How Martial Arts Can Help Improve Your Child's Behavior At Home and Performance at School

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First, let me give you some background on how we run the kids karate classes at DG.

Dragon Gym Children’s martial arts programs are age specific. That means the programs are specifically designed to be appropriate for a child’s physical, intellectual, social and emotional stage of development.

The EARLY group is for 3-4 years olds catering to their need for play and imagination while developing primary physical skills.

The BASIC group is for 5-6 year olds catering to their enthusiasm and new desire for creativity and problem solving. In addition to a higher level of physical instruction they are also now able to follow higher-level instructions and task.

The CORE group is for 7-9 year olds suited for their more advanced vocabulary, listening skills and problem solving ability. The program teaches them more advanced physical skills while encouraging more independence and personal responsibility.

Finally, our EXTREME program is for 10-14 year olds.   They are highly intelligent, eager to learn and ready for more physical challenges.   Our program combines this need for a challenging program with the guidance needed to help manage the social and emotional instability that comes with adolescence.

kids martial arts paoli paThe Three Key Areas of Our Kids Martial Arts Program:

Martial Arts Technique, Academic Performance, Behavior and Discipline at Home

 

 

Key Benefits of Martial Arts for Kids:

  • Improve Concentration, Focus, and Listening Skills
  • Develop Discipline and homework habits
  • Attain Confidence to ask questions
  • Learn How to peacefully resolve conflicts
  • Develop Respect for themselves and others
  • Achieve Academic Excellence

The Dragon Gym Gold Star System

Kids Martial Arts Classes in West Chester PaThe three key areas of the children’s martial arts program are tied together by our belt promotion and gold star system. The martial arts system inherently teaches children about setting short and long-term goals. The long-term goal is Black Belt and the short term goals are the color belts.

Children learn how to break down a large task into smaller attainable pieces. When they are successful in these small steps they develop confidence and eventually leadership.

With each belt test we are going to ask for feedback on how your child is doing at home and at school. So, we’ll need some information when it comes times for a belt promotion.

On the student’s test form, you’ll let us know if your child is doing “Excellent”, “Good” or “Poor” at home in terms of attitude, behavior, listening, getting along with siblings, etc. We also ask that you get similar feedback from your child’s school-teacher.

As long as a student receives “Good” from both you, the parent, and his/her school teacher, they will be eligible for belt promotion.

If you child receives two “Excellent” scores then they will be awarded a Gold Star at the belt promotion.

Finally, if any “Poor” ratings are indicated a conversation between the instructors and parents should occur. During this conversation, we will discuss ways to improve this rating and if belt promotion should be withheld for a period of time.

If you have any questions about our approach, comment below or send us a message on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Dragongymexton/

So, how does all of this come together to help kids improve their behavior and their grades?

4-week-facebook-ad-canva-3The age-specific program helps ensure that the children develop the skills needed and appropriate with their physical, intellectual, emotional and social stage of development.  Here are 5 more ways that martial arts training will help them.

 

  1. Doing well in school (and at home) required discipline.

Here's the cool thing about discipline, it is contagious.  Kids and adults that have discipline in one area tend to have discipline in ALL areas.  The discipline that your child will develop in his or her martial arts classes will carry over to their school work as well

2. Martial Arts students learn about preparation and preparation leads to success

The martial arts have a built in framework for goal setting.  The structure teaches kids to not only break down goals but they have to work on achieving the intermediate steps in a regular and consistent way.  Kids that learn martial arts also understand that by studying a little bit every day it's way easier to get good grades.

3. Focus, Focus, Focus

Focus is the ability to pay attention to one thing at a time, especially the most important task at hand.   There are so many more distractions for kids these days.  It used to be just TV.  Now it's video games, social media, apps, mobile games, messaging, texting, etc.   Martial Arts classes teach kids how to focus and how to prioritize that focus.

