Are magic lessons and karate against church teaching plus more?

[DreadVandal]

Not everything in eastern religion is wrong. In fact, there is much truth and wisdom in Buddhism and Taoism and one way to approach it with your child would be to show those aspects of Buddhism and Taoism that are complementary to Catholic faith. If the Pope can do it and Thomas Merton, then I don’t see why we can’t. And no one in martial arts makes you bow down and worship the Buddha or vow an oath to Lucifer or any nonsense like that. I study Kung Fu. We bow to the past masters and honor them. To me its like honoring the saints. We venerate the holy keepers of tradition in the Church. In our Kung Fu school, we venerate the ancestral keepers of the style.

 

[gam197]

Again thanks. The meditation would be trancendental type,but have decided not to take any type of meditation except possibly yoga.

As far as Karate. My older son took different types for about 10 years and as I look at his bookshelf, I see many books like The TAO of Physics by Fritjof Capra. Since I have no clue on how to make this fit into catholic faith, I have dropped the classes(same instructor) for another son but will consider allowing him to take maybe one more year.

 

[jc-servant]

There are Catholic forms of meditative prayer that you could investigate. Read some of the mystics like St. John of the Cross. Our church is a rich and interesting group of folks.

I also took a Japanese style of karate which did not involve any type of religious instruction or prayer. We only bowed to our instructor (no photos of past masters/teachers) as a sign of respect in the full kneeling position at the beginning and end of class. We bowed to each other from the waist while standing for the same reason before and after sparring. I would not put a child into a class that taught eastern religions in any manner because how much do they really even know about their own church yet? I would assume the boy has not even been confirmed yet?

Regarding the goth/black clothing thing. My youngest sister went through that phase in high school back in the '80’s with the white makeup, etc. I’m surprised it is still popular, but it must get some good reactions from lots of adults.

My mother was oh so cool when my sister announced one day that she was going to dye her beautiful red hair to jet black. My mother looked over the top of the newspaper and said, “You might want to get 2 boxes because you have a lot of hair. Oh and make sure to put down lots of newspaper so you don’t get the rug.” Mom put the paper back up and my sister stomped off. She put the 1 box of dye under the sink where we found it still unused a few years later. She is the only child in the family who has never dyed her hair! My mother was a wise woman who knew how to pick her battles because hair dye will grow out whereas freaky piercings and tattoos do not.

 

[Joan_M]

acadian:

Sir Knight:

That’s interesting. When I did Tae Kwon Do back in the late 1970’s, there was no blue belt. We went from white to yellow to green to brown to black. Either my school was a bit backwards or things have changed since then.
QUOTE]

My boys are in taekwondo. Their belts are: white, orange, yellow, camo, green, purple, blue, brown, red, and black. When DH took takwondo in college eons ago, they went from white to yellow. That was as far as he got.

Those belts sound like a cross between Taekwondo, Karate and Judo!!

I am a 3rd Dan Black Belt, and in the Dojang where I learned the belts are : white, yellow, green, blue, red, brown and black.

Many schools in the United States do not have brown, but go straight from red to black. There are usually two levels of each of the colored belts - which are sometimes indicated by a stripe the color of the next higher level on the belt, like a yellow belt with a green stripe. My instructor never liked that. If you were a yellow belt, you wore a yellow belt. It didn’t matter if you were 1st level or 2nd level. Anyway, it’s the quality of the instructor that counts - I’ve seen some people who have black belts but they are no better at the art than our yellow belts!

 

[Lissla_Lissar]

Huh. My husband’s karate school’s belt system goes white, yellow, orange, green, blue, brown, first dan black.

I am still (quasi) goth, and have been for eight or nine years. Most of the time it’s just about music and freaking out grownups. Unless they exhibit major depressive behaviour, I wouldn’t worry. It appeals to melodramatic teenage angst.