A Conversation with The Thoreau Club
March 9, 1992
Mark J. Norton
I got a call from Faith, the program director of The Toreau Club to discuss follow-on
classes. We agreed that the current program was going well and that it was desirable
to expand it to include an older group of children (9-14). I told her that the times were a real problem for me, since it is a great disruption during the weekend.
We discussed alternative times, but all reasonable time slots are already occupied
by aerobics classes. Faith was unwilling to shift or alter this schedule at all.
As such, I said that I didn't want to do a follow on session if the times didn't change.
She accepted that, so I will probably not be doing any more classes at The Thoreau
Club after this session finishes. We agreed that if things changed in the future,
that we might discuss doing classes again.
This is something of a relief to me. The setup at The Thoreau Club was not really
to my liking. I was essentially commited to giving up a significant portion of every
weekend to teach this class. My free time is more valuable to me that the compensations offered. This relief also extends to not having to teach this age group again.
I am begining to believe that Aikido is inappropriate for a young age group (5 -
9). Attention span, self-discipline, and control is needed at some minimal level to teach
even a water-down form of the art. This is not to say that it is inappropriate for some children.
Marc Fidelman, Jeffrey Nolet, and others did quite well. It is difficult to determine
who has what it takes in advance, however.
I am thinking of speaking to Lou about teaching one children's class a week. This
class would be open to children 10 years or older without restriction. In the case
of younger children (8 -10), a trial period could be offered at a fixed cost (which
would include uniform, patch, etc). At the end of this trial session (eight classes,
one per week), the student would be evaulated. This could include an informal test,
but really is a summation of the child's ability to learn an art like Aikido.
[This later resulted in my teaching a full children's class at Northeast Aikikai for a period of five years. The children aged five to twelve. While the facilities at our dojo are far supperior than the Thoreau Club, teaching to children does not. I am still uncertain what is the best age for children to start the study of Aikido.]