If you are a parent, I want you to close your eyes and remember what it’s like to be 8 years old again.
Just picture it.
Your imagination and curiosity running wild, boundless energy, every day a new lesson, and every person a new experience.
As a child, you have a vulnerable, defenseless nature that allows you to have an open mind and rise to the occasion of challenges using the stories, movies, or games that inspire you.
But simultaneously are unexposed to the dark and scary
monsters who take different forms and shapes, the ones who can suck your life force away or use peer pressure to make you anxious.
The predators who pretend to be your friends or the bullies who aggressively dominate. Perhaps, the quiet ones who surreptitiously stalk you, maybe even live next door.
Unfortunately, reality can be a “dog eat dog” world, and trial by combat is how you learn and if you aren’t prepared you may be maimed.
Remember the old Japanese proverb, “It’s better to be a warrior in the garden than a gardener in a war.”
So, if you aren’t putting your kids into Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, you aren’t protecting them as well as you could be.
Here are the three most important reasons why you should enroll your kids in a BJJ class today.
1. BJJ Teaches Your Kids How To Accept Suffering
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) is beneficial for your son or daughter’s mental and physical growth as they mature into adulthood.
Although kids are “carefree” they can be overly dramatic while handling stressful life events.
If you need help picturing this, think of your angsty tween preparing for a major sporting event, final exam, or piano recital.
Perhaps, their first day in a new school.
Children tend to process stressful situations with an extremist “life or death” attitude if they aren’t taught otherwise that life is a continuum and mixture of moments of pain as well as pleasure, discomfort as well as contentment.
They don’t realize that suffering is a part of life, which is why they have these visceral overreactions.
Unfortunately, we can’t outrun suffering, and it happens all too frequently.
Take a moment and think about it.
When you work out at the gym, or your child plays a sport their physical body suffers.
Maybe, you are bullied by your co-workers or significant other, or your child becomes a “punching bag” for other children, their mental state suffers.
Perhaps, you didn’t have the best childhood and you always wished it was different.
The list goes on Aeternum.
Regardless, your kids need to be mentally prepared to accept that life isn’t fair and the only thing they can do is learn how to effectively navigate through their suffering.
Ultimately, rising to the occasion of their challenges and hardships.
Both kids and adults relate a stressful situation back to something familiar because it helps them understand it better.
This can be a fantasy novel, a movie, a video game, etc.…
And understanding it better— although it won’t necessarily save them, will help prepare their minds for what’s going to happen.
Through the philosophies of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, they will learn how to take responsibility for their personal growth.
I believe this is something that a video game, a book, or a movie cannot teach.
BJJ is both a physical and mental activity that is based on our primal instinct of fight or flight.
This will give your kids first-hand experience dealing with physical confrontation and the emotions that follow it.
They will be confronted with complex situations against physically larger aggressors and will learn how to push past and overcome their Sisyphean struggles on the mat.
This will permeate into other challenges of their lives.
Your kids will be able to compare their future adversities with their past training experiences and will have an easier time dealing with their future stress, despite the intensity of the moment.
They will realize growing both as a person, and a martial artist is a full-time activity that they must constantly refine and improve.
Ultimately, BJJ teaches them how to be responsible, and that sense of responsibility will show they aren’t helpless children.
But brave and courageous youth who are ready to defend themselves against bullies and stick up for what they believe in.
At the end of the day, your children will learn something that most adults never learn. That the only option they have is to willingly suffer and work hard for something they want, or suffer dreadfully without being aware of their wants, needs, and desires.
Philosophers and Intellectuals call this the battle between Nihilism vs. Existentialism.
2. BJJ Fosters A “Special” Type of Confidence In Kids.
Like I said, “monsters” are always going to be lurking around the corner, your child should be capable of defending himself or herself.
Instead of utilizing punches and kicks that rely more on your ability to generate force or power.
BJJ focuses on technical, defensive tactics that rely on taking advantage of the mechanical weaknesses of the human body. Emphasis on technical.
BJJ emphasizes joint locks and body pins that a small person can use against a larger opponent.
After imprinting the pattern recognition and muscle memory, aka many hours of practice, your child (or even you) will be able to neutralize a larger, more physically capable aggressor.
In other words, it is an efficient and non-threatening way to deal with lurking monsters (bullies).
This focus on technique rather than strength will boost your child’s self-esteem when confronting adversaries who are larger than they are.
Likewise, when your children are confident in their ability to defend themselves, they will realize that verbal, emotional, and mental confrontations don’t faze them as much.
Because they’ve already spent so many days, sharpening their defensive weapons.
And remember, physical altercations don’t usually start that way unless you are watching a combat-related bout. They tend to progress upward from a verbal argument.
As we all know, confrontation is inevitable.
3. BJJ Builds Your Kid’s Character
To be quite honest, understanding how to systematically break the human body is like having a superpower.
Your knowledge of breaking mechanics and the ability to implement that knowledge is much higher than that of an average person.
While your kids build confidence, they will simultaneously learn both the pros and cons of this power.
They will learn that if they really wanted to hurt another child, they probably could.
I’ll be honest, teaching them this gift makes them dangerous.
But being dangerous isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s how you use that “dangerous” part of your human nature that counts.
“Monsters” are dangerous.
These are people that know how to hurt you and have the intention to do so.
If you aren’t dangerous yourself, they will have no problem verbally and emotionally walking over you or physically stomping your face into the ground. It’s happened to me before.
Likewise, if your kids are dangerous but choose to use their abilities to defend other less powerful people, they are heroes.
It shows they have character.
Or rather, it shows they have spent a ridiculous amount of time on the mat building said character because they know what it’s like when someone more powerful than them beats them up, whether physically or mentally… perhaps, both.
Remember, “trial by combat.”
I think if they can come out of these “trials” that are metaphors for life with bruises and cuts, yet still maintain an uplifting and optimistic perspective, that will put them “levels” above other adults.
Children tend to trust and respect what others say without the skepticism that adults have.
But as they “grow up” they deal with the hurdles of life that erode their trust, respect, or curiosity for being alive.
If they can learn to keep these childlike qualities after falling down thousands of times, that’s another “superpower.”
Personally, I believe once your son or daughter begins to embrace the “process of Jiu-Jitsu,” their life perspective begins to broaden.
Once their life perspectives begin to broaden, their opportunities in life exponentially increase.
Ultimately, your kids can watch a movie or anime, play a game, and feign bravery.
… Or they can train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and be brave.
You won’t always be there to intervene when life gets tough for them.
And that’s okay if they learn how to protect themselves.
