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kids and martial arts?
shardian:
--- Quote from: ChadTower on November 03, 2009, 09:05:55 am ---
Distance swimming is very hard. Those people who swim 50 laps without a problem took a long time and practice to get to that point. Just the conditioning to do that is very impressive. The technique for distance is not easy for even someone like a lifeguard to get right without hours upon hours of practice. Trust me, I learned the hard way training for that race, even someone who swims very well is going to get slapped hard with the reality of distance swimming. I only got to the point where I could do it but was horribly slow and I was only training for a half mile swim portion.
--- End quote ---
The swim team is usually practicing in the big pool while we have our toddler in the family pool at the YMCA. I find it fascinating to see how people can swim non-stop like that. I've seen a few of the high school/ college level swimmers get in there and go full out non-stop for a 20-30 minutes! I'm a pretty good swimmer, but I apparently have 'short distance' form (and I'm fat). I do a handful of laps and am about ready to die of exhaustion. It was the same way even back when I was in shape to the point of being able to run a few miles non-stop. I still could only swim a few laps before my arms/legs locked up.
I would LOVE to learn how to do that, and it sucks that swimming was not available to me when I was a kid. I hope to put my daughter in the swim program at the Y when she is around 4.
I would choose soccer/swimming over any other sport at this point. The last choice I would put her in is baseball/softball.
shmokes:
I'm not comparing the average person's participation with UFC or a movie. I'm saying that UFC represents something that is theoretically obtainable, while the movie does not. So UFC is more like the NBA.
My point was that the things kids think they can learn with martial arts training are often total ---smurf-poop---. And it's not really ignorance that causes them to have these ideas, except in the strictest sense of the word. It's just typical childhood dreaming combined with a consistently fantastical representation of martial arts in the media.
Also . . . trust me, I'm not just comparing myself to the swim nuts. I'm really a comparatively weak swimmer to the average person, and I have found myself on more than one occasion having to sit something out, like when I'm at a small lake with my friends and a bunch decide to swim across the lake. But I'm like you. Running a few miles is no problem for me. But I'll be damned if swimming doesn't just kick ---my bottom---.
By the way, there's no need to wait. My little girl just turned 3 in August and she's already diving for rings and she can swim with her face in the water and then roll onto her back after every 4 strokes for air. I'm astounded at how early they are able to learn. Also, I agree about soccer. I think it's the most useful in terms of training skills applicable to every sport, and it's also one that can realistically be started much earlier than a lot of the others because the basic concept is easy.
ChadTower:
I was always bored with soccer. Really, really bored. It wasn't much different than plain running. Every instinct I had when approaching the guy with the ball screamed knock him on his ass. I was much better suited to hockey and football.
shmokes:
or martial arts
saint:
--- Quote from: shmokes on November 03, 2009, 01:46:18 am ---My comment was largely a response to the Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon stuff in Xiaou's post before mine. Of course I believe that studying and practicing martial arts can make a person a better fighter. I've seen UFC. But UFC is what it's like. The Matrix is not what it's like. Children, and Xiaou, have this backwards. But, whatever. I suppose thinking that you will grow up and be able to catch poison darts out of mid-air with chopsticks or balance weightlessly on the tip of a sword held in someone's outstretched arm is no more unrealistic than dreaming of playing in the NBA. Well, of course it is infinitely more unrealistic since you have impossibility on the one hand and (very low) probability on the other. But anyway . . . yeah, as I said, many people have an unrealistic and a bit goofy idea of what is possible with martial arts.
--- End quote ---
I don't know of *anyone* in the various dojos I've been in who thinks like this. I have seen some pretty incredible things. I'm a 41 year old man who started martial arts in his mid 30's, and I can do handstands, flips in the air, cartwheels, and can clear 8' in a dive roll without touching the ground (not an exaggeration by the way, we measured) -- things I couldn't do before martial arts.
I've never met anyone who thinks martial arts will allow them to defy gravity, walk on trees, catch bullets with their teeth, or any other silly things, and I've only met a couple of folks who want to actually do MMC type of fighting.
I challenge your contention that many folks have an unrealistic and bit goofy idea of what's possible with martial arts. I suspect anyone who holds those kinds of ideas isn't actually a martial arts practitioner.
--- Quote from: shmokes on November 03, 2009, 01:46:18 am ---In the end, I think that martial arts don't provide what many parents and children are looking for (cure for bullying and magical powers, respectively). I think being good at mainstream sports often goes a long way to curing bullying because it helps kids be cool and fit in, and nothing builds confidence like being cool, and nothing cures bullying like confidence and being cool.
--- End quote ---
I think you're wrong about the impact of being a martial artist and your susceptibility to bullies. If nothing else martial arts builds self confidence and helps you avoid looking like a victim. Then, if you *are* picked on the ability to defend yourself is valuable. I could give you several stories of real life situations with real people (not uber-fighters, just regular folks with some martial arts training) using their martial arts to defuse a situation or to defend themselves or someone else.
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