About Children's Groups

From the interview with Morihei Ueshima and Kisshomaru Ueshiba, Aiki News 18-21, 1976.

Question: What is a good age for starting aikido training?

Kisshomaru Ueshiba: You can start training at around age 7 or 8, but ideally serious training should start at about 15 or 16. Physically speaking, the body frame becomes sturdier and the bones somewhat stronger at that age. Besides, aikido contains many spiritual aspects (of course, so do other forms of budo), so at that age one begins to acquire a perspective of the world and of the nature of budo. So, all in all, I would say 15 or 16 is a good age for beginning the study of aikido.

Unfortunately, at the age of 14 — 16 years old our children are so overloaded with school studies and various other forms of education, that there is practically no time left for sports. Recently the number of parents who wish to send their children to aikido groups at the age of 5 — 7 years old has increased sharply.

We believe that it is possible to train such children, but the modern customary way of creating child groups with the number of practitioners over 20 and, moreover, uniting children of various ages (for example, joint training of children aged 6 — 16 in one group) appears to be incorrect.

Our Dojo houses child and junior groups where the number of practitioners does not exceed 10-12 people. Instructors who teach at these groups, first, possess a sufficiently high technical level (no less than 1 Dan), and second, know how work with children and, most importantly, enjoy it. Children are admitted in pairs according to their age.

Small number of children in the group allows to work with everyone almost  individually. In numerous child groups the instructor is often forced to engage primarily in general physical training (for example, physical exercises performed to the instructor's count), because in this way it is easier to control the large group. Yet we know that a complex of physical exercises for children of various ages and levels of physical development cannot be the same, and thus the results of such practice for the children's health may be unfavourable.

The admission process to our Dojo's child groups includes a mandatory preliminary interview. The fact is that many parents wish to send their children to an aikido group, because they think than the child will acquire applied self-defense skills in minimum time and with minimum injuries. Numerous advertisements promising such results facilitate this approach. On our question: "Why do you want your child to study aikido, and not karate, boxing or taekwondo?" — we usually hear the answer: "Well, in aikido there are no injuries, strikes on the head and so on. He/she has to go to school..." However, practice of any kind of martial arts, including aikido, involves the danger of injuries. Acquisition of applied self-defense skills without pain and physical and psychological injuries is impossible, and in our opinion, it is no use deluding oneself. Learning to defend oneself effectively is much harder than learning to attack, and one will hardly achieve it in one or two years...

What can a child learn in our groups? We strive to teach the children, in the form of a game, to move, to perceive the direction of attack, and, what is most important, try to reduce their aggression. We believe that an aggressive person attracts conflict situation and that the skill of being friendly us the best means of self-defense.

At present the work of our Dojo's child groups is directed by Natalia Bereslavskaya (2 Dan, has higher pedagogical education and Aikido instructor's certificate granted by IPK (Institute of Continued Education) of the Russian State Academy of Physical Culture, has been practicing Aikido since 1991).