Wing Chun for kids

[zuti car]

Let't take a break from usual discussions which are killing this form and make people go away ( with my great help I must admit ) and talk about some bright subjects . So...have you ever taught WCK to kids ? What are the challenges and how did you resolve them ? In my experience , teaching WCK to kids have couple of serious obstacles .
First and most important is level of physical development , more precisely , coordination and motor skills. While some other arts like Tae Kwon Do , Long Fist or modern WuShu do not require high level of coordination and developed motor skills and in fact they help kids to develop exactly these skills ,WCK from the very beginning requires fully developed fine motor skills and coordination.This is a major problem ,especially with kids under the age of 10.
Second , very important obstacle is attractiveness . While arts I've mentioned before have large number of forms , movements , acrobatics ...and all these things are pretty easy to learn from a coordination and motor skill perspective , and there are large number of them so kids can learn something new every time they come to practice and they can easily see their development and advancement .Arts with this technical foundation give the opportunity to the instructor to develop a large number of games and drills that involve some kind of game , and that is extremely interesting for kids,WCK on the other hand is totally opposite , it has limited technical foundation which is not easy to learn and master even for adults , space for games and game like drills is pretty limited and kids can find that rather boring and not interesting .
One more problem is safety during chi sao practice . Due to the lack of control and children's nature risk of injuries is very high .To decrease risk of injuries chi sao drills must be modified and kids must be under supervision all the time .
Here is short clip from one of my classes .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEOgyyk_QIE

So... if anyone has any experience working with kids it would nice to share it here

[Marnetmar]

Just my two cents but I don't think you can really teach Wing Chun to someone younger than 12 and expect them to be able to defend themselves with it. Much of the underlying concepts are simply too abstract for a kid to be able to really understand and develop.

For the same reason I don't think Chun makes much of a "fun activity" for parents to drop their kids off at for an hour so they can go home and pork either. Fancy kicks and acrobatics are kind of needed to keep a kid's attention.

P.S on the subject of long fist forms, I can assure you those are not that easy to learn from a coordination and motor skill perspective :P

[zuti car]

Just my two cents but I don't think you can really teach Wing Chun to someone younger than 12 and expect them to be able to defend themselves with it. Much of the underlying concepts are simply too abstract for a kid to be able to really understand and develop.

For the same reason I don't think Chun makes much of a "fun activity" for parents to drop their kids off at for an hour so they can go home and pork either. Fancy kicks and acrobatics are kind of needed to keep a kid's attention.

P.S on the subject of long fist forms, I can assure you those are not that easy to learn from a coordination and motor skill perspective :P

I totally agree with you , from the perspective of children's development and health , modern wushu is definitely the best option , far better than any other activity (besides swimming ). But when people insist to have WCK class in school I cannot say no although I did try to convince them to hire my friend who was one of the best modern wushu instructors in US .
About self defense part , that is a totally different subject , very sensitive ,and the only thing I teach kids at that area is how to avoid dangerous situation and how to escape and how to ask help.

[LFJ]

I've reluctantly taught Ving Tsun to kids as young as 6 years old, but then found they shouldn't be underestimated.

With exception of some particularly gifted kids, chi-sau and other abstract stuff might be out of the question at that age, but there's still a lot they can learn.

For most, after basic forms and solo drills to learn some movements, they go straight to focus mitt and free fighting drills incorporating stepping, punching, kicking, paak-da, jat-da, bong, laap, etc..

Simple stuff, but can be made fun if you structure class well. In time, their actions will be refined, and you can introduce chi-sau when they're ready. I have a 6 year old doing pretty good pun-sau with me.

Don't underestimate them. The key is teaching very few details at a time, then building upon it.

[anerlich]

I don't have children and for that reason consider myself poorly qualified to teach them.

In my experience it is a rare child that has the focus and discipline to train Kung Fu the way adults do. I have met a few, but only a few.

Personally I believe Jiu Jitsu is a far better option for kids, and there are some really good programs out there, and they seem to really enjoy it.

[zuti car]

interesting clip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik5eeZ3J7k8