Kid’s martial arts: a talk with Sam Sheridan

Posted by Luis Till on Jul 22, 2013 in Kids martial arts classes | 0 comments

Sam Sheridan is the bestselling author of Fighter’s Heart, Fighter’s Mind and his newest book is The Disaster Diaries. I first heard of Sam on a podcast and have heard him on the Joe Rogan Experience as well. He had some great stories to tell, and that’s when I found out he’s a father. I had already read his book Fighter’s Mind, and when I finished reading Fighter’s Heart, I wondered what he might think about martial arts, fighting, and kids. I emailed him via his website http://worldismadeoffire.com/ over the weekend I returned Fighter’s Heart to the library (hoping The Disaster Diaries I put on hold would be there) and I was very pleased to see he responded promptly.

Author Sam Sheridan

We scheduled a time to speak on the telephone so I could ask him some questions and had a great conversation. We talked about his 4 year old son, Kung Fu Panda, Brazilian jiu jitsu, bullies and the bullied, and how important a good environment is for learning martial arts. He made a cup of coffee while we were on the phone and as we spoke his volubility improved notably.

SBGiKids: Are you going to enroll your child in martial arts? What martial arts would you look and what benefits would you look for?

Sam Sheridan: My son is only 4 right now and I don’t live in Iowa, so we’re not quite into getting him into a hardcore wrestling program yet. He loves Kung Fu Panda, and Ninja Turtles. I’ve done a few karate classes with him, they were fine. They were about putting on a gi and running around and perfectly pleasant people involved. I will definitely do martial arts with him…I think jiu jitsu is a wonderful sport for kids for a lot of reasons. I think it’s a great anti-bullying experience. Not only because you learn to just be relaxed, when someone is trying to push you around. I even think it’s almost more valuable for the bullies because everybody’s a white belt when they start. Everybody’s universal experience upon starting jiu jitsu is that you get whooped, you get controlled, and you learn to tap. The skinniest, little kid in the class taps you 50 times. After a couple of months you start to understand, hang out under pressure, and survive.  Eventually, you’re tapping people. It creates a great atmosphere because the experience of being a novice is always fresh in your mind, even after you’ve been doing it for a long time. That’s why I think when you roll with white belts you’re very forgiving– because that was you just a few months ago.

“It creates a great atmosphere because the experience of being a novice is always fresh in your mind, even after you’ve been doing it for a long time”

I definitely think wrestling will be something I want to get him interested in, because of the mental toughness aspect. I think it’s one of the few sports that really focuses on mental toughness. You have to learn to push through exhaustion…getting your ass kicked in practice, that can be something that is difficult to find; especially in this modern day and age, we’re all pretty comfortable. In particular in southern California and living in Santa Monica we’re pretty soft, life’s pretty good. Having a little adversity; to deal with overcoming lactic acid and overcoming fatigue and overcoming the desperate desire to want to quit are really valuable lessons. There’s a lot to the striking arts but I think that’s more if he wants to do that stuff, when he’s old enough to understand the ramifications and the repercussions.  I’m not going to push him hard in that direction. Certainly, if he wants to turn pro as a fighter, we’ll have a long talk.

SBGiKids: You mentioned how jiu jitsu is beneficial for a bully for it’s humbling effect, what about the kids getting bullied?

Sam Sheridan: Just with a few months of jiu jitsu you learn so much about how to handle a bigger body on top of you, you learn how to relax, how to control your breathing, not to panic, not to take damage or not to put yourself at risk. Even in 6 months you can learn a lot of great stuff. If I have a kid with 6 months of jiu jitsu wrestling against a bigger kid, he’s going to tap that kid, or at least he won’t get too beat up. It gives you a great way to defend yourself. And most of it, again, is dealing with fear and that kind of panic of being trapped, almost claustrophobia when you’re under a stronger guy. It’s why I think police officers should do it.  I think police officers don’t get paid to train enough. The first thing that happens in an altercation is you freak out, you fill with adrenalin and you’re much more likely to escalate. You may pull a firearm when you didn’t need to, when you were ok. If you had just kept breathing and kept calm, you’d realize the man wouldn’t have been able to hurt you. Maybe—but either way, you’re decision-making process would be less influenced by adrenaline. So, just the mental side of things for kids: learning not to be scared of physicality and what it’s like to have a body on top of you, and that it’s not the end of the world. The only way can do that is the through repetition that’s in jiu jitsu and wrestling. I think that’s what gives jiu jitsu the advantage over Tae Kwon Do some of the other the traditional martial arts is the concept of randori: training at very nearly their top speed and intensity…in the sport jiu jitsu there’s an element where you can practice pretty hard, pretty safely. Whereas point-sparring in karate or TKD is fun and safe, but maybe kids aren’t exposed to the PACE and FEAR of live sparring.

