Kid’s martial arts: fundamentals
Kid’s martial arts and fundamentals
We all hit walls as we grow and move in this life. Sometimes it’s a financial wall, an emotional wall, or some kind of academic wall. Whether it’s something in our professional or personal lives we all find these obstacles as we continue evolving. Kids are no different, whether they are in school, in a kid’s martial arts class, or a sports environment. Whenever we hit these walls we see what is happening, or we don’t, around us. One thing for certain, we learn lessons about life and about ourselves. The most basic tool I use whenever I hit a wall is to stop and survey what is important, find out what is fundamental in the situation. I had the opportunity recently to try and impart that to my daughter when she hit a wall in her kid’s martial arts class.
Coaching kid’s martial arts class
I am so very proud of her progress in her kid’s martial arts class but I have noticed that she has been comfortable and needs a challenge. She has been doing well and the coaches have seen her progress as well which is a testament to how astute the coaches are and how well she is doing in her kid’s martial arts class. The interesting thing is that many children don’t have the context of what a challenge is as their parents or other adults might understand the situation. Children are very much in the present moment and do not have the perspective that older kids or adults have. I had to understand that before I was able to understand her situation-I had to determine what was fundamental for her in the situation and meet her where she was, as opposed to have her reach me within a context she still did not understand.
The challenge, the balance of kid’s martial arts class
One aspect of coaching that is always tenuous is challenging a student enough to spur growth and not demoralize them. It’s difficult because every child has a different threshold of what/where that line is whether it’s kid’s martial arts or any other sport. Many times, as I have done, we go past it, but most coaches never give a challenge that they don’t think is achievable by the student. Often times, the coaches see more in the students than the students see in themselves. This is fundamental knowledge: the challenge is getting the student to realize that they are better than they think they are and the balance comes in finding the right challenge for that student. This is true of kid’s martial arts or mathematics, a problem may seem unsolvable but the intent is still to solve the problem. The student may believe they cannot achieve the task but even “failure” to solve the problem is a lesson learned.
Coach Amanda coaching the matches in kid’s martial arts class
What is fundamental…
I’m happy my daughter had the support of her coaches and her fellow students. I’m glad she was able to experience her challenge in a safe environment and that she kept going. I think often of a quote when I think of what is fundamental to learn in challenging situations:
The most important thing is not victory, the most important thing is don’t get defeated.
-Rickson Gracie
I work towards that end with myself and my family. My daughter’s kid’s martial arts class offers her the opportunities to learn as does life itself…it’s fundamental to moving forward.
Portrait of q & a in kid’s martial arts class
by Luis T.
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Kid’s martial arts and gratitude
Saying “Thank you.”
There is one thing that I am always encouraging my kids to do and that is to say “thank you.” Luckily, it works most of the time. My daughter says “thank you” when she gets off the bus, she says “thank you” when she finishes her meals and she says “thank you” when we let her watch Brave or Avatar: Last Airbender for the billionth time.
warm ups in our kid’s martial arts class
Kid’s martial arts and effort.
I have written many times about the various reasons martial arts are good for kids, you can see my interview with Sam Sheridan for some really good ones. One reason is it gives me the opportunity to encourage my children to work hard. I work at rewarding them for their continued effort whether it’s cleaning their room, reading books at night, or going to kid’s martial arts class. There were studies highlighted in the book NurtureShock that showed kid’s performed better when given positive feedback on the work/effort done rather than praising natural ability i.e. “You must be really smart” vs. “You must have worked really hard.” Here is a talk from Ashley Merryman, a co-author of the book, that illustrates this idea:
Kid’s martial arts and being grateful
When I used to coach it was hard work. There were practice plans to put together, game plans, player evaluations, not to mention the patience and consistency involved in managing large groups of children who have 6 second attention spans. Every time a child came up to me and said “thank you” it made the experience very rewarding. I see the work that the coaches put forth in my daughter’s kid’s martial arts class. They make sure to coach the kids, to help the kids understand, but also that they have fun in their kid’s martial arts class. The coaches give the children great feed back for the hard work the children put forth in the kid’s martial arts class.
Coach Amanda watching over a match in kid’s martial arts class
Kid’s martial arts and being happy to train
I also encourage my daughter to say “thank you” to her training partners and praise the hard work her classmates exhibit in the kid’s martial arts class. The coaches and her partners are all their to help her learn and she is their to help her partners learn as well. From my point of view, saying “thank you” creates a positive feedback loop that encourages everyone’s hard work in class from the coaches down to the newest student in class. Without the work of the coaches and the help of all the kids in her martial arts class she wouldn’t be having all the fun she is having or learning all that she is learning. Rickson Gracie, I think says it best here:
“You learn when you are having fun, training in a smooth and gentle way. You need to work on improving your technique until you are comfortable in any situation. Eventually, you will develop a subconscious understanding of the techniques and they become reflexes. Only after you have done all this you are ready to take your natural abilities “off the shelf” and add them back into your game. Now the effectiveness of the technique will be at least ten times better.”
