Courage is doing what frightens you. Martial arts helps children discover that they are capable of much more than they thought possible. It teaches them to have the courage to take on challenges that might have intimidated them before. After learning the courage skill, the children can apply it in school, at home and other activities which they do. As students go through the martial arts program at Keswick Karate, they learn how to face their fears and move forward without being held back by the fears.
Courage can come in many different ways: few examples of courage in children is when they tell a teacher of someone they know being bullied, standing in a class and giving a speech or even just walking into a dark basement by themselves.
In martial arts, we can build courage and confidence in several different ways. Courage is built through requiring the daily practice of character; this is because like in a martial art, courage is similar to exercising a muscle where if you don’t train it, then it will become weak. The more you exercise courage, the more you’ll have it, and it will be easier to summon it when you need it.
At Keswick Karate, building courage, which applies to children too, starts with one of the hardest things: walking into martial arts school and signing up where it can be scary to start something new with people you’ve never met and start something based on self-defense and combat. The scary part of the martial art is that it puts the children out of their comfort zone but once they begin and clear that first hurdle, they are head down to the right path.
In Keswick Karate, they build courage among the children in the very nature of training by emphasizing that even a smaller and weaker person can defeat a bigger, stronger opponent by using leverage and techniques. During trainings, students are put in uncomfortable and difficult positions, they work with bigger students and have to find their way out of the positions. The practices can be mentally and physically demanding but have huge demands, but a lot of courage is learned.
Children self-confidence improves, improving their courage when they start being comfortable in uncomfortable positions and learning to defend themselves. At Keswick Karate, children learn to protect themselves, thus finds that they have the courage to do things they thought they couldn’t. The children can routinely defend themselves and even defeat opponents much larger than them. When they go through all these, the presentation of ideas and giving a speech in classes becomes easier as they have developed the courage to make things seem easier.
Martial arts, especially at Keswick Karate, not only trains the children physically but also makes them grow spiritually and mentally. It brings the best out of someone by giving them strength and courage they didn’t know that that had.
Children, especially the ones who are much younger may not know that they need the courage to face their daily activities at home or even at school. It is every parent’s responsibility to make sure that their children are equipped with this character and thus the need to enroll them in martial art classes which are offered at Keswick Karate.