This month isn’t quite about being a good Karate Parent, but giving some feedback from your children.
Every month we have a theme week where students can wear t-shirts related to the theme and we do activities related to the theme.
October’s theme was “Video Games” and we had a discussion about how martial arts is like a video game. I had a couple of ideas, but the kids came up with so many more, I wanted to document them.
- Leveling Up. In video games, when you beat a level, you level up. In martial arts when you learn all the necessary skills, you are permitted to test for a new belt.
- The actual belt exam is like beating the “Big Boss” and the moment that you level up. This was suggested by Liam, a 7-year-old and a great analogy!
- Sparring is like battles in video games, especially when we point spar and there is an actual winner and loser.
- On every new level, you learn new skills. In fact, we give out tip test sheets that detail the new skills for that level/rank.
- On some levels you get new weapons. Sticks are our beginner weapon, Bo our intermediate weapon and Sword our advanced weapon.
- Grinding. In a video game, in order to learn a new skill to advance, you practice the skill over and over and over. Guess what? In martial arts, in order to learn a new skill, you practice the skill over and over and over.