DEVELOPMENT OF SKILL OF MOVEMENT IN KIDS - THE EVER PRESENT PROBLEM-part 2

Just to illustrate how urgent this problem is I would like to quote a member of the Pose Tech running forum, named "roobarb" (I have no knowledge of the real name of this member) replying to my article on the web site: "I couldn't agree more with what was said. My daughters do sport but I never felt like pushing them because I watch the coaching people receive and the skill of movement is not only not taught, I don't think many coaches do even know it exists."

Yes, it is the ever-present problem, which is not recognized yet by the modern society as a necessity. Certainly, we have an idea that we need to teach kids, but what to teach and how to do that is quite a blurry picture in most cases.

I know, you could say that my words are not true, because there are many coaches, and even good coaches, who are working with kids and training them, and kids get faster, stronger, etc., as a result of their work. But the question is where do all these kids disappear when they grow up? Just some statistics fact from the research in the Soviet Union of how many elite level juniors in endurance sports made it to adult elite level. I'll just give you the numbers from the 70-ies and 80-ies, which is about 5%. The rest disappear as elite athletes.

Why does it happen? The main reason is a disproportion between what they achieved by being gifted and the level of their skill. For a while their talent compensates for the lack of skill, but not for long. When this disproportional development between the skill and their performance reaches the peak, their mental, psycho-emotional, physiological and mechanical conditions start falling apart, leading to injuries, frustration and loosing focus.

One of my young colleagues told me once: "It is easy to get results with kids. No matter what you do, they'll still improve and progress just by growing up naturally". He was absolutely right. And this is the reason that we do not see how much we are missing and what results could have been achieved if these kids were really taught right.

What are we supposed to do? Certainly, we have to teach, which is my deepest and sincerest belief. How should it happen is a good question. Just coming back to the observation made by "roobarb", "However watching children run at an early age when I'm at my daughters' school they seem to be more pose than me, their feet land in line with their column, they have a tilt forward," I have to agree that lots of kids, before they have been "taught", have a natural tendency to "listen" to nature.

Later on they start listening to teaches, parents, neighbours, friends and some others whom they respect and love. At this point we start loosing their right direction of development, because "teachers" are coming from their own experience and thoughts, but not from the nature's point of view.

"What I feel is: do we need to conserve the skill of movement in our Children rather than keep it?"- Just asking, "roobarb". I have to answer this question in only one way – we have to constantly develop the skill of movement in our kids, first of all, because it is an endless process, and second, because only the presence of skill would allow us to really open talent in our kids no matter, if it is in sprint, endurance, agility, strength, etc.

Dr.Romanov