4. Goal Setting

We've already talked about the critical step of identifying a long term goal and the ability to break it down into smaller more achievable milestones.  This is what martial arts is all about.   Kids that learn martial arts are able to transfer this skill to all areas of their life.  They can better articulate their goals and aspirations and they can more easily find ways to map out their success

5. A Healthy Body equals a Healthy Mind

Researchers have discovered that physical activity levels have been positively linked to cognitive function during development in school-aged children. Besides the neurological connotations, giving kids an outlet to move their bodies can actually help them academically by improving their memory and increasing their attention span. Martial Arts classes are a very physical activity so can help build cognitive functions as well as serve as an outlet to help improve memory.

If you're considering martial arts classes for your child or family and are in the Exton, West Chester or Downingtown, PA area, fill out the form below or visit our main website: www.dragongym.com to get more information on schedule, pricing and to set up a free orientation session.





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12 WAYS YOU CAN HELP DEVELOP YOUR CHILD’S SELF CONFIDENCE

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Confidence is one of the greatest gifts a parent can give their child.

Carl Pickhardt, a psychologist and author of 15 parenting books, says a kid who lacks confidence will be reluctant to try new or challenging things because they're scared of failing or disappointing others.

This can end up holding them back later in life and prevent them from having a successful career.

"The enemies of confidence are discouragement and fear," he says. So, as a parent, it's your job to encourage and support your child as they attempt to tackle difficult tasks.

Here are 12 more strategies for raising a confident child:

  1. Appreciate effort no matter if they win or lose.

Kids Karate ClassesWhen you're growing up, the journey is more important than the destination. So whether your child makes the winning goal for his team or accidentally kicks it out of bounds, applaud their effort, Pickhardt says. They should never feel embarrassed for trying.

 

"Over the long haul, consistently trying hard builds more confidence than intermittently doing well," he explains.

  1. Encourage practice to build competence.

Encourage your child to practice whatever it is they're interested in — but do so without putting too much pressure on them.

Harmony Shu, a piano prodigy, told Ellen DeGeneres that she started practicing when she was just 3 years old.

"Practice invests effort in the confident expectation that improvement will follow," Pickhardt explains.

  1. Let them figure out problems by themselves.

Karate Classes for KidsIf you do the hard work for your child then they'll never develop the abilities or the confidence to figure out problems on their own.

"Parental help can prevent confidence derived from self-help and figuring out on the child's own," Pickhardt explains.

In other words, better that your child gets a few B's and C's rather than straight A's, so long as they are actually learning how to solve the problems and do the work.

  1. Encourage curiosity.

Sometimes a child's endless stream of questions can be tiresome, but it should be encouraged.

Paul Harris of Harvard University told The Guardian that asking questions is a helpful exercise for a child's development because it means they realize that "there are things they don't know ... that there are invisible worlds of knowledge they have never visited."

When children start school, those from households that encouraged curious questions have an edge over the rest of their classmates because they've had practice taking in information from their parents, The Guardian reported, and that translates to taking in information from their teacher. In other words, they know how to learn better and faster.

  1. Give them new challenges.

Show your child that they can make and accomplish small goals to reach a big accomplishment — like riding a bike without training wheels.

"Parents can nurture confidence by increasing responsibilities that must be met," Pickhardt explains.

  1. Never criticize their performance.

Benefits of martial arts for childrenNothing will discourage your child more than criticizing his or her efforts. Giving useful feedback and making suggestions is fine — but never tell them they're doing a bad job.

If your kid is scared to fail because they worry you'll be angry or disappointed, they'll never try new things.

 

"More often than not, parental criticism reduces the child's self-valuing and motivation," says Pickhardt.

  1. Treat mistakes as building blocks for learning.

"Learning from mistakes builds confidence," he says. But this only happens when you, as a parent, treat mistakes as an opportunity to learn and grow.

Don't be over-protective of your child. Allow them to mess up every now and then, and help them understand how they can better approach the task next time.

Pickhardt says parents should see "uh-oh" moments as an opportunity to teach their kids not to fear failure.

 

  1. Open the door to new experiences.

Burkhardt says you, as a parent, have a responsibility to "increase life exposures and experiences so the child can develop confidence in coping with a larger world."

