Kids Classes Archives | Las Vegas Kung Fu Academy

10 Benefits of Martial Arts for Kids

October 29, 2019 by the hoth Leave a Comment

3.42 million Americans practiced martial arts in the past year.

So why are so many kids practicing martial arts? As it turns out, there are a lot of benefits that come with regular martial arts practice. These can help set a kid with skills that will help them the rest of their life.

Here are the top ten benefits of martial arts for kids.

1. Build Confidence

There’s a lot that goes into a martial arts practice. It all contributes to the way that they build confidence.

Kids learn to control their bodies. They learn to manage the force they use, and the movements they want.

They learn to defend themselves. They learn to respect themselves. They learn discipline.

Each of these factors into building confidence. A martial arts practice can teach your kids that they can overcome anything. They can push through any hardship.

Martial arts also relieves stress, which can ease anxiety. This too contributes to a child’s self-confidence.

2. Build Strength

Martial arts can be especially rewarding for kids who struggle with team-oriented sports. Many kids need an outlet for their energy, something that rewards their efforts.

And sometimes team sports just don’t cut it. They need a productive outlet that’s more tailored to their needs.

So even if your kid has struggled with other sports in the past, they should consider martial arts. They’ll build strength and get exercise. So on top of these benefits from martial arts, they can still enjoy the benefits of regular exercise, like healthy habits, endorphin release, and stress relief.

3. Improve Self Control

Learning moves takes practice, repetition, and perseverance. You can’t get it right the first time, so you have to keep pushing yourself to try harder. You have to learn to balance the right amount of force with direction and coordination.

All of this puts together improves a child’s self-control.

4. Boosts Focus

Martial arts can be especially good for kids with ADHD and other attention problems. It boosts the ability to focus and follow through with an action or routine. Kids who practice martial arts can focus for longer periods than those who don’t practice.

5. Improves Street Awareness

Kids who learn martial arts pay better attention to the surrounding environment. This can make the difference between safety and danger. Kids learn to pay attention if they’re in a bad neighborhood, or a sketchy person approaches them.

They learn to trust their intuition and avoid dangerous scenarios. This alone can help keep them safe.

6. It Teaches Respect

Most martial arts are based on a foundation of respect. Respect for the room, for the teacher, for themselves and the environment. Even when lessons are over, kids who practice martial arts can bring it into the real world around them.

Some parents worry that martial arts make kids more violent, but that’s simply not the case. They learn to respect the world around them, not react violently to it.

7. Teaches Goal Setting and Perseverance

If a student wants to learn a particular routine, they have to break the set down into small motions and actions. But these routines build on top of each other. It’s the same way you need to learn how to add fractions before you can learn to multiply them.

So if a kid wants to learn the entire routine, they have to learn to break it down. This transfers over into real-world goal setting and perseverance skills. A child can look back on practicing a particular routine and how all the small steps got them to their goal.

8. Builds Discipline

To get good at martial arts, it takes practice, perseverance, and discipline. Practicing martial arts builds valuable skills. Kids can transfer these skills into other areas of their lives.

Discipline can help them push through hard times. It’s there when they’re struggling with school, other skills, or friendships. It can get them past the hurdle when they learn to apply for scholarships and college. It teaches them to keep going, no matter what.

9. Improves Self-Defense

Most parents enroll their kids in martial arts to teach them self-defense, and this is a good way to go. Kids who practice martial arts are better at defending themselves.

So if you want your kid to know what to do if they’re in danger, enroll them in martial arts. It’ll help them stay calm in a crisis, and get to safety.

Especially with classes for younger children, martial arts teaches tactics to avoid dangerous areas and people. But they also teach nonviolent skills that help a kid who may be dealing with bullies at school.

10. Improves Balance, Posture, and Coordination

Martial arts works on building moves slowly, piece by piece. It requires balance to move smoothly and slowly from one move into another.

Kids learn to stand up straight and hit their target where they’re aiming. They learn to block oncoming attacks. All of this works to build a child’s balance, coordination, and posture.

Martial Arts for Kids Is Loaded With Benefits

Kids as young as three years old can take martial arts for kids classes. This will help set them up for the rest of their life.

It’ll instill a sense of respect and self-confidence. It’ll help them defend themselves, and improve their strength, balance, coordination, and posture.

So if you want to help your kids, enroll them in a martial arts class.

Ready to take advantage of all the benefits martial arts has to offer? Sign up for our classes today.

Mat Chats

April 26, 2019 by lvshaolin Leave a Comment

What is cooperation Frame

What is cooperation?
Young students: Let's work together!
Older Students: Working together towards a common goal.

What is goal setting?
Young students: I made a plan to achieve my goal!
Older students: Deciding what you’d like to achieve and making plans to achieve it

What is perseverance?
Young students: When the work gets tough, I don’t give up!
Older students: Steady, goal-oriented persistence, despite challenges or obstacles.

5 questions of character:
who is a mighty person?
Young students: a mighty person is one who has self
control of their emotions

Older students: a mighty person is one who has control of their emotions and can make friends of their enemies

Who is an honored person?
Young students: to be respectful towards people and treat them with kindness.

Older students: One who pays respect to others is going to receive respect in return

Who is a wise person?
Young Students: A wise person is someone who learns from their own mistakes and other people's mistakes.

Older students: A wise person is one who learns from their own actions or mistakes and other people's actions or mistakes.

