all karate-ka please look at this video i find it sad http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3071784513295424955&q=karate
It was sweet if a little silly!. I dont know what was more silly though, the kids kiai's or the adults all clapping and sounding really amazed after every move! amusing!
it is sad oh so sad good luck stopping an actual mugger with that stuff they might make good stuntmen though...
whats sad....young Martial artists enjoying their training and being supported by their parents I think its great ...they are the future Smurf
Echo the above. Just because you see karate as serious doesn't mean you have to stop kids having fun. I find it more sad that you are so put off by the video tbh.
Being given a false frame of mind that they can actually defend themselves. If they enjoy it then its fine, but the instructors should be honest about the use of that was in that clip.
homer J i couldn't have put it better my self, you said my exact point, if those kids tried that for real their black belts would mean jack and you could see clearly that the adult set himself up and waited for the kids to defend themselves.
anything a child does against someone of that guys size isnt going to be effective. the fact that they were moving around a lot and making a lot of noise tells me that their self defense in that kind of scenario is going to be better than the majority of kids.
That clip is no problem. They're just doing a movie-fu demo. I'm a little puzzled as to why they don't actually hit the big guy though - he could take a 10 year old's punch in the gut and it'd be good to teach them to hit people properly. It only worries me that they're clearly trained to mime a punch on their enemy - they should really drive it home.
I see nothing wrong with it. they are having a good time with their parents around them. they are getting excercise of some sort they arent going to be that good in a self defence situation I'll admit(I study a self defence based course so I know) but as Ikken said they at least moved around some. and ask yourself this, they look about 10/11 how serious do you really think fights they may get into are really going to be? And if someone fo that kind of size were to attack it wouldn't matter anyway they couldn't really expect to get very far, even fully grown adults often have a hard time dealing with someone of the same build, let alone someone so obviously heavier, taller and so on.
Eight year olds with BB, i think is one of many reasons why karate and TKD dont get respect anymore. I know those kids were just having fun, thats not the problem.