Should kids be sparring at this age?

Plenty of aspects that can be trained without headshots. Absolutely no reason to subject a kid to sparing involving head shots at that age.
 
Hard sparring sessions are good for kids. They can lose their chins and still have time to regrow them
 
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Khabib wrestling with bears at the age of nine, kids brutally sparring at the age of 6-7. Where do we draw the line? I know it takes a special human being to become a UFC champion. Maybe the sooner you start sparring, the more chances you give yourself to become a UFC champion?

What do you think?
Not the boy in the red head gear for sure.
 
Not sure those boys can rattle a brain with a punch. I’ve seen double legs resulting in some pretty vicious heads being bounced. And being that small is probably safer than football
 
that's pretty ridiculous. those parents should be banned from planet earth.
 
This is why these kids end up having to retire in their mid 20's.
 
Beyond stupid to let these kids do that.

If they want to do combat sports, you should imo let them do bjj and/or wrestling.

If you really want them to know how to strike, you can still teach them how to throw a 1-2 yourself, because if a child or a teen knows how to grapple, rudimentary striking skills are more than enough for self defense.
 
Not full contact no.

Kids can still learn and spar but under modified rules without full contact and still get the benefits of training.

They can still grapple at a good pace and strike with "touch contact".

Kids should not be doing any hard sparring till they are 16+ and that is prob the bare minimum.
 
Khabib was wrestling baby bears probably declawed as well. They weren't punching him in the face or causing physical damage. So actually probably much much safer then letting two kids spar.
 
These kids shouldn't be mollycoddled like that. Take the headgear off and let them spar with full grown adult men. Only way to learn technique
 
Children should not be exposed to sports that involve repeated head impact for obvious reasons. Including American football, judo and soccer. No sparring with head contact for punches at all until they become adult and are able to make their own decisions.
 
No, let kids enjoy their youth to just be kids.

They want to go out and play with friends.
 
In all seriousness though ..
Khamzat used to suplex babies on their heads when he was 1, Khabib sparring Bears.. If you really wanted to attempt an unlikely pursuit of being able to compete with those guys, starting training from a really young age is probably in your best interests..

Also there's the old The Wire Boxing Club cliche as well, where by for some kids in shitty area's who can't afford or have no access to a more reasonable/sensible gym, may still be better off going to train boxing instead of what ever else they may be getting up to otherwise, in a sense the better of 2 evils, dunno just a thought.
 
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The kids I have seen having fighting at local fight shows that my team and I would fight on were kind of a novelty. They wear 8 - 12oz gloves, which is like the comical equivalent of 30oz gloves to adults. Plus they are wearing full faced head gear. Plus you have to take into account their complete lack of power - the fights just looked like a cute game of tag. I never saw any kid get KOd or even bleed.

But shots to the head are shots to the head. I didn't start sparring until I was 23, and I'm kind of glad of that. I've trained with and watched 16 year-olds fighting under A class MMA rules. They were only half way through puberty at that point with a lot of brain development ahead of them. I'd have more problems with that as a parent, as you obviously get some serious trauma to the head with elbows, GnP and banging with 4oz gloves.

Then again, we played rugby as kids here in Australia. It's one of the most popular sports. We don't wear head gear or protective padding, and I definitely caught some concussions at 8 - 12 years olds from footy. Kids and contact sports is a contentious issue.
 
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Khabib wrestling with bears at the age of nine, kids brutally sparring at the age of 6-7. Where do we draw the line? I know it takes a special human being to become a UFC champion. Maybe the sooner you start sparring, the more chances you give yourself to become a UFC champion?

What do you think?

Khabib wrestling a bear cub is much safer than getting punched in the head, bad idea.

If they want to have kids spar, they should have those sparring gloves with extra paddings. Even then, the impact of the punches snapping the head back would still be bad.
 
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