Exposing children to new things teaches them that no matter how scary and different something seems, they can conquer it.

  1. Teach them what you know how to do.

You are your child's hero — at least until they're a teenager 🙂

Use that power to teach them what you know about how to think, act, and speak. Set a good example, and be a role model.

Pickhardt says watching you succeed will help your child be more confident that they can do the same.

  1. Praise them when they deal with adversity.

4-week-facebook-ad-canva-3Life is not fair. It's hard, and every child will have to learn that at some point.

When they do encounter hardships, Pickhardt says parents should point out how enduring these challenges will increase their resilience.

It's important to remind your child that every road to success is filled with setbacks, he adds.

  1. Applaud their courage to try something new.

Whether it's trying out for the travel basketball team or going on their first roller coaster, Pickhardt says parents should praise their kids for trying new things. He suggests saying something as simple as, "You are brave to try this!"

"Comfort comes from sticking to the familiar; courage is required to dare the new and different," he says.

  1. Celebrate the excitement of learning.

Kids look to their parents for how they should react to things. So if you get excited about them learning how to swim, learning martial arts or speaking a new language, then they'll be excited about those things too.

"Learning is hard work and, when accomplished, creates confidence to learn more, so celebrate this willingness to grow," Pickhardt advises.

Sincerely,

 

Somnath Sikdar

President

Dragon Gym Martial Arts & Fitness

www.dragongym.com

Fill out the form below, or give us a call at 610-363-7575 to set up a free, no obligation orientation lesson for your child and get more information on our 2 Week Trial, Schedule and Regular Classes.





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HOW DO MARTIAL ARTS DEVELOP LEADERSHIP SKILLS?

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Leadership is something that we talk about with our kids, a lot. But what does leadership mean? And, how does martial arts training help develop those skills?

First, let’s define leadership. I think a leader is someone that does some, many or even all of the following:

  1. Inspires and motivates others
  2. Displays high integrity and honesty
  3. Solves problems and analyzes issues
  4. Drives for results
  5. Communicates powerfully and prolifically
  6. Builds relationships
  7. Displays technical or professional expertise
  8. Develops others
  9. Innovates
  10. Champions Change
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You can see how martial arts training can develop and influence all of the areas in the list above.   But, I want to focus on the first and how that fits into the martial arts paradigm.

The martial arts are known for “The Black Belt”. Depending on the style of martial arts, there are different color belt systems that mark the pathway from white belt (a beginner) to a black belt (someone who is more advanced).

In our Children’s Martial Arts System, we’ve divided the journey to black belt into 4 age-specific groups.   Each of those groups is divided into 9 Belts. And each Belt is divided into 8 stripes.

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When a child starts martial arts, Black Belt is the goal, but it is far away and often difficult for a student to conceptualize.   The nice thing about our martial arts progression system that the journey is broken down into such small steps that I’ve mentioned above.

The students start to understand that in order to reach a goal, any goal, that they need to break it down into smaller chunks or steps and climb those steps one at a time.   Each step isn’t just progress, it is also an attainment, an attainment that had specific requirements and defined work to attain.

Over time, the student starts to learn a few things. First how to create a framework for goal setting for themselves. Second, that a series of small successes leads to greater success and that instills confidence in them as well. And finally, as they rise through the ranks that they can inspire, motivate and teach others to do the same.

This process inspires and motivates them as well as everyone around them.

Demonstrating Leadership

Many activities like sports, school clubs and martial arts teach leadership skills and develop the aforementioned qualities in children.  However, as parents, I think it is also important for us to identify those activities that will also give our children the opportunity to demonstrate leadership in additional to learning the skills of leadership.

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The children's martial arts system at Dragon Gym does provide this opportunity through our Junior Instructor Development Program.  Because of the belt system / rank system that is inherent to martial arts, mentoring and modeling is an integral part of each students learning and progression through the system.

As a beginner, a student not only learns from his/her teachers, but also learns from "higher" belts, student with more knowledge and experience.  The high belt students also know that the junior students are learning from their example.