Coaching a triangle in kid’s martial arts class.
Kid’s martial arts: the beauty and terror of being a parent
Kid’s martial arts and worrying
As a parent I am often under the stress of worrying. I have a 7 year old daughter in a kid’s martial arts class learning jiu jitsu and a 2 year old son who is quite the handful. I think as parents we are hard wired to worry about our kids. We have to nurture them, help them, guide them, and make sure we do the best for them whether they seem to like it or not.
kid’s class matches
Kid’s martial arts: why I enrolled my daughter
On occasion my son accompanies me to watch his sister in her kid’s martial arts class. He loves running around and it’s cute to see him try to line up with the older kids when the coach gets class started. I worry about him running around, getting into things, or finding new uses for some things he finds around the gym-he’s quite imaginative. I enrolled his sister in kid’s martial arts classes because I worry about her and want to give her tools in her life that will help her. I wanted her to learn jiu jitsu specifically because of the guard work. I want to be the parent that gets the call saying “You’re daughter choked out my son!” To which I would reply “Well, he may have deserved it?” She loves her kid’s martial arts class and she gets along well with all her classmates. I really enjoy watching her in class. I also enjoy listening to her talk about her kid’s martial arts class outside of class. I will also have my son enroll as soon as he is old enough to help him learn some humility. He is a sweet boy and I think that being in a kid’s martial arts class will help him grow. Plus, it puts his sister in a good position to be a mentor so she can help him.
Sibling match in kid’s martial arts class
Even with kid’s martial arts, we’ll always worry to some degree
We, as parents, will always worry to a degree. We will always want what’s best for our children. there’s nothing wrong with that either. I know I will likely worry about them quite often; however, there are moments when my daughter is in class and she does well or she gets through a crucible of sorts and I am very proud of her. There are times in class I watch her with her friends having fun and I know everything will be alright. Its a great vibe and I know it’s made an impression on her as well.
It’s all part of the beauty and terror of being a parent.
More kid’s martial arts class matches
Kid’s martial arts: a talk with Sam Sheridan
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.
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Having fun in kids martial arts class. One tribe. One vibe.
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Kid’s Martial Arts: Struggling and Challenging
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)
chal·lenge adjective
Coach Amanda coaching kid’s martial arts class
Kid’s Martial Arts are no exception to struggle or challenges…
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.
Kid’s Martial Arts: Coaches ARE teachers
Kid’s martial arts: this is Rita Pearson and she says every kid needs a champion.
“Rita Pierson, a teacher for 40 years, once heard a colleague say, “They don’t pay me to like the kids.” Her response: “Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.'” A rousing call to educators to believe in their students and actually connect with them on a real, human, personal level.”
I first saw this at work and I immediately thought that it was something applicable to any endeavor in which we are teaching children. It’s not specific to kid’s martial arts or sports and that brought up another idea: coaches as teachers. When I first started coaching I knew plenty about the sport I was coaching but I needed to find a way to convey my knowledge and the head coach said this to me: “A coach is basically a teacher, look to education principles and apply it to what you’re coaching/teaching.” Kid’s martial arts and other sports do not fall under the umbrella of most education subjects unless it’s Physical Education; however, the principles of learning are the same for any subject.
In the above video what struck me more than the idea of teaching why and how was her emphasis on relationships. I love the quotes she uses:
“No significant learning can occur without a significant relationship” -James P. Comer
“All learning is understanding relationships.” -George Washington Carver
Friend in kid’s martial arts class
Kid’s martial arts and relationships
One of the things I have enjoyed watching as my child has been going to her kid’s martial arts class is the relationships she has developed. She makes friends pretty easily and she is not shy. Her coaches are great at not only teaching but also fostering relationships amongst the kids. They also do a great job of fostering relationships between themselves and the students by splitting into small groups and playing with them before class and in drills during class.
Coaching a small group in kid’s martial arts class
The gym itself does a great job of having socials, picnics, Ninja Nights, and movies in the park for parents to hang out with other parents, the coaches, and other students that take not just kid’s martial arts classes but even the adult classes. As a parent and former coach I know how important those relationships are to building an open environment where kids feel safe to grow, take risks, learn, and have fun.
Having fun in kids martial arts class. One tribe. One vibe.