Introduction
“Letting kids in the door is the worst thing that ever happened to martial arts.”
There’s nothing inherently wrong with children learning self-defense and combat sports, but this business of “what is a martial art” is muddied today.
What Is A Martial Art
I posit that any activity where there is grappling, or where the goal is to hit the other person, and especially any activity commonly practiced in or on a place commonly called a “dojo”, “dojang”, “kwoon”, “ring”, “mat”, or cage, is called a martial art today.
That probably covers it, and my list creates a deliberately broad itinerary: Taekwondo, Karate, Kung Fu, MMA, boxing, wrestling, jujitsu, fencing, kendo… ok, I could go on and list thousands of styles, sub-styles, and variations. I do not agree that these are all martial arts per se, by the way, but that’s for a different discussion. For now, let us casually take a look at them by first grouping them.
Types Of Styles
The easiest styles to consider grouping are wrestling, boxing, pankration, sumo, MMA, fencing, kickboxing. For purposes of this post, I’ll broadly categorize these styles as “Type 1 martial arts”. And only because they have one thing in common – I’ll get to that in a moment.
The other styles include Taekwondo, Karate, Kung Fu, Tang Soo Do, Hapkido, Aikido. For purposes of this post, I’ll categorize them as “Type 2 martial arts”. And only because they, too, have one thing in common.
Can you spot the differences between the two groups? One obvious thing is that in Type 1, the list has no capital letters (MMA does, but that’s because the style itself is an acronym whose namesake does not normally use them), while the Type 2 group is all pronouns, capitalizing their names.
Differences Between Types Of Styles
Considering Type 1, were these ruined because of children? Absolutely not. Children have been in these sports for eons, and it has never been a problem. Children excel in these by virtue of their weight classes and their skill. No matter how much money a child’s parents throw into the sport, the only thing that will excel them is their proficiency. They’ll HAVE to put in the effort. No effort = No progress. Period.
Now consider the Type 2 group. In this group, everyone advances at levels which are denoted by something that they wear. It is by culture that the instructor promotes the practitioner, not the student. When the instructor decides that the student is ready, then the student is ready. It doesn’t matter that the student can’t fight their way out of a paper bag, or that they can’t get out of the way of a haymaker. What matters is that the student can perform an arbitrary set of movements, be it simple techniques, a choreographed set of complex movements, breaking a board, or even simple sparring.
Do you see the difference? In Type 1 groups, people excel by virtue of their skill. In Type 2 groups, people excel by virtue of their instructor. Type 1 groups will not excel if they have a poor coach, but Type 2 groups can excel if they have poor instructors.
Exceptions
There are styles that can break this mold, I’ll add them back into the 1st category, to include Brazilian Jujitsu and Jujitsu. These styles are capitalized in their names, but advancement requires skill, not subjectivity from an instructor.
Is there a case that a bad Type 1 instructor can improperly promote a student? Sure, absolutely. The reality, though, is that this is not the culture of these styles and does not happen nearly as often as it does with the Type 2 group, and further, the student, upon seeing themselves getting thrashed about will soon discover the worthlessness of their promotion. Also, there are some schools in the Type 2 category which will only advance their students upon the objective demonstration of skill, but that is usually a function of the instructor / school, not of the style.
There is also another subtle difference between the groups. The first group is designed for sport. The second group… well, that’s where things get complicated. These groups can be subdivided into two sub-groups, “traditional” and “non-traditional”. Ok, to be more to the point, I’ll state “sport” and “non-sport”.
Sport
The important thing to note about the Type 1 and Type 2 (sport) groups is that these styles are all designed with sport in mind. Fairness, one-on-one, regulated by a referee or judge. The person you are up against is similar in weight, age, gender, and skill level. It is always about “fighting” – scoring points by hitting, grappling, making them go out of bounds, making them give up. Here one uses techniques which are by design used to hurt or place the opponent into submission. As such, there is no focus on self-defense or martial applicability. When the neutral guy with the uniform says stop, or the bell rings, you stop. You shake hands, rest a minute, then try again. There are rules about what you can use and where you use them. For example, boxing says “no grappling”; wrestling says “no hitting”; fencing says “only foil/epee/saber, but no hitting or grappling”, and so on. Always one-on-one. Always barefoot or with specific protection (a la fencing, or padding as used in boxing or kickboxing). The techniques can certainly be used for self-defense, and more than occasionally they are. But the average student isn’t taught for self-defense.
