of fair play and
develop the skills needed for that particular sport, all while having
fun doing it.
Adults can add to their experience by showing them how to improve their
skills by providing the conditions and equipment for them to develop
those skills. Adults provide safety restrictions and can deal with a
child should they become too rough. But in the end the game must still
belong to the kids, even if administered by adults.
If we take a sport that requires catching and we work on that
specific skill there are several approaches we could take. We could
stand the children up on two opposite lines and have them throw on
command, or we could teach them the basic skill and then turn it into a
game. Given the choice of throwing a ball back and forth or playing
“Monkey in the middle” or “500″ most kids will choose the game. Not
only that, but they will put more effort into it and the skills will
develop faster. As they play they can be coached on catching,
intercepting or any other aspect of that skill. Want to teach them to
catch ground balls add a rule that they can only throw ground balls and
work off that.
Any skill that can be taught and coached can be turned into a game.
As a game it will be more fun and get more effort put into it. As a
result the skills will not only still be learnt, but they will be
learnt faster in a more dynamic environment. This will mean that while
this simple training game is being played elements of strategy and
adaptability are also being trained. These elements are essential to
actually playing the game.
So when someone tells you they are there to teach, not to play
games, realise what they are saying demonstrates a poor knowledge of
how to teach. Skills can be taught to a higher level and much faster
through the use of games focusing on those skills. The children will
have more fun doing it and will be more likely to stick with it, and
give it more effort.
However it has become hammered into most of us that things need to
be structured, that everyone should do things in an organized way.
Children standing in formation doing callisthenics and executing skills
on command may look organized, but it is ineffective. They would have
more fun and get a better work out running around chaotically trying to
achieve a goal that no one over the age of 12 can really understand
because the goal keeps changing. Within a loosely organized structure
focusing on specific skills in a game environment we can capture the
best of both. The participants are having fun, giving it their best,
developing specific skills, learning to follow rules, play fair and
sportsmanship.
As they develop those skills they can be coached on how to execute
better if necessary, but much of it is learnt through self-discovery.
This self-discovery is aided through hints and advice from coaches who
have made the same self-discoveries in the past. Children are free to
experiment and make mistakes, and they learn from making those
mistakes.
Adults need to look at the game from a child’s perspective. The
important aspects are simple. Have fun, make progress and not get
injured. If those things are being accomplished then they are spending
their time in a productive manner. Robotic like discipline and actually
winning, as oppose to trying to win, are not important.
Winning can become more important as they progress, as they mature
and reach adulthood some may choose to move up to more competitive
levels where winning is important. But this needs to be their choice,
and it shouldn’t be too early. In an article entitled “What has gone
wrong with Athletics Today” (1998) Robert Butcher states “One prominent
psychologist spoke of her research, which shows that competitive
athletes consistently show lower scores on scales of moral development”
while describing the International Summit on Ethics in Sport” the main
point of the article was that sports went wrong when we forgot that
they are still just a game.
There is a lot of truth to this claim. Sports have become a
commercial entertainment business. They are about profit and winning or
at least the sports that the media exposes us to are. Professional
sports are a business and they are entertainment. Fans will pay to see
hockey players fight, so it is allowed and teams have “enforcers” who
are not there because of there hockey skills but because of there
ability to fight.
Basing youth sports and adult recreational sports off of this model
is a mistake. Now we need to try and undo this mistake for the good of
the children who got caught in the middle of something they had no
control over.
One result is a new breed of sports, skateboarding, snowboarding,
BMX, etc. These new sports are all about the athletes. The athletes get
together and train on their own. A skateboarder will spend countless
hours learning fundamental skills without quitting and without an adult
telling them what to do. He becomes dedicated, he will get together
with his friends and train and they help each other. He will have fun
and develop his own skills his way. There are no adults on the side
yelling at him when he makes a mistake, no one telling him what skills
are important to him.
This new breed of athlete is at the far end of the scale. They are
the ones that became so fed up with being told what to do and how to do
it, of having their games stolen from them that they left them
completely and went to one that there where no adults involved in.
This happens all the time, remember three quarters of children will
leave organized sport by the age of 12. Many will move to other
activities such as music, art, and “extreme” sports. These activities
give them the opportunity to create and to experiment and the freedom
is not be compromised by “adult created structure”.
Children can be coached by adults in the skills but if their creativity
is taken away by their coach they will likely reject that coach
quickly. Sport should be no different. It should be coached and aided
based on the children’s needs and interests. It should help them
develop creativity and adaptability. These skills will be more useful
to them in life. They will learn to take responsibility for themselves
and they will gain confidence knowing that they accomplished their
goal, not the coach’s goals that he threw at them.