SBGiKids: What of the concept of discipline for kids in martial arts?

Sam Sheridan: I think that’s a comfortable place for traditionalists to go. There are some advantages there, but I also think it’s kind of an old-school thought, or a cop-out. It’s not like these kids are going to TKD for 2 hours every day, and really learning discipline. They’re going once a week. They may learn a little about balance and about controlling emotions, those are wonderful things, but I think it gets overstated in martial arts. Most of that stuff is about parenting and the environment they’re in. Learning self-discipline is great, but I’m a little questionable of the idea that martial arts teaches great discipline to kids, just automatically. Listen, in Rio (de Janeiro) and in San Paulo, some of the jiu-jitsu guys are all kinds of thugs. It happens everywhere, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to have a great kid. Ideally, that’s what it’s supposed to do; but I know plenty of really serious, really smart martial arts practitioners who don’t really practice mental discipline, and don’t really practice honor, or turning the other cheek, or that running from a fight is the best self-defense. There’s a lot of ego and machismo and we’re kidding ourselves if we think that’s not part of the draw, the mystique of martial arts.

SBGiKids: In Fighter’s Heart you did mention that your muay Thai coach had practiced meditation and you wrote about going on a silent retreat.

Sam Sheridan: I did go to a silent retreat for a few weeks in northern Thailand. Meditation is different…now we’re talking about a much older kid or an adult. In martial arts you’re dealing with questions that are endemic to little boys: Am I tough? Am I strong? Do I have agency? Can I make decisions? Can I control myself? Can I keep myself from being mastered? I think the mistake people make, they think being in martial arts is because people want to be a badass. Most of it comes from fear; most of it comes from “I don’t want to be mastered.” That’s the driving engine that gets most little boys. Yes, they want to be Bruce Lee, they want to be the fantasy. Even most professional fighters want to be what they see on TV which is Bruce Lee and the Ninja Turtles. But when you actually start training, the practice is about self-defense and it is about staying in control of your own fate, and not being dominated by other men. It’s that fear that drives you. I think that the confidence you get in being able to handle yourself is a much greater boon than meditation or any kind of mental aspect.

SBGiKids: Then is confidence what parents are looking for instead of discipline in martial arts?

Sam Sheridan: Well, I think what you’ll find is that they are completely inter-linked. Without the ability to discipline yourself, without self control, you can’t advance. You don’t advance until you master yourself, to some extent. I think that’s an essence of jiu jitsu: it’s not instruction it’s rolling. It’s getting in there with bigger kids getting squished and squashed, and it sucks. If you can control yourself, tap, and not be ruled by ego, then you can last, learn, and get better. Then you start developing confidence. There are all kinds of hilarious, fantastic, street fight footage of blue belts taking down street fighters again and again because there’s nothing the tough street fighters can do…and you’re not even hurting the guy.  You’re taking them down and controlling them. It’s what Renzo (Gracie) used to do: choke a guy out, sit on his chest and if he woke up and still wanted to fight he’d choke him out again. It’s probably the most pleasant way to end a street fight that there is. Discipline, concentration, and confidence are all very interlinked. The nice part about jiu jitsu is that they are all essential to any progress.

SBGiKids: A question rose while listening: what is the distinction between actual fighting and training? Some parents think that training in martial arts is encouraging fighting and aggressive behavior.

Sam Sheridan: People are going to be afraid of what they don’t understand, that’s just natural. As our culture has moved away from any kind of understanding of violence, any kind of wrestling or struggling is going to be viewed with disfavor. It’s essential to understanding the world and I think that for little kids it’s a great tool because they are going to wrestle/fight anyway…

SBGiKids: Do you roll around with your son?

