hi i was just wondering if i could get some advice please in regards to my sons training. he is six years old, he does judo twice a week, wrestling once a week and bjj once a week. he absolutely loves wrestling and judo but he is getting fed up with the bjj. the instructor doesnt teach a kids class as such, but however what he does is teach gracie anti bully techniques but as a parent you have to be your childs training partner as the instructor doesnt supervise the kids. however im 5,9 and 250lbs and my son just struggles with the ergonomics of it all. occasionally he gets to train with another dad who is 140lbs and he loves it. its at the point now where he doesnt wanna go to bjj anymore. ive got back into my powerlifting the last few years and ive kinda piled on the pounds! please dont think im one of those pushy dads living there dreams through there kids, my son grew up on the sidelines of my wrestling club and just loves it all. ive tried searching for another local bjj club that runs a kids class but the only semi local one that does doesnt start kids until there at least eight. so i guess my question is will he miss out much not doing the gracie anti bully sylabus? he sees some of the kids in the older classes coming in with medals and he tells me cant wait to win some. will his judo and wrestling be a good enough base? i feel he is pretty lucky going to a wrestling club as they are as rare as rocking horse shit in the uk. any advice on what i can be working on with my son would be greatly appreciated. the last thing i wanna do is force him to do is go to bjj when he isnt enjoying it. thank you.
My advice....drop the bjj for now and revisit it when he is older. Place his focus into judo and then wreslting. The judo at such a young age will be a huge advantage when he starts bjj again.
My son is 6 and has done judo for 2.5 years. We got him into wrestling and he loved the warmups and sparring, but the instruction at this particular club just wasn't working out (2 instructors for 30 young children was just completely ineffective). So even though I think he'd love wrestling if he got the right instruction, we dropped it. He just added BJJ twice a week to the 2-3 judo lessons and the instruction is great, he loves it. But for the last 4 months we did do the Gracie Bullyproof games together and even though he's about 55 lb. and I'm 215 lb. we really have no issue doing the games together. It really has given him a leg up now that he has started formal BJJ lessons. The judo has also helped, but it was pretty funny in his first BJJ sparring session when he thought he started out all cocky and then the other kid immediately double-legged him.
In one sentence you're saying you're not one of those pushy dads, then a couple sentences later you're asking if this is a good enough base, indicating to me that you already have aspirations of him becoming a fighter...? I'd suggest listening to your son. If he doesn't want to do bjj, then don't make him do it because you think he's going to need it as part of his repertoire.
Pushy parents are annoying. I hate seeing kids with parents who thinks they're the next big thing when they're not. Listen, your kid is not going to be the next LeBron James or Michael Jordan, so stop dreaming!
If you actually read the OP, you would see that he said his son enjoys BJJ, just not the anti-bullying lectures. Most 6 year olds don't enjoy lectures/instruction, they just want to be doing something (warmups, games, sparring, etc). My son (and most of his peers) enjoy competition and is very competitive, without me really doing much to encourage it other than take him to practice and give him some positive reinforcement. He won the Virginia state championship in his first tournament and has a half-dozen other medals. He's been begging me to start BJJ for over a year so that he can compete in more tournaments and get more medals. Most his friends are the same way, so I imagine OPs son is similar. You don't have to be a psycho pushy dad to encourage your son's competitiveness and want him to do well.
my son has been doing wrestling for around 18 months, he trains at a club in london run by an awesome iranian family. because of londons cosmopolitan nature and the lack of wrestling clubs you end up getting a real eclectic mix of guys turning up helping to teach. one minute its american collegiate wrestlers on holiday or an azerbejaini gold medal winner. he started in the 4-6 class which is much more based on fun, drip feeding them principals like pummeling and sprawls and gymnastics whilst playing games.when he turned six he moved to the 6-8 class and things have got alot more serious and fun and games have gone out the window. he fricking loves the whole macho nature of it with the coach shouting at everyone. when im reading him his bed time story he tells me how many sleeps until he gets to go back to wrestling.
sorry dude i really hope i dont come off as a pushy dad. my son sees the older kids coming in for the 8-10 class showing off medals they have won and he is always asking me when can he compete. he has quite a few gymnastics awards and medals and is a very competitive kid so he just wants to try something else. i have quite a few years of wrestling behind me but ive just under a years worth of bjj under my belt so i can only teach him a few basic bjj principals.
