Originally Posted by
xinyidizi
My xinyi and taiji teachers both told me that these styles shouldn't be taught to kids younger than 13~14 and if I remember correctly they said it was because they cause the body to contract and the tendons to get longer, therefore they would stunt the growth in children. My xinyi/chaquan teacher told me that I could only teach an external art like chaquan to children. So how true do you think these claims are and do you think that it's necessary to wait until they are about 13? The reason I'm asking is because a few people have asked me to teach their young children taiji and I'm not really sure if I should.
TCMA and especially IMA people have already proved they don't understand what tendons are or what they do.
BUT, I will accept that the translation of "tendon" is different in Chinese so maybe they got confused that way.
Back on topic:
Young children ("young" meaning under 16 or so) shouldn't really do:
- hard contact sparring (general conditioning like hitting a punching bag is ok, but no specific fist/shin conditioning)
- weight lifting with heavy weights ("heavy" being heavier than a 6-8RM or so, and even then it's probably best to err on the side of 8+). Note I can't remember the reason for this but I'm pretty sure it's true
- super deadly qi techniques. While playing with his friends, a child might accidentally summon a qi blast and accidentally kill his friends during a game of tag.
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