For many years, I have considered the best way to safely introduce children to martial arts. At their core, they are about self and family defense. This means you learn how to not only avoid dangerous situations, but you also learn how to harm someone when they create an immediate threat. One can easily imagine the conflict in a parent's heart. How do I teach my child to protect themselves and their siblings, yet not create someone who might be dangerous to their friends? When you teach a child how to use a weapon (such as a choke), you must consider the dangers this brings with it. I'll never forget the time my six year old son choked his big sister with a very dangerous rear choke at the swimming pool simply because he was angry that she wasn't playing with her. Luckily, he let go before he passed out in the water! This illustrates that a level of maturity is required, along with constant reminders to the children of the seriousness and consequences of their use of the techniques they learn.
Years before I opened Austin Jiu-Jitsu, I began considering what I would teach my children. I designed a curriculum I called Zajendo. It is geared toward realistic scenarios. It distinguishes itself in 2 primary areas:
It is built on various concepts learned by me over 18 years of mixed martial arts practice. It is primarily developed for teaching my children safe, effective, and fun self defense skills. Its name is based on the names of my children Zachary and Jennifer. Get it?
The techniques and positions are based mostly on two of what I consider the most effective martial arts: Thai Boxing and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. What I draw from these styles include only what I consider to be most successful for kids in a style whose primary goals are safety and effectiveness. I owe a great debt to my instructors who have taught me enough to share these techniques with my own children.
After teaching my own children and many others basic self-defense, I realized that children should first concentrate on a safe foundation system of self-defense based solely on Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Only given solid aptitude of this system, at an intermediate level, would I then teach the striking techniques of Thai Boxing. The rationale for this is manifold:
Class should be about an hour long, split between striking and grappling techniques. Training should take place at least once per week. Better progress can be made with 2 or more classes per week.
Students wear shorts and a tee shirt during the striking and combined training. At the beginning of the class, they wear wrestling shoes during warm-up. This is to prevent toe injuries while jumping rope. During any punching exercises, students wear handwraps to protect the bones in their hands. Protective equipment is required during grappling. This includes wrestling shoes, mouthpiece, ear guards, and cup (for boys).
Warm up lasts 10 minutes. Warm up consists of shadow boxing, jump rope, calisthenics, and light grappling. For intermediate and advanced students, warm up is informal, meaning students work on whatever they want to get their "blood moving." For beginners, they are taught to shadowbox, jump rope, stretch, etc.
"Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never know peril."
Sun Tzu, Chinese military strategist, 450 B.C.
Bullying among schoolchildren is quite common in the United States. In a study of junior high and high school students from small Midwestern towns, 88 percent of students reported having observed bullying, and 76.8 percent indicated that they had been a victim of bullying at school. 1
In our training, we will talk about bullying and how to best deal with bullies. Justice seems to be at the heart of our cultural fiber. Yet ironically, it breeds bullies for a number of interesting reasons:
We will practice these specifically in role playing drills. Most importantly, we role play situations that result in not fighting as well as those that result in the child physically defending and subduing the bully. In role playing we will focus on having the child say specific things that will make it clear who is to blame if there is a fight. This can prevent suspension or other serious trouble for your child.
Never let 'em see you sweat
Disassociation
Confrontation
Self Defense
This section is to be completed. It is the most important section of this document, so stay tuned!
Besides pure grappling, the classes also teach students how to fall. In the Japanese defensive art of Aikido, this is called ukemi. Ukemi is very useful to have a basic grasp of, since you never know when you are going to be falling to the ground. Controlling this fall and landing with the least chance of injury are the goals of this training. It turns out, of all things learned, the students will be almost guaranteed to need ukemi at some point in their lives. We all fall at some time or another. Many unnecessary injuries often come from uncontrolled falls.
Other warm-up drills
A technique is demonstrated and students pair up to drill the technique. Each student should repeat the technique at least 10 times. The best way to do this is to have each student do it 2-5 times, then alternate to the other. This is useful for 2 reasons:
Grappling (free sparring to submission) is always supervised by a coach. Students will grapple near the end of class session after technique drills. The student is expected to attempt to submit their partner, achieving victory.
Striking training is for students of rank Yellow with 1 stripe or later.
Striking training lasts 25 minutes and consists of having the students in fighting stance working on footwork and combination punches and kicks. This can either be done in shadowboxing style, or with a partner holding focus mitts or a body shield (for knees and kicks). The training is done in rounds of 3 minutes on, one minute of rest for at least 3 rounds. New techniques are demonstrated or old techniques are repeated. Constant correction of technique and motivation to push cardiovascular limits are the focus of the instructor.
Combined training is for students of rank Orange with 1 stripe or later.
Vale Tudo means "anything goes" in Portuguese. This term is clearly inappropriate for children's training. Combined training is Vale Tudo, with the safety and nurturing needed to be productive for children. At least twice a month (once a week if you are training three times per week), the students should train in techniques that combine striking and grappling. This is to more closely simulate the real situations of a self-defense situation on the street. Combined training should not be attempted before the student has reached the rank of yellow belt.
There are a number of drills that can improve responses in real "street" situations. grapple and strike at the same time. The interesting twist added to combined training for children is the role playing aspect introduced to add realism. The opponent always plays the part of the bully. Each class should reinforce the need for the student to attempt to "talk their way out" of the fight. In some cases the bully will let them go, in others, the bully will not. When this happens, the actual drilled technique is executed. For example, the bully will throw a hook punch (sucker-punch) at the student. The students evades the punch and immediately takes the opponent down to assume control in a particular position. In reality, a sucker punch often finds its mark, so other drills may start by the student having to respond with a clear head after they have already been physically attacked. As in real life, it is rare to get through a physical attack without getting hit. Someone who really wants to hit you will find a way, often by surprise.
Besides drilling, combined training can take the form of sparring. This is done under closely supervised conditions where no pair of students can spar without adult supervision. The match always starts from standing. No strikes can be thrown until the students have "locked up." This keeps the fight from becoming a tentative boxing match. Only light contact is allowed. Kicks, knees and elbows are only allowed without contact (mock style). Light slapping and punching is usually enough to create a much more realistic situation. One of the most important things the student will learn is that in combined training, you must always keep track of your opponent's weapons. If you simply grapple someone who intends to punch you, you will end up getting punched. Trapping these weapons as you try to improve position (to strike or submit the opponent in other ways) is a vastly different experience from regular grappling.
Weapons training is for students of rank Green belt or later.
Unfortunately, in life bad people often do harm with weapons. These weapons are most commonly knives, sticks, and guns. The students will work with simulated weapons (rubber knives for example) in various situations.
Rank for children progresses in this order:
Each rank has includes several stripes to show progress within rank. When a child reaches Green with 3 stripes, they cannot attain higher rank until they are 16 years of age. At that time, they can be considered for adult ranking.
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