Jan 03 Dennis Jones – Martial Arts, Children and Education

This interview was published in January 2008

Last month Steve I said the following:

‘Playing around with someone’s mind can cause havoc and I wonder how many ex-students are screwed up because of their martial arts training?’

Now I only mentioned that because in my experience it seems that there are a number of former students that have had problems with the whole martial arts experience.   This shouldn’t be the case but often when I’ve had a conversation with them they always seem to be carrying an element of guilt about having given up their martial arts training.  Yet this never seems to be the case with someone who has given up their gym membership!  Over the years I’ve spent a lot of time talking to people and I’ve never come across anyone that’s had any tribulation about stopping their gym payments.  Going somewhere else for better gym facilities or even packing up altogether and taking up something different like jogging or even going to college didn’t seem to give anyone a mental hang up.  Giving up the martial arts however, seemed, for a lot of people, a much bigger ordeal than just ‘packing in’.

Historically Japan and China have oscillated, both embracing or rejecting Western values and ideals.  The British Empire once stretched across the globe.  Unfortunately our dealings with both nations have not always been noble, especially when  politicians perceived that a particular course of action was contrary to the national interest.  However as a consequence there has been, and it still continues, a cross pollination of cultures, philosophies and food!

Because of the media, people in this country have a pre-conceived idea of the martial arts.  Uniforms, coloured belts, certificates, sensei, sifu and a few techniques are now indelibly etched into our British culture.  Promoting self defence and a philosophical mixture of Bushido, Zen and in some cases Chinese esotericism as well as some western thinking is often used to attract and retain students. The relevance of karate/martial arts instruction for children has now become not only topical but also very controversial.  It cannot be denied that in the orient, the martial arts including traditional Japanese weapons training has been used to inculcate in children a sense of purpose and direction.  For example in the book The Last Samurai-The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori, the author Mark Ravina writes:

‘All samurai boys…attended neighborhood schools called goju.  The goju were fraternities as much as schools…Although the goju did provide a solid rudimentary education, the emphasis was on group solidarity and discipline.  Goju regulations emphasized honor, courage, honesty, and exclusivity: younger members were not to speak to members of another goju.’

Gojus originated around the 1590s to control rowdy unsupervised samurai boys at a time when most of Hideyoshi’s samurai were involved with the invasion of Korea.  As anyone, who has found themselves sharing a playground with five hundred or so fellow eleven to sixteen year old boys will know, school boys are rowdy and destructive bunch of characters!

Educating children is a major concern for our government.  The standards that teachers have to attain before they can teach are exacting and demanding.  Working with children involves approximately eleven million adults here in the UK, and any martial arts club that teaches children would do well to look at ‘The Standards and Requirements’ that all teachers have to obtain before they achieve Qualified Teacher Status.  Over the last few years I have looked at a number of adverts promoting children’s karate.  Fundamentally as I see it, the adverts follow educational theory based on positive reinforcement.  Positive reinforcement was something that I had come across years ago when I started lecturing.  Foucault (1926-1984) in ‘Discipline and Punishment’ outlined the contrasts between modern and pre-modern approaches to punishment: ‘The power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or educating’.  Essentially, whether the authorities or for that matter martial arts instructors should adopt either ‘negative reinforcement or positive reinforcement’ in their teaching is something to be thought about.  But with so many children and young adults having been educated or currently being educated within a modern education system, I believe that a method of instruction based on negative reinforcement might be tantamount to financial suicide!  

The new type of martial arts organisations are ‘pastoral’ in their approach to providing instruction.  They are concerned about the well being of their pupils and it is a role they readily undertake.  Offering strategies that most parents of young children would find comforting (how to beat the bully; improving grades etc.), they also advertise using a language (school speak) that the majority of parents would find familiar.  Interestingly though, they do not talk about ‘fighting’ nor do they advocate a physical response as an appropriate course of action for the bullied.  It seems that these new martial art academies attempt to create a safe and caring environment based on positive reinforcement, praise, positive motivation and achievement, pleasure, preventing or stopping less pleasant activities, satisfaction and success.

As we know by the time children get to about fifteen, the influence that parents have is usually replaced by peer influence – the young person pays more attention to their mates rather than listening to mum and dad!  And it is no coincidence but good business acumen that children’s martial arts clubs target children through their parents.  Their students are usually aged between four and twelve (Key stage 1 to 3). 

It seems that the new approach to teaching martial arts is aimed at meeting the standards set out by the DCSF (Department for Children and Families) for the teaching of children.  Interestingly the values and purposes of the National Curriculum are achieved through two key aims one of which is: 

‘…should pass on enduring values, develop pupil’s integrity and autonomy and help them to be responsible and caring citizens capable of contributing to the development of a just society.’  (DfEE/ QCA, 1999)

It is also expected that ‘Teachers uphold the professional code of the General Teaching Council for England’.  I believe eventually all martial arts instructors (that are teaching children) will be required to adhere to a professional code of practice similar to that required for school teachers. 

Bullying is very prevalent in some schools but fighting, a violent exchange of blows, is still thankfully rare in most UK schools.  It should be noted though, that the notion of self defence that is, kicking and punching is not something that is officially condoned in school or by the DfEE.  In education there is an emphasis that the ‘…spiritual, moral, social, cultural, physical and mental development,’ is catered for and fighting does not come into it.  As we know Steve the most contentious area in the martial arts is the part about fighting and in this respect a new trend seems to be emerging in that it is best not to make any claims about it.

The Japanese and Chinese, and to a certain extent the Koreans, have in this country set the tone as far as martial arts training is concerned.   It is obvious that ‘British instructors’ have generally followed suit.  Today we have a strange situation where if you read the blurb of some martial arts organisations they have replaced the Orientals with themselves and have now become the source of spiritual enlightenment.  That’s fine if the student knows what they want but what if the prospective student doesn’t know?   And what about young impressionable children, what should they be taught?  As I’ve said before, what people believe is their own business and faith or belief in an ideal should be based on free choice.  However, promoting a philosophy through training and especially to children is guaranteed to take the martial arts teacher on to unstable ground.

As far back as 1913 when Kaiten Nukariya had published in English his book [Zen] ‘The Religion of the Samurai’ he wrote: 

‘Secondly, the so-called honest poverty is a characteristic of both the Zen monk and the Samurai.  To get rich by ignoble means is against the rules of Japanese chivalry or Bushido.  The Samurai would rather starve than live by some expedient unworthy of his dignity…Honest poverty may, without exaggeration, be called one of the characteristics of the Samurais and of the Zen monks…’

Without doubt Steve, mixing Western ways of thinking with Eastern philosophies often produces many contradictions and there’s one in the quote.  What I mean is, ‘How does a martial arts teacher square the circle with regards Zen, Bushido and making money?’  As I’ve said before, trying to bring two cultures together in one dojo is fraught with difficulties.

Steve Rowe

Steve Rowe is a highly successful Martial Arts instructor - an International Neigong, Qigong and Tai Chi Teacher and an 8th Dan Karate with many other senior dan grades in other martial disciplines.

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