At what age can you start Karate?

We are occasionally contacted to find out at what age martial arts lessons such as karate begin. Each martial arts center will decide the minimum age based on the philosophy of the dojo and the skills of the teachers, because starting karate lessons for 3 or 5 year old children is not for everyone.

Karate is a martial art that can be easily adapted, in its practice, to the needs of everyone (children, adolescents, adults and people with functional limitations) but requires adjustments in relation to the practitioners. At the Larry Foisy Martial Arts Center, we offer karate lessons to children as young as 3 years old. Some courses are held in the dojo, but others are also taught directly in early childhood centers (CPE), primary schools or classrooms. In pre-kindergarten and nursery school age, karate must be approached as a psychomotor activity: function of the human being who understands the psyche (emotions, imagination, cognition, etc.) e motor skills (movements, tone, postures, etc.) in order toadapter to its environment. Finally, psychomotor skills are a technique who uses the body, space and time whose goal is to allow the person to experience their body and the surrounding environment to act accordingly. (Delièvre & Staes, 2006) [1].

Functional psychomotor skills aims at a specific objective and a specific progression, marked by short, medium and long term objectives. In fact, the approach based on short, medium and long-term objectives (for example self-awareness, self-control and self-knowledge) allows a good objectification of the child’s progress. All learning involves experimentationwhich in the case of children involves the body as a whole. Obviously the courses offered follow the cognitive development of younger children and are linked to concrete/known/experienced facts to facilitate learning.

Karate is used here as a complement to psychomotor skills using martial arts to enhance interactions with the sensei. Therefore, the karate teacher is not just a symbol of authority, but also a true representation of the collective imagination regarding the practice of martial arts. It is precisely for this reason that the karate-psychomotor instructor will allow both to induce the martial arts values (respect, control, trust, etc.) to social and motor development. By teaching karate, the instructor will be able to accentuate the promotion of karate I don’t use violence at school and at home to express anger or resolve conflicts. The fact of being able to hit in space, on a target or shout in a controlled way will allow the expression of repressed aggression and allow the dichotomy between the use of blows carried out during a supervised session and outside of it. At the same time, during all karate lessons, the child will be able to appropriate a effective way to relax (e.g. active relaxation, breathing exercises).

A karate session is formal: the child is offered a framework that is both rigid and flexible. Rigid in its session opening and closing routines based on mutual respect and the concept of “clear instructions and clear consequences,” which children need to hear in a known and safe world. Flexible through the educational content of a varied and evolutionary session, which allows the integration of motor skills and the psyche.

Karate moves are also taught in a traditional way mimic directly (specific instructions to be reproduced) or indirectly through training decision making. (E.g. when faced with an obstacle you have to reach the target with your foot… how do you do it?).

In short, Karate can begin at the age of 3, as long as the teacher has the skills, knowledge and adaptability necessary to work with this particular clientele.