So the job of the coach in developmental sports should be to help
children reach their goals within the limits of that sport. It also
must involve helping them realise what goals can be accomplished and
how they can be accomplished. So if a child’s goal is to play a forward
position, it should be the coach’s goal to help them with that goal.
Not to force them to play goal because that is where the coach thinks
they should be. Initially they must be shown all the positions and all
the skills, otherwise they won’t be able to make that choice. Even
after they know all the possibilities it can better them to keep them
playing all positions at different times, perhaps with a specialty.
This will give them more variety and slow burn out.
So how does all of this work in the martial arts?
Well first of all, practices should be fun. Training should be done
through skill specific games and children should be mostly coached, not
taught. Classes should be organized, but that organization should be
loose. Drills should be aimed at developing a specific skill, but this
does not mean standing in line doing repetitions. It means working
towards a specific goal and having fun doing it.
One basic skill in the martial arts is to be able to control the
wrists of an opponent and not have your wrist controlled. To get free
requires a small circular movement that exploits the weaknesses of the
hand and it’s ability to grab. This skill can be learned and developed
through the use of a simple game. The objective is simply to control
both your partner’s wrists and avoid having them control yours. This
will look chaotic and unorganized if compared to students standing in
line taking turns practicing the movement required to get free. But
they will have more fun doing it, and they will learn it better because
they are working against full resistance. They are also learning the
opposite skill, controlling the wrists and have to deal with a more and
more skilled opponent as they progress.
Some things to notice about this game, there is no winner, there is
no score and there is very little structure. But it is competitive and
it is fun and it does develop a specific skill. Not sure? Find a
partner and try it, it requires no training and is safe.
Now once this skill and others are learnt they can be combined to
create more complex games requiring greater adaptability and strategy,
but the skills remain exactly the same, they are just combined with
other skills. Instead of just the wrist you may also control the
elbows, the shoulders, the body and the head while trying to avoid
being controlled.
Later other skills are added, takedowns, ground control, breaking
away, closing into that clinch, striking, closing on someone who is
striking, controlling someone who is trying to strike you. Through the
use of progressively complex developmental games and coaching within
those games skills are developed to a much higher level then any amount
of standing in formation practicing repetitions can achieve. More
importantly it is a lot more fun, so more effort is put into it and
there is a greater chance of sticking to it.
What about discipline and respect?
Well there are two types of discipline: Self-discipline and the
discipline that is hammered into you. Using this model self-discipline
is learned through fair play and competition among friends. They are
constantly working towards a specific goal in a specific way. They will
impose their own discipline among themselves.
The same idea holds for respect. Some people are respectful, and
some only act respectful. Forcing kids to adhere to titles and imposing
artificial signs of respect such as excessive bowing and rituals does
not teach them respect. It only teaches them how to act to avoid
disciplinary action.
On the other hand children who want to learn and want to try hard
learn a different sort of respect. They learn to respect others through
their activities. Respect is required for peer acceptance. If they
don’t respect the rules of the game and their training partners they
would quickly find that no one wants to be their partner. There respect
is not forced and it is not artificial.
As a result it will also look different then it does when it is
artificially imposed. Children will feel comfortable around their
coach, not intimidated by them. They will feel free to joke and have
fun with them. They will be able to do this because they respect them,
not out of disrespect.
This also requires respect from the coach, if the coach demands to be
addressed by a title, demands to be saluted and demands a strict code
of behaviour that is lack of respect. The coach is on a power trip and
has no respect for those that train under him, as they are under him. A
coach who respects his/her athletes will have no problem joking with
them and making mistakes in front of them. The respect between them
will be far stronger then any artificially imposed code of behaviour
that places the coach in a position of power over them.
Consider what an artificial code of conduct, that places the coach in a
power position, teaches children. It teaches them that it is ok to
force others to bow down to you if they are inferior to you. It teaches
them that it is ok to place yourself above others when you can. Coaches
are humans, same as those that they coach. They should be treated as
such, and treat others as humans as well. That is respect.
The respect is not there when one person is higher then the others, it
can’t be. You are teaching them to bow down before superior, but at the
same time that it is ok to force others to bow down before you. The
child should respect the coach, but not because the coach demands it
explicitly, but because the coach is respectful towards them and can
help them achieve their goals.
You respect your friends, and if they are teaching you something you
are still respectful to them. But if your friend is helping you with
your golf swing and demands you call him by a title and follow a
imposed code of conduct towards him while he does so would you put up
with it? Respect must go both ways for it to be genuine. Someone who
imposes such conditions has no respect for those he imposes it on.
There are of course exceptions, the military being the big one. The
very nature of military work demands adherence to a chain of command
and the following of orders. If orders are not followed, people can and
will get killed. If every private is given a choice about how they
should attack they will not work as a unit. There is no time for
democracy, and no time for all of them to receive the full picture.