Non-Sport Study
The important thing to note about Type 2 (non-sport) is that the focus isn’t necessarily about sport. Some don’t compete at all. But other than that, well, there’s quite a bit of variety. Here’s a few:
Some styles have their students exclusively train for historical context (Bong Guk Kum Bop, Shutokukan, and HEMA, for example).
Some instructors train their students primarily for aesthetics (some Karate, Aikido, and Taekwondo schools are noted for this.)
Some instructors train their students primarily for health (many Taekwondo, Karate, Tai Chi, Kung Fu schools are noted for this.)
Some instructors train their students primarily for self-defense (Aikido, and many Karate, Taekwondo, and Kung Fu schools are noted for this.)
And of course, instructors can and do incorporate any combination of these disciplines of sport, aesthetics, health, history, and self-defense into their curriculum.
Back To Children
And therein lies the problem with children. There’s nothing wrong with teaching children any of these disciplines, of course. The problem is what is being taught and whether or not anything is being learned.
Suitability
Take self-defense, for example. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen a demonstration of gun and knife self-defense skit being performed by a bunch of 8 and 10 year olds. The presentation shows effort and potential skill, but it also shows what they’ve been – and importantly, what has not been – taught. That a child is taught knife and gun disarms borders on recklessness. Kids pay to be taught gun disarms? I see nothing inherently wrong with this, except for two glaring facts. The first is that they are physically immature to be learning these techniques, and the instructors know this (or they’re ignorant; either way shows shoddy instruction). The disarms always are from the point of view of another child gun or knife wielder – a far less common scenario. But against an adult, the child wouldn’t likely stand a chance with the techniques they use. So realism here is gone, and the child ignorantly thinks s/he’s mastered the skill.
Money Pit
The other issue is that the instructors know the child won’t stick around long enough to take the shoddy instruction they were given, and refine it into something that will work once they get older and larger. The instructor, then, is playing a numbers game: give them something cool to learn in order to break up the monotony of actual stuff they need to learn.
So I wonder, do kids competing in Judo have to throw adults? If not, then why?
Hold on to that reason for a moment.
Then why are these same kids learning to do the same throws in their self-defense classes? Either they should be learning to throw others of the same size (and let’s face it, most do), but that’s not realistic, since the likely perpetrator is either a school bully (where the face-off is more sport-like, such as one-on-one, a face-to-face challenge, etc). Or the perpetrator is an adult.
If the kid is taught self-defense against the bully, then, when the kid quits martial arts, their only context of self-defense is a school bully, which is a very different dynamic than a confrontation in the street, which more often involves weapons and multiple opponents.
The child, then, received bad instruction. Perhaps, if the child stayed in martial arts, they could refine their knowledge as they grow older, but statistically, they’re more likely to quit after 4-5 years.
Aqui Se Habla Children Only
Next, what have we taught? THIS is where the state of martial arts has suffered. There are a tremendous number of schools who teach only children’s classes – no adults. It’s not that adults shouldn’t be learning martial arts, it’s just that they aren’t. They’re too busy with their lives. They need to put junior in a sport or activity, and martial arts is often considered. As a result, schools have so many students who are only children, that they need to break classes up which takes away time that adults might otherwise train. Many are faced with the prospect of having to cancel children’s classes just to get in an adult class, where there are more paying children than adults, so rather than risk losing that revenue stream, they’ll cancel the adult classes instead.
Ok, so that is one issue.
One Curriculum To Rule Them All
The next applies to schools – and styles – where the curriculum is the same between children and adults.
