Why Martial Arts Training is so Important for Children
This is a broad topic, and could be put into a novel, but I will get straight to the point to keep it short and simple. The one thing that a credible martial arts program will do that no other sport can do, especially the way martial arts does, is instill real unshakable confidence. I say “sport” because many people call martial arts that, and in some cases they aren’t wrong. I also use the term “sport” to show the advantages of taking martial arts ahead of t-ball or soccer (not that there’s anything wrong with those). To me, taking a martial art isn’t a “sport” thing. It’s a “life” thing. I don’t emphasize sport martial arts. I emphasize life changing martial arts (not that using a martial art as a sport won’t change your life in a positive way, because it most certainly will). A credible martial arts program molds a child in all areas of his or her life, which creates a much healthier and happier child who isn’t a target for bullies, has great focus, shows respect to everyone, does very well in school, has a positive self-esteem and self-image, displays self-control is humble, and much more.
THE ONE THING THAT A CREDIBLE MARTIAL ARTS PROGRAM WILL DO THAT NO OTHER SPORT CAN DO IS INSTILL REAL UNSHAKABLE CONFIDENCE.
Bullying is a major epidemic in our society and it keeps getting worse. There are many anti-bullying programs out there that define the problem quite well and even produce many effective ways to deal with the problem. The problem is they don’t instill the confidence the child needs to be able to follow through with what they are telling them to do. It’s easy to just tell children to stand up to bullies. That’s good advice, but you didn’t instill the confidence in that child to be able to stand up to them. To the children, the risk outweighs the reward of doing that. They feel that if they tell the bully to leave them alone it might escalate the situation and the bully might do worse things or bully them more often. So the children feel that not saying anything is the better thing to do (which obviously it’s not). So how do we change their mindset and instill the confidence they need? That’s where a martial arts program comes in.
In a credible martial arts program children will gain the confidence to stick up for themselves. In fact, because of this confidence, they will most likely not even be vulnerable to bullying. Bullies bully people who appear weak. They don’t bully those who have confidence. You can easily read people. Their body language alone tells you whether or not they have confidence.
Three things define bullying:
An imbalance of power (either actual or perceived).
Intent to cause harm.
Repetition (it’s usually repeated over and over).
If someone has confidence, it eliminates the imbalance of power. If the confident child is verbally bullied he or she isn’t afraid to stand up for him or herself because the child isn’t afraid of the bully. If the bully did get physical (which most of the time they won’t), the child has the self-defense skills to be able to protect him or herself. If the child is being physically bullied, he or she has the skill set to verbally attempt to stop the bully and if that doesn’t work, the child has the skill set to physically stop the bully (I always advocate restrain, control and negotiate. Striking the bully is always last resort. Hopefully the child doesn’t have to do that). Any trained martial artist will tell you that the more I learn how to fight the less likely I am to ever get into a fight. The reason is they carry themselves differently and the bullies pick up on that and they stop targeting them. It’s that simple.