This requires a very strict chain of command, and in times of peace
this chain of command still must be maintained. This means that
artificial conditions must be imposed to keep it in place, even when it
is not needed in full so that when it is needed it is there.
This chain of command is also a part of business, with management
making the decisions and everyone else following. In business this is
far less rigid. You are not required to salute executives, the code of
behaviour is based on respect, not ego. And it generally goes both
ways. If it doesn’t the employees will hate the job and eventually
quit. Abuse in the workplace is no longer tolerated, and it shouldn’t
be in youth sports either. Unfortunately it is, one only needs to
attend a youth sports games to see abuse of players and officials by
coaches and parents.
Occasionally a child will act in a way that does need to be stopped
either because it is physically dangerous or emotionally harmful to
others. This doesn’t mean they should stand and act like little
automatons. There is a difference between two people joking with each
other and one abusing the other. Everyone makes jokes with their
friends and at their friend’s expense, and their friends do it back.
There is no disrespect in this. But if it crosses the line into verbal
abuse and is harming one or more people then it needs to be stopped.
Where that line lies is different for different people and is based on
the different relationships between them. While children should be made
aware of this line and not to cross it, they should not be kept from
playing with each other.
So while it should be perfectly acceptable for children to be joking
and laughing throughout practice, anything that is abusive should be
unacceptable. This is bullying, not playing. Ideally preventing this
comes from within the group. If the group will not allow bullying then
bullies won’t appear. Peer pressure is the best way to prevent
bullying. When the bullies are rejected by their peers and no one joins
them in bullying, the bullying won’t last. This is because bullies are
what they are because of the power associated with being able to
dominate others. They try to gain a position of power by mistreating
others. They want to elevate themselves by forcing others below them.
These are people who are insecure in themselves and fight that security
by imposing their will upon others. When the rest of the group will not
be suppressed and stand together against them, the bullies will see
their actions backfire. Instead of gaining a position of power and
respect by exerting themselves on others they lose it as the group
stands together.
This is the same behaviour that is reinforced by an imposed code of
conduct that places the instructor at the top. If the instructor
demands to be referred to in a specific way and demands shows of
submission to him, he is reinforcing the idea that you can gain power
by putting others below you.
If a coach wants to prevent bullying in a group he should not bully
the bullies, this will only reinforce their behaviour, but the coach
should move it out of sight. He should become a part of that group and
help the group stand together against that sort of attitude, not
display it in himself.
A perfect instructor would not deal with bullying for there would be
no bullying to deal with. But unfortunately no one is perfect and even
if one was found, there are many others that kids are exposed to.
Bullying is a learned behaviour, an instructor placing himself above
others is teaching that behaviour.
When a problem that does require disciplinary action does arise how
it is dealt with is also an important issue. Many feel that it is best
to make the kids do something, pushups is a popular one. But again what
does this teach the child? When someone doesn’t do what you say you
should force them to do something that they don’t like? That is
bullying. No push ups are not the answer, nor is giving them any form
of “Do this…” as punishment. Forcing others to do something for
stepping out of line again teaches that it is ok to force others to
remain subordinate to you.
It also teaches them that push-ups, a beneficial exercise, are a
punishment. Something that is not done for the benefit of doing them,
but as punishment. Using activities as punishment will teach the
children to hate those activities.
Instead it is better to deprive them of something. If they are
bullying, or just playing too rough, sit them on the side while others
continue to play until they’ve calmed down. What does this teach them?
That if you don’t play by the groups rules, you don’t get to play with
the group. It makes it a more positive lesson than a negative one. It
also shows them that the activity is something that they want to do,
and if they don’t do it by the rules they miss out.
So instead of bullying the bully and reinforcing his behaviour as
acceptable when you are at the top of the pecking order, you are
teaching him that bullying will get you excluded, not give you a
position of power.
The Belt System
The belt system is an interesting concept, it provides benefits and
rewards to the members but at the same time it can cause a great deal
of problems.
Initially it was meant as a means to group competitors in Judo
competition. Later it was imposed upon karate by the Japanese
government as a condition for its recognition as a legitimate form of
martial arts. Many Okinawan’s rejected it and it wasn’t until after
World War two that it became fully accepted on Okinawa.
Some believed that it would lead to people focusing on the belt and
not the art, that it would cause people to be judged by their belt, not
their ability, that it would lead to inflated egos and political
fighting. They were right.
Far to many people in the martial arts judge their worth based on
their image and their image, they believe, is correspondent to their
rank. They also judge others by the rank that they hold and consider
themselves above those who are lower ranked then them. They demand
exotic titles, and everyone wants the most exotic. Soke is the big one
lately, some say it means founder, others headmaster. But if any of
them actually understood the term they would know that it is impossible
for them to hold it. It is a title reserved for the head master of a
classical Japanese art form handed down through the generations. No
westerner could ever become a Soke as it is an inherited title. But it
makes them feel important, it is an exotic wounding title in a foreign
language that they can award themselves.
