Junior Division ages are 8 through to 12.
Classes are on Mondays, 4.40pm to 5.30pm and held at the Rolleston Community Centre, 94 Rolleston Drive.
For further information, or to enroll your child, please contact us.
About the Children's Programme
The children’s programme at Seido Rolleston is the ideal environment for your child to learn – it’s welcoming, encouraging and fun. There is an emphasis on physical fitness – and this helps your child’s stamina, coordination, endurance, balance, muscle control and flexibility. Principles of self-respect, self-discipline, awareness, politeness, tolerance are all encouraged and enhanced.
Our children’s programme will gradually take your child
through the required material for each of the karate grades, with promotion
every six months or so if the student is ready to progress to the next level.
Grading test are held every 3 months, either at the Rolleston Dojo or
Christchurch Seido Dojo. The teacher will invite your child to grade when they
have met the prerequisites (see Handout).
The first promotion to 10th Kyu (White Belt)
is achieved through attending 8 classes and a short in-house test in class.
There is no change in belt colour at that point but the student may then put
the Seido Mon (symbol on sleeve) and Kanji (Japanese writing on chest) onto
their uniform. There is no charge for this test and the patches will be
provided.
All children’s classes are grouped by age and karate
level so your child learns alongside a similar age group and level of ability.
What to expect in a class
Most children’s classes will be varied but a ‘standard
class’ may include the following elements:
- A thorough warm-up with general and karate specific stretching exercises
- Practice of basic Karate Punches, blocks and kicks – standing and moving
- Seido-specific syllabus material required for rank advancement
- Conditioning exercises - push-ups, sit ups etc. Progressively improving fitness
- Pad Work – practicing striking techniques against a partner-held pad to improve effectiveness
- Rolling, safe falling and basic grappling techniques
- Games. Usually with an underlying aim to improve the students technique and/or fitness
- Kata
When can they start?
Ideally the best time to start in Rolleston Seido Karate
children’s classes is at the beginning of each term, but as we run a rotational
advancing curriculum we can usually take new enrolments at any time.
Nearly everything we practice is scalable, meaning the
difficulty can be increased/decreased depending on the experience and
capability of the student. No fitness level is required to start, practicing a
physical skill like Karate is a great way to get fit at the same time.
Children at green belt and above?
It normally takes two to three years to progress from
beginner grade to green belt in Seido Karate. Once your child has reached green
belt, he or she will begin light contact sparring, using protective gear. This
sparring initially takes place in a separate children’s sparring classes. but
students will be encouraged to attend the sparring class at the Christchurch
Dojo when possible.
There are several progressive exercise we use to build the
student to this level, including pre-arranged sparring, reactive pad training
and several games that will slowly introduce the idea of sparing.
Competitions
Seido Karate generally doesn’t put a lot of emphasis on
tournament competition, but more on participation and on-going improvement through
training.
However, tournaments can provide a positive way for the
students to challenge themselves and really get outside of their comfort zone.
Seido Rolleston will be targeting a few tournaments annually.
Mid Year – Christchurch Area Seido Kids tournament.
Mid Year – NZ Seido Karate National tournament, Wellington.
There will be potential for our members to compete in other
tournaments if they wish, details will be posted closer to the time.
For further information, or to enroll your child, please contact us.
For further information, or to enroll your child, please contact us.
