Could you play as well as this at that age?

[kipper]

ecca i thought they were great. and good luck to them if its done of there own free will. what i`m saying is to get to that standard is hard for an adult or young person to do and it would be there choice to do so. i dont think these kids had a choice like the russian gym stars going back a few years. olga whats her name later in life told the world how she was taken from her home at a early age and forced and bullyed into doing it. hope thats not the case here but it happened. peter

[kipper]

Well they could get a career out of it conditioning or not it's certainly not a waste of a life !

rodger i never said it was a waste of life. its the way they would have been brought to this level at such a young age that worrys me. kids should have time to be kids time to grow on ther own. these kids have been worked every day of there young lives to get to this level. they wouldnt have had a say in it. if a kid shows a talent for any kind of music or anything else for that matter of course they should be helped along, i`m all for that. but they grow up fast enogh on there own without adults or the state brainwashing them. peter

[wstagner]

The Japanese are highly disciplined people...it's in their DNA...not to mention their "conditioning". They've always excelled at copying rather than innovating.

[Didier]

The Japanese are highly disciplined people...it's in their DNA...not to mention their "conditioning". They've always excelled at copying rather than innovating.

Those kids aren't Japanese, they are from North Korea. And there, they certainly are much better at "conditioning" !...

Didier

[Squier Ken]

I STILL can't play as well as that!

Ken

[John Boyd]

Returning to Jim's original question, along with most others (I suspect) the answer would be a definite NO!
In fact I don't think I would even have seen a guitar when I was that old!!!
Cheers,
JB

[Bojan]

The way I see it, both "sides" are right, because those kids are impressive and creepy at the same time. But as far as free will is concerned, which 4-year old kid would rather play piano, guitar, tennis, or swim back and forth in a swimming pool all day rather than play freely with other children, yet people "condition" their kids all the time. The only difference is that in North Korea, like in East Germany and Russia once, children are "conditioned" by the state on an ideological basis, while everywhere else, kids are "conditioned" by their own parents on a more often than not, selfish and materialistic basis. In both cases, the kids have no choice. Just look what people are doing with beauty pageants for little girls in the United States. That, to me, is even creepier and even more exploitive than this guitar recital. At least these little guitarists learn to play their instruments and interact collectively, while the beauty contests bring out the worst in those poor little girls, who are conditioned to display egoism, greed, vanity, envy, and so on . . . There's nothing wrong with healthy competition, but this is too much. So, let us not fool ourselves that these things happen only in places like North Korea. They happen everywhere.

Aside from that, I am really a big fan of the human race.