Who is a rich person?
Young students: A rich person is someone who appreciates all that he/she has.

Older students: A rich person is someone who appreciates all that he/she has. Not taking things for granted.

Who is a brave person?
Younger student: To show mental toughness when you are afraid.

Older student: A brave person is one who is smart enough to be afraid, but takes action anyway.

What is maturity?
Younger students: How well you can control your anger, frustration, and how you get along with your friends.

Older students: It is something that we acquire over time as we learn skills and develop the capacity to deal with the complexities of life .

How to be a good finder:
Younger students: No matter what happens to you, you find something good about it.

Older students: No matter what happens to you, you consciously, on purpose, find something good about it.

What are manners?
Young students: I do kind things and use polite words! How we act towards other people.

Older students: Words and actions that show kindness and respect for others.

Be friendly on purpose:
Younger students: To show respect to people you see. (To be the first one to say hello, smile, or shake hands with someone. )

Older students: Making the effort to put your best face forward when dealing with everyone.

Being loyal to those not present
Young students: Don't say mean things about your friends when they are not present.

Older students: Avoid talking bad about others in our presence. Restrain from talking behind people's back.

Having fun vs being funny
Having fun – Things that makes you smile and happy. (Okay to be smiling in class)
Being Funny – Trying to be the class clown (wanting to make people laugh and pokes fun at the wrong time).

You never get a second chance to make a first impression
Younger kids: It's important to smile, have eye contact, and be polite when meeting someone new.

Older kids: You create a first impression within the first 30 seconds of greeting someone. How you greet them will set the tone for how your relationship with that individual will develop.

How To Teach Kids To Practice Mindfulness In Martial Arts Class

March 10, 2015 by lvshaolin Leave a Comment

What is the worst way to train in the martial arts?

Mindlessly.

For example, someone trains mindlessly is someone who is not thinking about the right things when they practice. Someone who is mindful is thinking about coaching themselves, they are thinking about their own effort and how much they are putting into their practice. They are asking themselves Is there anyone here training harder than me? Training something 10,000 times the wrong way will ensure that you develop a bad habit and will definitely hamper your progress.

For part 1 of this series we are talking about effort. Specifically on a scale of 1-10 how hard are trying?

Sometime the student doesn’t know they are not trying hard, so it is up to us to define what we mean by trying hard. Once we give the students our expectations then they can use the technique you see in the video called rate yourself on a scale from 1 to 10. They can think about all of the things the are sup[posed to be doing and base their response off of how many they accomplished

For me when I see a student if they try hard they immediately become one of the most enjoyable experience for a teacher. When they don’t try very hard it becomes a waste of time for both the teacher and the student.

Martial arts is supposed to be about learning discipline and concentration. Practicing mindfulness is the perfect way to start teaching them these two very important traits.

Here’s A Great Way To Teach Kids To Introduce Themselves To New People

February 9, 2015 by lvshaolin Leave a Comment

Over the years I have made a lot of bad first impressions. Especially when I was younger. Now that I am older and have more life experience I know a lot about how people will judge and perceive you from your handshake.

We practice handshakes a lot in class. In fact, we have done handshakes every day in every class for the last 11 years. There are people in class who have known each other for years but still introduce themselves to each other every day.

I think that this illustrates one of the many ways life skills run parallel to training in martial arts. In the martial arts we practice the same thing over and over again. Sometimes the kids say We did this already and we explain of course we did this already. How can we get good without repetition?

The truth is that drilling and repetition is ONLY way to get good at martial arts.

We carry that same philosophy over to introductions. Drill and repeat.

Teach Your Child Goal Setting In Six Easy Steps [With Hand Gestures]

February 4, 2015 by lvshaolin Leave a Comment

The black belt success cycle is an easy way to teach kids about success, achievement and leadership. Even the youngest kids will find it easy to learn the concepts.

The reason why?

We present the material with a set of hand gestures similar to sign language. The actual hand gestures do not correspond with sigh language but it does match the material.

The first part to this excellent lesson is to know what you want. Write down very specific goals for each area of your life that you want to improve. Of course we would love it if the kids applied this to getting their next belt in martial arts or maybe finish learning a complete form.

Secondly, you need to have a plan.
Your plan is your road map to your destination. Without a clear plan you can easily get distracted. You may start on a tangent that was not part of your original goal. Anything can be broken down into small achievable steps. With your plan you know exactly what you need to do as your next step.

The third part is called “and a success coach”
A success coach is a mentor, someone who will help you with learning by give you tips and pointers. By far having a mentor or success coach is the easiest way to get what you want FAST>. You could waste years of your time coming up against a wall, when a mentor would easily be able to point out to you how to overcome your sticking points. They know how to this because they have been ther before their experience is highly valuable.

Fourthly, TAKE CONSISTENT ACTION
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”
This is the hardest part of the entire process. Sometimes you have to force yourself to take massive action. Many people have goals they intend to accomplish but never take action on them in a consistent manner.

Next, review your progress.
We need to occasionally review the progress we have made, to make sure we haven’t gone off track.

And lastly, renew your goals.
When you finally reach you goal, you then start over by creating a new more ambitious goal.

Martial arts have so much to offer everyone. I cannot think of a single person that would not benefit from taking martial arts.

We would love to have you as our next student. Stop by the studio anytime after 4pm Monday through Friday and you will find us there.