Kids BJJ Class

[Gershwin]

I signed my 6 year old son up for local BJJ class, first class was great. Sensei spent a lot of time with him and watched him closely second class he demonstrated a Gi choke once then sent the 5 & 6 years to a different area.

I figured they'd be doing something a bit more basic but no, they were attempted to do a choke on each. There were 7 pairs of 6 year old choking each other, none of them were doing it correctly but no one corrected them and my son spent 15 mins just laying on top of another lad with his forearm across his throat.

Question is, is this usual practise in BJJ training or should 6 years be more closely monitor if practising a choke. I felt a bit anxious, any input will be greatly received.

 

[AK Gerard]

I can only speak as someone that's watched the end of a kid's class waiting for the adult class to start, but the instructor will definitely correct kids doing it wrong. However, they teach the kids the same things they teach adults, including chokes. And it's impossible to watch all pairs of kids at once, maybe the instructor was caught up on another pair of kids doing things wrong and couldn't get to checking on all of them. So much as it doesn't look like kids are being needlessly injured (i.e. literally beating on each other while the instructor does nothing about it), I wouldn't worry too much about this after one class. But if it continues, I'd consider talking to the instructor after a class and voice some concern (in a no argumentative manner).

 

[Crotalis]

This is not good practice and you should be wary. At the gyms around here, if there is only one instructor on the mat that day and there are too many young children for one person to safely watch, they do something very safe and basic like positional drills.

I help out with the kids class at my academy. If there's more than 4 kids and only one instructor we don't teach anything like chokes or subs that day. IMO it is never ok to send kids that young and inexperienced off to a corner of the gym by themselves for extended periods of time. That goes double if you've sent them to the corner to do largely unsupervised chokes.

 

[Ring>>Cage]

At my sons school there is a 4-6 year old class that focuses on warmups for the majority of the class and a couple of takedowns or positional techniques per day. No sparring or submissions. The kids class 7-14 is set up more like the adult white belt class

 

[BJJJoe]

Gracie Academy and their curriculum for kids don't teach chokes, which makes total sense to me.

 

[Gershwin]

Thanks for the replies , appreciate it. Didn't feel right to me at all, I've found another BJJ school and spoken to the owner, going to try it out on Thursday.

 

[Russky]

I'd suggest trying judo instead. Little kids do not like being choked, armbarred or punched. They are much more likely to quit from karate/tkd/bjj than from judo/wrestling. Also, learning throws in older age is way more difficult.

 

[Was at Pride GP 2000]

How is your 6 year old going to win the Mundials if he doesn't learn to choke or be choked?????

I'm not sure I would bring my kid back to a school that has 6 year olds doing chokes their first day.

Hopefully the other place is a little bit less ........ well stupid is the word that comes to mind