Why my child must do contact martial arts

If you want your child handed a black belt in two years, we’re not your club.

If you want a child who can handle pressure, take a knock and get back up, keep reading.

There are so many choices for kids today that just weren’t a consideration when I was growing up in the 1990s. I started in karate. Back then it was a great foundation. The basics, over and over, with good semi-contact sparring. The focus was on being effective. Martial arts saved me as a kid, and I’ve now been coaching for 27 years.

Over the years, decades really, a lot of formidable martial arts went soft. Some of that is public liability. Some of it is just that times change.

What is that black belt worth?

Plenty of sport-based karate and taekwondo clubs now grade a child to black belt in two or three years, at any age. Gradings are big business. Many schools run them monthly, with up to 100 people grading at a time, each one paying for the privilege.

At Chau Kaizen, gradings are free. We don’t charge for belts. The only time members have paid anything was a one-off Born To Roll seminar back in 2023, with the head of our organisation on the mats. They paid for the seminar, never for the belt. Belts get earned.

I’m not pointing fingers, and I mean no disrespect to the sport-orientated clubs out there. I just want you to know the difference.

Parents bring kids from those clubs to us, understandably proud of what their child has achieved. After all, a black belt means you’re at the top of the ladder in your style.

Then they step on the mats. Whether it’s MMA or BJJ, they get a rude awakening the moment our students get physical, as they’ve been trained to. A kid who has never worn a black belt puts them on their back, holds them there and makes them tap. Their belt can’t help them. Neither can their words.

Within minutes they learn not to speak unless spoken to. Nobody has to tell them. The mat does. A humbled kid listens, and a kid who listens learns. That’s when the real training starts.

Point sparring is not fighting

Point sparring is a game of tag. Someone lands a touch, the referee stops it, a point goes up and everyone resets. Techniques are pulled short. Nobody is really trying to stop you.

Being effective is something else. In BJJ we roll. Your partner resists with everything they’ve got, and nobody stops it after one good move. You keep working until someone taps or the time runs out. In MMA, striking, wrestling and grappling come together, and you learn to use them against someone who is fighting back.

That’s what contact gives you. You find out what actually works, against someone who is really trying. You can’t fake it, and a belt can’t hide it.

It also teaches something point sparring never will: how it feels to be under pressure. Stuck underneath someone heavier. Tired, and still having to think.

Life will put them under pressure too, and not just in the schoolyard. Exams. Losing a final. A first job. A break-up. Losing someone they love. A kid who has learnt to stay calm stuck under a pin, caught in a submission or winded by a strike knows how to breathe, think and work their way out.

There will be tears

There will be tears. Copping a punch or a kick for the first time. Getting squashed by a bigger kid. Getting caught in the same submission three times in a row. Losing a roll to someone younger. For a lot of kids, it’s the first time something has been hard and nobody has made it easy.

Don’t pull them off the mat at the first tear. Don’t let them quit. The kid who cries on day one and comes back for day two is learning the most important lesson in the room: you can feel bad and keep going.

Tears aren’t injuries. If something is actually wrong, they tap or the coach steps in. What they’re feeling is frustration, and pushing through frustration is exactly what we’re building.

Let them push past it, and they will be better for it.

Old school coach, old school parents

I’m old school. Kids are there to learn, and I’m their coach. My job is to make them strong, mentally and physically, with no illusion that a paid-for belt can hide anything.

A lot of kids today are handed choices they’re too young to make. Quit when it gets hard. Stay home when they’re tired. A trophy just for turning up. It feels kind. It isn’t doing them any favours.

Kids don’t get to decide whether they go to school or brush their teeth. Training should be no different. Parents lead, kids follow.

Bring them every week, especially the weeks they don’t want to come. Let the coaches do the coaching. The parents who do this see a fundamental change in their kids. They become not just physically stronger, but emotionally stable.

This isn’t for every family, and that’s fine. But if you want your child to grow up with discipline, respect and the grit to keep going when it gets hard, bring them in. I’ll do my very best to instil those old school values in them, through the way I teach.

Kids classes are for ages 6 to 13. Your first class is on us. Book online at least 12 hours before you would like to come in, so we know to expect you and can have a coach ready for you. Book a free trial class.