Make Your Kids Bully-Proof by Teaching Them BJJ Self-Defense
Brazilian jiu-jitsu is a modern take on traditional Japanese jiu-jitsu. If we compare the traditional Japanese style of jiu-jitsu with the modern BJJ we will see a lot of changes. Traditionally people would send their kids away to a dedicated art school where they would learn and practice Japanese jiu-jitsu for years. These kids would have a scheduled time for everything including a set for waking up, sleeping, and eating. Their diet was also taken care of by the management. The basic concept of this art was to help kids prioritize their lifestyle and their goal by learning discipline. Kids after coming out of these schools would perform well in all conditions, they were emotionally strong as well as much better in mental health than normal kids.
Later when jiu-jitsu made it globally, the mainstream media shunned it. They associated BJJ, MMA, and other martial arts completely because they thought it would only make kids violent. Even in Hollywood movies negative roles were portrayed and associated with martial arts. Kids who would bully others were usually depicted as martial arts experts; overall, the common notion was that kids who would learn jiu-jitsu would ultimately become bullies. This stereotype was broken via karate kids. The first movie where a positive kid role was given to someone who later portrayed the real and positive image of martial arts in all forms.
With the help of this article, we will discuss the importance of BJJ and why parents should help their kids learn BJJ. We will further discuss the benefits of BJJ for kids and some of the main benefits that help kids in real life and how this trength and skill help kids in their social life as well as in their academic careers.
How does BJJ Impacts Kids?
Martial arts in all shapes and forms have a very strong impact on our life. Starting from helping kids to defend themselves in situations where they feel their safety can be compromised to helping them socialize with their peers. Here are some of the best ways BJJ will help your child become bully-free and enjoy a healthy lifestyle.
Social Life
According to stats, kids who are better in BJJ make friends easily. This is because people around them feel much safer. After all, they know someone will help them when they are in danger. Apart from this, within the BJJ strategy-making practices, kids are taught simple steps that can help them learn about interacting with their opponents and friends. Meeting new people while knowing about them is a very crucial part of BJJ which further helps kids in their social life as well.
Safety
Safety plays a very important part in our lives. People who feel safe can focus on other things. However, when kids get bullied it impacts their overall performance in school as well as impacts their social life and creativity. By helping your child learn about self-defense you will help him to not only defend themselves but others who are in need.
Academic Life
Within BJJ you will have so many different exercises, each exercise will help you become physically and emotionally stronger. There are so many different exercises that are used in BJJ that mainly help in improving the blood circulation in the upper part of the body and nourish the brain. This also helps the body in improving the overall health and kids can focus on their work in a better way.
Personality
Kids when they feel that they are vulnerable also get depressed easily. Apart from this, you will see that they will have low confidence and would avoid eye contact as well as interaction with a stranger. Since you are going to meet a new person on the mat every day and it is your training to not only read your opponent but also understand his weakness, kids use that in real life as well. You will see them becoming emotionally much stronger and mature. You will also see that they are becoming confident and they can now easily interact with people. This also helps them in extracurricular activities in their later life and their career. All these personality traits are positive and these are somehow traced back to martial arts and its importance.
Health
Kids usually get sick, considering the ongoing pandemics parents are becoming more concerned about the health of the kids. These kids with weaker body structures and more absents find it hard to make friends. Apart from this, skipping school further impacts their grades. With the help of BJJ, you will see improvement in their health and they will not skip school. Apart from this, they will have better immunity which will further help with the fitness and also help the child in better learning throughout the day.
Bottom Line
To sum it all up, your gender, race, or age is not linked with martial arts. People who start their martial arts career after 40 show an improvement in their overall health whereas, parents report that kids who learn BJJ have shown significant improvement in their academic career as well as their social life. Martial arts is just like a gun or any other self-defense equipment that you offer to the person. It all comes down to the way he uses that equipment. Some people use guns for selfdefense whereas others use them for violence. Similarly, there is no way to understand what goes on in someone’s head when they learn a fairly productive skill. For a very long time, martial arts have been directly associated with negative properties which is the reason parents no longer want their kids to learn BJJ. However, schools and developmental psychologists are now coming together to help kids learn BJJ because they have seen discipline and overall health improvement. Kids take less sick leaves because BJJ helps in boosting immunity and offers them a great outlet to let out their negative energy. It also helps in overall mental and physical development.
Ann Edwards is the fully qualified personal trainer from Elite sports. She has been helping people in the field of bodybuilding and fitness from more than a decade. Her career in nutrition and physical therapy has made her a fine addition for our team.