Two weeks or so ago, this 10 year old, who I will call Peanut (for his shape, but definitely not his size), started iai. He was the first to join iai class since I made sho-dan, so I have pretty much been given responsibility of him. So far, I enjoy 1-on-1 teaching. Sometimes I think he actually listens to me. The karate bunch, on the other hand, need to be poked a couple times with a hot pitchfork.
It astonishes me how bad the kids have gotten recently. Normally, they do not push head sensei, but now they could care less. My mom's dog has more discipline- at least bribery with food works on her. This is made worse by the influx of white belts and the lack of adult blackbelt supervision. For the most part, the little senseis have been taking the teaching reigns- horrendously. The two, although are young, know nothing about the earning of respect and appreciation for others. Admittedly, I'm not sure I can do much better- but at least I know not to leave a 5 year old white belt in a horse stance for twenty minutes. I guess that doesn't bother me though, as much as some of their comments to the kids. They say stuff, first off, in a very snotty voice, and they expect way too much out of their students. Just because they were blackbelts at ten doesn't mean that a 10 year old greenie has the same skill or attention span. Plus, if the kid is a little on the chubby side, he's not going to be able to do a perfect pushup (as if any 10 year old could). With these things in mind, I really can't fault the kids for wanting to rebel all the time. It's just insulting for someone to do that to you, never mind the age difference.
I think in order to teach kids, there has to be an adult figure- NO EXCEPTIONS! That five or ten year age difference can mean a lot when it comes to knowing how to control your group. There are some in class that are nice, well-meaning, and do an overall good job with running the show when head sensei is busy- most of them black belts, but some of the kyu ranks too. Others, like Uke Killer, are freaking useless. Uke Killer spent a class flirting with purple belt girl while the brownies crawled the walls. Then when head sensei yelled at him, not the group, he was surprised. Well, black belt to me signifies that you have the maturity to do as you're told, not what you feel like.
So I hope Peanut stays, and I hope he learns good manners as well as iai from me. As for the rest of the kids- God, I hope Darwin's theory of natural selection is true.
On a (rather large) side note, this guy (I still need a nickname for him) who's been in our iai class for a while decided he was going to take aiki and karate too. I guess he bit off more than he could chew, because by yesterday, he was back to just iai again. We did pick up another aiki uke- a guy about 400 pounds. You know he's big when one of my karate senseis turns to me and says, "I have no idea how we're gonna throw that guy!" Eep, me either. I'm calling him Wally, although our Tank probably can't knock down this wall. Big T came back to aiki, minus Little T, whom I wonder if he quit. Speaking of which- that iai kid hasn't been back lately either (overscheduled tikes *grumble*). Big T brought in Girl T as well into karate, so now all that's really left is Medium T (who I hear is awful) and Mom T. I bet Mom T would be quite a fighter. I haven't seen Verizon guy in a while. Hmm.
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