Kid’s martial arts and gratitude

Saying “Thank you.”

There is one thing that I am always encouraging my kids to do and that is to say “thank you.” Luckily, it works most of the time. My daughter says “thank you” when she gets off the bus, she says “thank you” when she finishes her meals and she says “thank you” when we let her watch Brave or Avatar: Last Airbender for the billionth time.

warm ups in our kid’s martial arts class

 Kid’s martial arts and effort.

I have written many times about the various reasons martial arts are good for kids, you can see my interview with Sam Sheridan for some really good ones. One reason is it gives me the opportunity to encourage my children to work hard. I work at rewarding them for their continued effort whether it’s cleaning their room, reading books at night, or going to kid’s martial arts class. There were studies highlighted in the book NurtureShock that showed kid’s performed better when given positive feedback on the work/effort done rather than praising natural ability i.e. “You must be really smart” vs. “You must have worked really hard.” Here is a talk from Ashley Merryman, a co-author of the book, that illustrates this idea:

 Kid’s martial arts and being grateful

When I used to coach it was hard work. There were practice plans to put together, game plans, player evaluations, not to mention the patience and consistency involved in managing large groups of children who have 6 second attention spans. Every time a child came up to me and said “thank you” it made the experience very rewarding. I see the work that the coaches put forth in my daughter’s kid’s martial arts class. They make sure to coach the kids, to help the kids understand, but also that they have fun in their kid’s martial arts class. The coaches give the children great feed back for the hard work the children put forth in the kid’s martial arts class.

Coach Amanda watching over a match in kid’s martial arts class

 Kid’s martial arts and being happy to train

I also encourage my daughter to say “thank you” to her training partners and praise the hard work her classmates exhibit in the kid’s martial arts class. The coaches and her partners are all their to help her learn and she is their to help her partners learn as well. From my point of view, saying “thank you” creates a positive feedback loop that encourages everyone’s hard work in class from the coaches down to the newest student in class. Without the work of the coaches and the help of all the kids in her martial arts class she wouldn’t be having all the fun she is having or learning all that she is learning. Rickson Gracie, I think says it best here:

“You learn when you are having fun, training in a smooth and gentle way. You need to work on improving your technique until you are comfortable in any situation. Eventually, you will develop a subconscious understanding of the techniques and they become reflexes. Only after you have done all this you are ready to take your natural abilities “off the shelf” and add them back into your game. Now the effectiveness of the technique will be at least ten times better.”

 

Coaching a triangle in kid’s martial arts class.