by Jamie Clubb

Created on: January 29, 2010

“Why?”: the dreaded single syllable word that a child can use repeatedly to raise an adult’s temperature and stretch his comfortable and established philosophies of logic, reason and beliefs to breaking point. I have seen many an adult reduced to a blubbering mess or a ranting dictator, as he tries to explain and justify his answers, while a six year old sits calmly with only the smallest traces of a mischievous grin on his face asking again and again “Why?”  The innocence and naivety of a child’s questioning is the perfect foil for an adult, who has a natural instinctive responsibility to educate youngsters. However, the irritation goes further, as this insistent inquiring, that will not be abated cliched answers tried and tested on other adults, often leads the interviewee to question their own inner core. “Why” is tough because it addresses the non-tangible area of intention. “Why” cuts through accepted so-called “truths” and gets right to the fundamentals of your answer. Therefore seeing as “Why” is perhaps one of the most powerful weapons a child can use in a debate with an elder, it seems appropriate that we discuss the whys of teaching children honest and realistic self-protection before we approach the whats and hows.

When I first made the decision to start teaching martial arts commercially I was told by just about every contact and advisor in the industry to run regular children’s classes as soon as possible. I was bombarded with sales marketing material aimed at getting kids into martial arts clubs. There was advice galore regarding targeting schools and putting together attractive packages to encourage more young students to join. Most full-time establishments will tell you that children make up around seventy per cent of the revenue in the martial arts market. You will be hard pressed to find many full-time commercial martial arts gyms and clubs that do not have “Little Dragons”, “Little Ninjas” or “Little Warriors” classes on offer. Many regular primary and secondary schools have a resident martial arts class or have put it forward as an activity. The equation is simple: children plus martial arts equals good business.

From a financial perspective that seemed like a pretty straightforward answer to my “Why”, but as I was fast to learn it was not the real answer to my real question. When I then told my peers

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