When I was 8 years old, my parents enrolled me in Tang Soo Do classes. I wasn't a particularly athletic kid, and they thought it would be good for me to get some exercise and learn some self defense. I enjoyed my time there; it was a good after-school activity, and I made some new friends. Plus, I got some exercise and improved my coordination, balance, and flexibility. I found myself absorbed in the drills, the forms, and the sparring, and in hindsight, I can see how, for some children, the training could teach them how to focus and concentrate. It takes a sustained mental effort to perform a kata from memory, and sparring requires you to really focus.
For me, these skills didn't translate into my schoolwork. To be fair, I don't believe that it was the fault of the training, my teacher, or the art. Looking back, I can still recall how some of my classmates changed for the better as they advanced in rank. They grew more confident and seemed happier.
I guess I don't have a problem with claims that learning some martial arts can make your children more confident, more focused, healthier, and happier. But I do take issue when a school suggests that your children will be able to defend themselves - either from a schoolyard bully or, more importantly, from an adult seeking to do them harm. There are several reasons why this is.
Firstly, children are small. Very small. Although superior skill and conditioning can sometimes compensate for inequalities in size and strength, a child seeking to defend himself from, say, a kidnapper would have to have nearly superhuman abilities to do so. Think about it this way: imagine the most fearsome or skilled fighter you know of - for illustrative purposes, let's say Bruce Lee or Rickson Gracie or Mike Tyson at their prime. Now imagine any of them realistically fighting someone 9 feet tall and 380 pounds. As much as I respect these fighters' skills, outside of a choreographed movie scenario, there is a high probability that these guys would get killed if they tried to take on such an opponent. Proportionally speaking, asking an elementary school student to take on an average adult male is like asking an adult man to take on such a behemoth.