Additionally, once the students reach a requisite level of proficiency we also teach them "how to teach": How to start and stop a class, how to run warm ups, how to verbalize and explain physical techniques.

Ultimately, they need to learn how to prepare and plan for a class as well as get in front a group of students (sometimes even their peers) and LEAD.slack-for-ios-upload-40

Homework for Parents

Looking at the list of 10 leadership traits above, what are some activities that you can do with you kids so that they can learn and demonstrate leadership?

Sincerely,

Somnath Sikdar

President

Dragon Gym Martial Arts & Fitness

www.dragongym.com
Fill out the form below, or give us a call at 610-363-7575 to set up a free, no obligation orientation lesson for your child and get more information on our 2 Week Trial, Schedule and Regular Classes.





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Downingtown Martial Arts | Tae Kwon Do, Muay Thai Kickboxing, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

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Do you live in Downingtown, PA?  Are you considering martial arts training for yourself or your family?  Consider the Dragon Gym Downingtown martial arts program.  We have been teaching martial arts to the residents of west chester for over 40 years.   The Dragon Gym was founded by Grand Master Chae Teok Goh in the early seventies and the martial arts school is currently owned and operated by Somnath Sikdar, Lonnie Beck and Chris Taylor.

They are proud to continue this rich martial arts tradition and continue to share the benefits of martial arts to the people of west chester.   Since the 1970s the martial arts school has evolved from teaching Tae Kwon Do, Tang Soo Do and Hapkido.  In addition to those traditional martial arts we now offer Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Muay Thai Kickboxing Classes.   We also offer Russian Kettlebell and Power Yoga Classes.

When adults and kids learn martial arts, they study things like self-defense, blocks, kicks, strikes, boxing, throws, takedowns and grappling.  However, they also learn much more.  They learn about positive mindset, discipline, humility and friendship.   These four pillars are the crux of the martial arts system at the Dragon Gym.

If you are interested, please visit our main website: www.dragongym.com

 

http://www.dragongym.com/adult-martial-arts/

Some highlights of the Adult Martial Arts training at the Dragon Gym in west chester, PA. The traditional martial arts program at the Dragon Gym is headed by Somnath Sikdar. The approach is traditional not dogmatic. It is traditional in the sense that we train martial arts for the sake of training martial arts not for competition, self-protection, or fitness specifically. Of course, these are often goals and / or benefits that each student will reap. However, we don't do things because that's the way they've always been done. We incorporate what makes sense from both sports science and a variety of martial arts.

http://www.dragongym.com/muay

Dragon Gym Muay Thai Kickboxing (DGMT) is a straight up, no-nonsense, REAL kick boxing program in Exton, PA minutes from West Chester and Downingtown. We train full contact fighters, beginners and everyone in between. Students can expect to get a great workout, understanding of striking fundamentals and knowledgeable instruction from certified and field tested instructors. Classes are held six days a week.

Style – There are many different styles of kickboxing available; however, the most effective and devastating of them all is Muay Thai or Thai Boxing.

http://www.dragongym.com/bjj

The Gracie Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Program at the Dragon Gym is a great course of study on its own. However, it is also a great compliment for students of striking martial arts like Muay Thai, Tae Kwon Do, and Karate.  If you are looking for a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu program in Downingtown, Pa visit our main new student website: http://www.dragongym.com/brazilian-jiu-jitsu/

 

Age-Specific Martial Arts for Children - The Science & Psychology Behind SKILLZ(TM)

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Check out the blog post below from my good friend and colleague Master Melody Shuman.   Here experience as young student in martial arts in very similar to my own.  We both started in traditional Korean martial arts systems coincidently in 1987!  When I first started at Dragon Gym almost 30 years ago, both kids and adults learned Tae Kwon Do, Karate, and Hapkido with the same curriculum and in the same classes.   Soon enough, as the program grew, Grand Master Goh did split up the martial arts classes between kids and adults, but all ages of children and all ranks of student still trained together.  Over the years we developed the curriculum and the classes to be more age specific, eventually introducing a "Pee Wee" program for younger students (4 to 6 years old) and the "Junior Program" for kids 7 to 12 years old.