For this reason we have countless self-promoted masters and high
ranked black belts. There is a little known phenomenon which
occasionally occurs mid flight where a person takes off as one rank and
lands at another, higher one. The desire to feed the ego has taken over
for many. For others it is a realization that a higher rank works
better as a marketing tool. The higher rank, the more importance you
can impart on yourself in the eyes of prospective students as well as
existing ones. Some have so many ranks that based on the “official”
requirements they would need several hundred years training to have
achieved them all.
Some groups recognising this have reduced their grading requirements
to try and attract more students. After all the prospective student
knows very little about the martial arts, seeing someone titled
“Grandmaster” or “8th dan this, 7th dan that, etc.” gives an impression
of importance. While in reality others of similar knowledge and ability
within a different group might only be 1st or 2nd dan.
Coloured belts are no different. Some schools will guarantee you a
black belt in 2 or 3 years if you sign the check. Others might not give
you one after 10 years of hard training. The colours in the middle come
the same way. For some you write a check and show up for twice a week
for 8 weeks, for others you work for over a year and don’t qualify.
Which is Correct?
Depends on your goal. For many it is simply to keep the parents
writing the monthly check. So the child gets promoted, whether they
worked hard or not and keep getting told that black belt is the goal.
They are given a test of some basic skills and charged for it so that
they feel they earned it and it is worth something, the higher you get
the more it costs making the higher ones worth more. But they are all
low ranks, black is the first “real” rank and you have to keep at it
till you get it, then you get charged a huge fee, given the belt and
will probably quit as the only goal you had was to get it, and you did,
and have little else to show for it.
To use them as a reward for hard work and improvement requires a
different approach. Children will have different levels of ability and
they will develop at different rates. Two children of the same age may
be as much as six years apart in developmental age. Those that are
behind will have a hard time and may become discouraged. But they are
still maturing, in 10 years they could be the top athlete or they could
be the bottom. Until they get there they must be free to develop at
their own rate and have fun doing it, without the pressure to keep up
and develop at the same rate as everyone else.
Unfortunately with a belt system in place there will be a visible
sign that shows that they have fallen behind. It is the job of the
coach and the parents to make sure that they realise that the belt is
not the most important thing in training. It is simply something given
when the student is ready to accept no and more difficult challenges.
So long as they are having fun and learning there rank should not be a
big issue.
As unfair as it is to not promote a student with their friends it is
also unfair to do so. Not only to their friends who will feel that they
are being held to a higher standard, but to them as well. It would be
unfair to move a child up in swimming lessons when they weren’t ready
as they would be unable to keep up and trying to get them into deep
water when they are not prepared for it is negligent. Eventually they
will get there and how well they swim at 8 may not have any relation to
how well they swim at 18.
Martial arts are the same. If a student is thrown in a way that they
are not prepared for, or spar at a level they can’t handle yet they
could be seriously injured. Some kids are early bloomers, others late
bloomers. Those that are late bloomers are too often written off before
they are given a chance. In team sports they can end up cut at a early
age where they may have developed into a star athlete. But no one will
ever know because they are not given the chance to find out.
If a child does fall behind it should not be held against them and
they should not be made to feel guilty and inferior because of it.
Instead they should be reassured that in time they too will get
promoted, and eventually they may be at the top. They are still growing
and while it would be great if all children matured at the same age
that is not the case.
On the other hand having a child who is very gifted at an early age
can cause later problems as well. If everything comes naturally to them
they may become used to being on top, and using very little effort to
get there. Later when other kids catch up to them developmentally they
may fall behind because they are used to using little effort and can no
longer keep up.
So no matter how fast or how slow your child progresses through the
belt system, remember that they are still children and still
developing. Someone at the bottom end may end up at the top end, or
they may stay at the bottom. No one will know unless they are given the
opportunity to try.
Belts are not that important, especially for kids. Most kids won’t
treat them as that important unless they are taught that they should.
So while getting a belt is an accomplishment to be proud of at no time
should any child ever feel pressure to get one to impress or bad
because they let either the coach or the parents down by not getting
one.
Too much focus on getting a belt can have as negative an effect on a
child as too much emphasis on winning. Yes it is a goal, but not one to
be taken too seriously. Remember why they are there, to have fun, for
exercise, to learn skills and for social development.
Kids should feel no worse about not getting a belt as they would
getting to the next level of a video game. That may be their goal, but
it is not why they play. If it becomes too big of an issue they will
stop doing it and get into something like video games where there is no
one imposing a high level of stress on them.
On the other hand, if you want to end your child’s addiction to
video games you could try taking an interest in them and giving them a
hard time when they make a mistake or can’t keep up to others
