At both the tang soo do and tae kwon do schools where I trained, we had no changing rooms — just bathrooms — which forced kids to come in uniform. Avoided a lot of hassles that way! Even so, the rules of etiquette and martial arts protocol were rigorously enforced. A “talking to” from a senior instructor for most kids is not something they want to repeat, especially when we throw their attention getting games back in their faces with the wisdom of having taught for many years and having seeing the same behaviors.

It’s great your kids help each other. Every student has strengths and weaknesses when they put on their white belt. As you know, karate helps balance students out on the way to black belt.

There’s a distinct grouping at my kids’ karate class; kids who’ve been bullied or are bright, introverted and light framed and their parents fear they might be bullied later, and another group of kids whose parents seem to enjoy someone else teaching ‘discipline’ and “keeping them out of trouble for a couple of hours” as one kid’s granny put it. Those kids try and bully the quieter, more respectful kids in the changing rooms or before the class until they figure out that those ‘quieter’ kids have the self discipline not to react and feed the bad behaviour.

One kid’s life’s mission seems to be to provoke a reaction from other kids by making nasty comments out of earshot of the sensei, but my daughter simply said she feels sorry for him if thats what he has to do to try and get attention.

Karate’s been brilliant for my kids’ attitude to ‘failure’ and differening strengths. My son’s got natural rhythm and balance, but temporarily lost his strong stance and got a bit ‘boxery’ when he grew gangly; my daughter’s not got great 360 degree spacial awareness and hates moving in reverse, but she has fantastic stances and a precise, clear approach to finishing each move with power and kimi. They help each other and work as a pair in kumite.

Sorry for rambling; I feel at home here.