After we took over operations of the Dragon Gym in 2005 we started to discover, even two age groups for children's martial arts was not the most effective way to teach kids and ensure that they received the same benefits of martial arts that we had so many years ago.   Through our own research and development it finally made sense to partner with Master Melody Shuman and integrate our Dragon Gym Curriculum with her SKILLZ platform.

Take a read and get some great insights on why we split our ages in four developmental groups and curriculums.

The Science & Psychology Behind SKILLZ

By Melody Shuman

When I started martial arts in 1987 as an 11-year old, things were very different. Kids and adults trained side-by-side and everyone tested on the same material for their belt, regardless of age. Needless to say, kids usually didn’t make it very far before dropping out because the training became too challenging.

(Except for me, because my parents saw the many benefits of martial training as far as discipline goes, but that’s another story.)

I ultimately became a school owner when I was 19, and started to make changes to the way I taught martial arts compared to the way my instructors taught me. For starters, I pulled kids out of the adult classes. Then I took my experience from working at Disney and added “entertainment” into my children’s classes. The results were incredible!

As my school continued to grow, I kept studying the way kids learn. What I discovered goes against what ALL martial arts schools were providing for their children’s programs. What I also discovered is that martial arts programs could be one of the most effective tools for helping children grow as a whole, more so than any other sport or activity. From that moment, SKILLZ was born…

Age-Specific Training

Based on all of my research on children and learning, I discovered that children show developmental milestones based on specific age groups. These age groups – as they pertain to marital arts – are as follows: 3 & 4, 5 & 6, 7 to 9, and 10 to 14. This was a big discovery as most martial arts schools still only divided their children into two age groups: 6 and under and 7 and up. By sub-dividing my ages into more specific groups, I knew we would avoid common challenges such as “roller coaster classes” where almost EVERY drill was “too hard” for the younger students yet “too easy” for the older students.

At the same time, I also knew that within these age groups their development could be sub-divided into four categories: physical, intellectual, emotional, and social. This enabled me to create age-specific curriculums that helped develop each student as a whole; what I call 4-dimensional instruction. Most schools – and other sports and activities – still only focus on the physical and intellectual aspects of training. This breakthrough meant that we would target students’ stages of development with a curriculum that generates MAXIMUM results.

SKILLZ Curriculum

Once I understood students’ stages of development, I proceeded the meticulous task of creating curriculum through what I call a “reverse training concept.” What I mean by this is: instead of trying to pound martial arts training into each age group, I selected the top eight skills (or SKILLZ as I refer to them) that children were accustomed to in their particular stage of development, and then built a martial arts curriculum for each of those skills. I also made sure that the progression was so significant that by the time the student graduates from each program, they fall into the top 10% of their age group!

Integrating Systems That MAXIMIZE Learning

Once I created the SKILLZ curriculum, my final step was to create a system in which instructors were able to maximize learning. For starters, we deliver a mat chat after the warm-up in each class that initiates ACTIVE LEARNING, which in a nutshell is getting the students’ neurons to start firing. Secondly, we use game-based learning drills that kids “play” so that their WORKING MEMORY is stimulated. This basically means that within each student’s brain their neurons start to develop new connections; what scientists refer to as “neural growth”. Once their brain is developing neural connections at top speed, the last major segment of class is when they test for their skill-stripe, which helps foster FLUID INTELLIGENCE. This process is described at the brain’s ability to retain and reference information more efficiently.

Not All Schools Are Created Equal

As you can see, SKILLZ takes training to a whole new level! In fact, kids can’t even join their first class without an age-specific pre-evaluation to identify where his or her strengths are, and also how SKILLZ will help in his or her overall growth and development. SKILLZ is a product with several decades of ongoing research and development in how children learn and grow. The overall results are children that become better versions of themselves: physically, intellectually, emotionally, and socially!