Sam Sheridan: Yeah, of course. My wife calls him a little killing machine. He wants to be a kung fu warrior. He thinks he can beat me up. He’s convinced, he’s 4.5. He says “Watch out daddy, I’ll bruise you.” When I did Fighter’s Heart I did all theses radio shows and almost all of them were women’s radio shows and I heard “I understand my son a lot better now, having read your book I understand my sons a lot better.” Your kids, your little boys are going to be drawn to action movies, violence, and fighting. It’ sociology, cultural, and it’s genetic. There’s a huge genetic component to it. We had kids in the neighborhood whose parents wouldn’t let them have toy guns, but what happened? Those kids picked up sticks and pretended they were guns. They still played with imaginary guns. I think it’s a little like willing blindness if you think that little boys aren’t drawn to this stuff. All I would say is that it’s a great sport and art and a place to use up negativity and turn it into positivity, a place where negative energy can get used up in a real constructive way. A good fight gym, I don’t care how much anger you have, they’ll take more. If you want to come in work, spar, hit the bag, and learn how to fight, there are always guys who are willing to train. I would say the most important thing is that you have to have a good vibe. Gyms are all different. There are a lot of qualities of atmosphere and camaraderie…I would be very cautious about putting my boy in a class. I would want to hang out and see what the classes are like for a while before I make a real commitment. Even as an adult there’s all kinds of gyms I’ve trained at, that I’ve had a bad experience at– and you don’t want to get hurt. You want your early experiences to be good ones. They’re so potent, those first few weeks and few practices. They stick in your mind forever. You want to make sure they are with good instructors, students, and people you like. You know, a good vibe. I can’t stress the importance enough of a good vibe. Your intuition and gut are great indicators for the atmosphere of a gym.

For info on training at Straight Blast Check the website or give them a call!

SBGi – Portland, Oregon Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, MMA, BJJ

Having fun in kids martial arts class. One tribe. One vibe.

Kid’s Martial Arts: Struggling and Challenging

Posted by Luis Till on Jul 15, 2013 in Kids martial arts classes, Kids martial arts classes - Parents point of view | 0 comments

Kid’s martial arts: struggling vs. challenging.

Most people do not enjoy the struggle. Actually, it seems that people avoid a struggle whenever possible. I want to say that struggle is something necessary for growth when it’s viewed as a challenge. I also believe that there is a difference between something viewed as a struggle and something viewed as a challenge. It can get semantic but there is a distinction in many cases. Struggles and challenges occur everywhere in life: at work, in our families relationships with one another, in sports, and even in our most passionate endeavors.

Questions in kid’s martial arts class

Here are some definitions from dictionary.com:

strug·gle verb (used without object)

Coach Amanda coaching kid’s martial arts class

Kid’s Martial Arts are no exception to struggle or challenges…

As a matter of fact, I would venture to say that children engaged in kid’s martial arts classes are subject to just as many challenges and struggles as any child involved in team/school sports. This makes it a microcosm of learning that can prepare the child for all challenges and struggles in life, not just in their kid’s martial arts class. We’ve all heard the cliches that nothing worth having comes easy. I posit that a challenge a struggle is somewhat necessary to go beyond where you have been. I’ll give an example: My daughter is learning Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and when she started she wasn’t timid be she would get beat often and had to learn to tap. This experience is the same for everyone regardless of age when they start BJJ and not just kid’s martial arts. She has been training fairly consistently now and I can see, it’s like I see the wheels in her head churning and problem solving, that she is far more competent and confident because of those early struggles. Sam Harris describes it this way in his article The Pleasures of Drowning:

I can now attest that the experience of grappling with an expert is akin to falling into deep water without knowing how to swim. You will make a furious effort to stay afloat—and you will fail. Once you learn how to swim, however, it becomes difficult to see what the problem is—why can’t a drowning man just relax and tread water?

Kid’s martial arts and the lessons

In the end if we’re to grow, if children are to learn in their kid’s martial arts class or in life, there has to be a challenge and a struggle. I’ve seen my daughter grow and I’ve seen her set an example for her younger brother who also loves watching her in her class as I do. Her kid’s martial arts class offers a safe place for her to be challenged and to see where she struggles and learn from those struggles.

kids in their kid’s martial arts class.