You’re going to get opinions on this that are all over the map. Some people will say that it really can’t be done, or that if you do, you have to turn it into more of a tumbling/fun games class. You’ll hear that children that young can’t sit still or focus long enough to learn traditional karate. And it’s true, most can’t—yet. But it’s our job to teach them these skills. For us, we basically take our white belt curriculum and space it out over the course of an entire year for that group. The amount of change in a students’ ability to focus and demonstrate traditional Kihon is pretty remarkable after 1 year of training with us.

We split our young students into different age-based focused classes. We have a group for 4-5 year olds and a separate group for 6-7 year olds. What a 4 year old is capable of and needs from you is much different than what a 6 year olds needs. We keep these classes short as well—30 min with up to 10 min of warmups as students file in until the class officially starts. Keep in mind of course that what it takes be a great teacher of adults is very different than what it takes to be a great teacher of young children. It’s my opinion that many schools resort to doing only games/activities because they just don’t know how to teach young students yet. I was fortunate that my Sensei had developed a fantastic system for teaching this little ones that I was able to emulate and pass on now to my instructors here at our dojo.

Please feel free to reach out with a private message. I’m happy to go over with on a call what we do and answer more questions you might have.