I hate when people say that. How do you know that their kid couldn't be a pro athlete? Do you think that Jordan's or LeBron's parents just said "whatever" and they just happened to luck out? No, these guys, and pretty much every big star got their start at a young age with parents (or other adult authority figures) "pushing" them. Yeah, the odds are slim, but there's always going to be a "the next Jordan/LeBron/Anderson Silva/Fedor/Ali/Tyson/Mayweather", and it's going to be somebodies kid, so why not theirs? You don't want to push them into something if they don't really like it, but you also have to realize that sometimes kids will say they don't like something just to not have to do the work (when in reality they still like it, but they just want to be lazy that day). It's the parents responsibility to identify the difference and to push their kids through those tough times. It helps to build discipline and a sense of responsibility, which will come in handy in their later lives (regardless of whether they become a sports star or an average working stiff). Are there some who go to far? Of course, they either push their kids into something they don't like (for example, to get a college scholarship) or they push too hard and ruin the enjoyment the kid gets from something they do like.
As for the OP, if he's not getting anything out of BJJ classes at the moment, that's fine. He can spend that time attending more judo/wrestling classes. It's going to be a lot of the same principles, anyways, just from different points of view.
I'd rather be accused of pushing my kid into athletics/martial arts than have him be inside watching TV and playing video games all the time and grow up a couch potato. Having a kid in wrestling/judo/BJJ an hour a day is pretty tame compared to the amount of time kids devote to other stuff.
Focus on what he enjoys more or he will end up hating it. When I was into wrestling, I watched several high school wrestlers quit because their parents had pushed them too hard. It was a wrestling town and the parents were fanatics. They enforced extreme diets, signed them up for extra camps and practices and pushed them so hard into it at an early age that some ended up just hating it. You don't want this to happen with BJJ so let him go with what he loves most. Judo and wrestling are the two best martial arts for young young children in my opinion. They both build the coordination, motor skills and agility that will be essential later on and their children's programs don't have chokes or dangerous joint locks for children (whose joints and brains are still in an important stage of development). I haven't seen BJJ adapted for young children and the bully program is ok, but isn't vital, in my opinion. If you are worried about bases, both for later fight skills and for all around life-time fitness, a mix of judo and wrestling are perfect, in my opinion. When you learn it that young, it becomes much more natural and the muscle memory more deeply learned.
In most of the kids BJJ classes that I have seen, they emphasize wrestling takedowns and positional stuff and don't spend all that much time on chokes and submissions.
It's pretty true. Chances are slim. VERY SLIM! Your kid won't be the next LeBron or Kobe or Jerry Rice, please stop dreaming! Those pushy parents needs to be smacked back to reality. Just encourage your kids to go to school. No need for big expectations. Cause at the end, they'll just be all butt hurt when their kids don't make it big, and they end up being failures in life.
I doubt the parents that think they are going to retire off their kids' athletic success (or even get college scholarships) are really pushing their kids into BJJ, judo or wrestling.
I think it's cool your son is able to train so early in life. My son is 4, I hope he will be interested in training in a couple years. If I could go back in time, I wish I could have someone push me in the direction of training. I am 25, I can't imagine how good I'd be at fighting with 18-20 years experience. Also makes me jealous of a kid at my gym. He just turned 16 and has been training about 2-3 years and is already a beast.
So, because the odds are slim, you should just abandon all effort at trying? Chances are slim that your kid will get straight A's, should he settle for b's and c's? Chances are slim that your kid will be valedictorian, should he just say "screw it"? Chances are slim that your kid will get the scholarship he'll need to go to college, so he should just forget about it? My god, I hope you never have kids. Yeah, chances are slim for any kid to be the next big sports star, but if they enjoy the sport, have the talent and (most importantly) can develop the work ethic, why not take the shot? Why not encourage your kid? Don't foster an unreasonable expectation of success, but don't just go "Well, odds are 1 in a million, so don't bother." You start teaching them that way of thinking and they'll be working menial, minimum-wage jobs for the rest of their life.
I'd recommend having a heartfelt chat with the child and listening to what he wants. His preference matters a great deal. Let him be a kid.
Also, if someone is pissed that a parent is excited about their kids future in athletics.... then you probably don't have children. I always think that I didn't tap my full potential due to not having anyone to practice with or show me how to do stuff better. Coaches growing up were just random dads that didn't know much. I was pretty good at baseball, but not good enough for college. I also wasn't even in shape when I played. I think if my son grows up with me giving him solid instruction, as well as sending him to camps/seminars/etc to learn from pros, he will tap that potential that I wasn't able to. It's like a second chance to fulfill those dreams. Or maybe he won't be into sports like I was. Whatever he is into I'll support it and try to help him be the best at that. Just my opinion.
to be honest i have no plans for my son to be some sort of grappling superstar. the only thing i have been pushy with was gymnastics.he started a tumbletots programme when he was 2 years old. i was of the opinion that gymnastics would be the best basis for whatever he chose to do in life sports wise. ive had the misfortune to look on youtube to see some examples of pushy parents who think there kids are gonna be big ufc superstars. posting videos of there 6 year olds highlight reels. and then you have other pushy parents going on in the comments section "my son can kick your sons ass!". also i have to ask why do all these kids have multi coloured mohawks??
