Kids and JSAs

[Carol]

I'm curious, with all the talk recently about blades and safety and the like...what is the minimum age typically that a person has to be to train at a JSA school?

My Kenpo instructor will occasionally offer a series of classes in Iaido. We work with bokkens only. When the teens ask why we never use live blades, my instructor mentions a story of a young Iaido-ka injuring himself on the last noto of his kata that he was performing in a demonstration. Mercifully, he did not injure himself badly.

While I can't remember the exact details of the stroy in question, it strikes me that the Iaido-ka was young...12 years old, or maybe even as young as 10. That to me seems frighteningly young to be training with live blades, even in a proper school. But...Iaido isn't really my art so...how about you experts?

 

[Swordlady]

As I shared in another thread, my sensei didn't have any teen students for several years. We now have three teens in the dojo, and the youngest one is 15 (he started a year ago at age 14). I don't think he has a set "age limit" per say, but determines the individual maturity of the teen. The young students we have right now have been mature and serious about their training.

 

[Carol]

The young students we have right now have been mature and serious about their training.

Noticed that over here as well. The teens that have taken the class have been very mature and very serious. They laregly performed better than I did

 

[Charles Mahan]

At the dojo I train at, there is a minimum age of 13. We've only had a handful of teenagers enroll over the last 10 years or so, and only a couple of them have lasted more than a year or so. We have kids come in with their parents every so often. They watch class, ask a few polite questions, and rarely ever come back. Iai training is just not attractive to most younger folks.

 

[Henderson]

Iai training is just not attractive to most younger folks.

So true. My daughters (8 at the time) lost interest in training with my wife and I in Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu Iaijutsu, stating it was "boring". That's cool, though. Too much detail for that age. Although, every once in a while they will grab a bokken and try to remember some waza. There may still be hope. :ultracool

 

[Laeticia]

I think we have a limit of 15 years, but can't say how strictly this is kept as I've never senn anyone under that limit trying to enroll at our school. The youngest I know have started while in High School. On the other hand last year in the seminar in Tallinn, Estonia there was a boy younger than that (don't know the exact age, as I couldn't be at the seminar, but he was describe as a boy, not a guy so my guess would be pre-pubescent), and our sensei from Japan seemed to be cool with that and impressed by his seriousness.

So I guess it's a case-by-case thing. Anyways we haven't had hordes of children wanting to join the iai class...