Im definately enrolling my kid in jiu jitsu when hes old enough to participate and can understand. Im currently a white belt, but about 3 months away from my blue
do you remember in hs, we were sophomores and this cheerleader was beat up by another guy who was a boxer? the cheerleader walked around with this huge black eye for a couple of weeks. i bumped into that guy in the past year at a restaurant, the cheerleader. I was with my wife, after he walked off I told my wife the only reason I remember that guy was because of that black eye he had.
I remember it happening but I can't remember who the people were. Getting old man, that was like over half my lifetime ago.
p***y or violent sociopath? Tough choice, are there any other alternatives? Do you really think that children that are taught and praised for fighting skills will have the intellectual capacity to understand when to use them and when it's not appropriate?
Without knowing more its hard to compare. When I was a kid and did Karate we either wore gloves and/or weren't allowed to go full force in sparring. In TKD they wear gloves and body protectors while in Judo we don't allow kids under 13 to choke and armbar and kids under 16 to armbar. My initial reaction is this is a bad idea as there is potentially a lot of damage that can be done to kids still growing but if properly run it might not be a bad idea. The one problem though with running it properly for safety for kids is that you take so much out of it it ends up not being MMA.
To follow up on my earlier post I think kids could do MMA and from watching the video most of it doesn't look anymore dangerous than a kids Judo match. There are three moves in it that I would be very hesitant about letting children do. 1. The kidney strikes to the kid from the mount. In that position the kid below has no way or protecting himself and he could be seriously injured. 2. The triangle choke. We ban chokes for kids in Judo because of potential braindamage to rapidly brains so I don't think its a good idea. 3. The pickup and drop. This is a Jujitsu technique called Dakiage, where someone picks someone up who is in the guard position and slams them back down on their back. This move can potentially be neck breaking as ther person in the guard has no way of protecting themselves in the throw while the pressure from the throw on the back of the neck can be immense. I think if those things are addressed by MMA then you could safely do MMA even for kids. Even with those though I still would have a few reservations about teaching kids MMA. The first is whether the people teaching the kids MMA are also teaching them safety, most importantly how to fall properly where they can protect themselves. I've seen people doing MMA who don't learn how to take proper falls since they are primarily taught how to do offensive techniques without concern about self protection. Right there you're opening up the possibility for very serious injury while ignoring the most practical thing you can get out of grappling as far as everyday life which is how to fall. The other part that worries me, probably since I'm more of a traditionalist when it comes to Martial Arts, is the lack of emphasis on the "Do" part of martial arts whether it is "JuDO", "TaekwanDO" or any other traditional art. In the past few years MMA has become a style but from what I've seen of MMA schools is that they often don't deal with that most of the Martial Arts actually address philosophical issues which in many ways are more important than the physical activity itself. While kicking ass is great there's much more to the discipline and practice of martial arts which is why we put up with the bowing, belts and funny uniforms. I'm not saying there isn't the principals of discipline and mutual respect in MMA but it isn't codified or emphasized in the same way and IMO there is nothing better to instill in kids than those values.
what about the striking - when i saw the ESPN piece the kids were wailing away with 4-oz MMA gloves and no headgear, I think they force them to punch below the neck only but it seems pretty savage to let kids use light gloves like that (not to mention cause of lots of hand and wrist injuries).
My goodness, is that our only options for our kids these days? Either punching each other or shooting each other? What ever happened to the classic kid activities like basketball, baseball, and football? This world can't be so bad that if you aren't putting your 9 year old friend in a Guillotine Choke, then you're obviously shooting people.