Take Kukkiwon Taekwondo, for example. In most schools, your first test, usually for Yellow Belt, includes having to perform Taeguek 1, do a few kicks and punches, and break a board. The only difference between the adult and child student might be the board being broken. I have been in Taekwondo for 40 years, and been in over a dozen schools, officiated at dozens of tournaments, and have chummed with many an acquaintance who is an owner or student of another school. And in 40 years, I have not come across a single Taekwondo school which teaches the applications in their forms. And the reason is nearly universal: because the kids won’t understand it.
You get that? They don’t teach something because kids won’t understand it.
So the instructor is faced with the prospect of having an adult and child show up at the same test, and do the same routines, but the adult has to additionally show or demonstrate or otherwise indicate knowledge of the applications behind the form they’re doing. Both pass their test, but they note that the belt is the same color, but the adult had to do more work to earn it. What’s more, if that kid sticks around and becomes an adult in that school, they won’t have had the requisite knowledge of the applications in their forms.
So the instructor capitulates: no one learns the applications in the forms. And this is ubiquitous: Taekwondo, Karate, Kung Fu Hwa Rang Do, Tang Soo Do… they are all guilty of doing this. As a result, going into many of these schools, the forms are like an appendix: we all have one, no one knows what it’s for, but if we don’t take care of it, it’ll kill us.
Rate Of Testing
Here’s something curious: That adult and child pair will also test at the same rate. OK, some schools might string the child along a little, but most students pay to test, and getting them to test sooner means more money out of the student sooner than later. Instructors know they get the kid for 4 years, black belt or not, so, do whatever it takes to keep them happy for 4 years. If they stick around, that’s gravy. If not, they were going to leave anyway.
So, how do you have a test for two people, one who is a child, one who is an adult, and both test for the same belt? Do you use different standards, or the same standards? Remember, that child could grow into an adult and then will have less skills than other adults who just joined.
Watered Down
The answer, then, was to water down the entire curriculum for everyone.
Look at what happened to Judo and Karate, back in the 1920’s Japan. Jigoro Kano brought Judo back to Japan school children, as did with Ginchin Funakoshi with Karate. There was no way schools would allow the violent martial movements – eye gouges, groin strikes, throws, etc to be taught to these kids. So, the styles were adjusted so that “approximate movements” were taught instead.
For example, a spear hand is commonly taught as a poke to the belly (I was taught that you poke the belly and squeeze to rip out the spleen). No, you don’t teach kids to squeeze spleens, but you also don’t teach them that the spear hand is a poke to the belly, either. Yet that’s exactly what schools are doing, and nobody is questioning how silly that really is. (I talk about these absurdities in another discussion).
Do you see how the influence of children students has changed how martial arts are being taught? This doesn’t happen in boxing or wrestling. The same techniques are there. There’s no subtracted instruction. But in the “traditional martial arts”, this kind of thing and thinking is so rampant, it’s ubiquitous.
Gender Gap
It is also curious that this trend has no end in sight, and the pendulum is now swinging in the other direction. Taekwondo is fast becoming a boys sport. With the fancy jumps and flips, this caters to the teen male crowd, and leaves out the older folks and many girls.
Money Belt
There is one more thing. And this is the biggest issue with children in martial arts – both kinds of Type 2. It’s because of the belt. That symbol of status.
Children are taught that Black Belt is the epitome of the style. The mastery. The ultimate. Indeed, most kids who get black belt leave right after the test or the next day. I don’t get it, they’ve been a black belt all of an hour, and they’re gone.
As children go through the ranks of these belt systems, they learn that their more senior peers are given more responsibilities. The senior underbelts or black belts are given the privileges to lead classes, go through the warm-ups, or teach a new student the movements to their form. To a young child, this is huge. And so, by the very culture of belted martial arts, children are groomed into believing that the belt system is a system of rank – and status. Thus, the belt becomes a tool of sorts for both the student and the instructor.
Motivator Points Of View
For the student, that belt becomes a motivator to come to class and show it off; coming to class begets upcoming tests; upcoming tests begets practice at home. It becomes bragging rights, especially within families. Nothing wrong with that, except when you understand the true meaning of the belt has nothing to do with status.
For the instructor, the belt is just a means to divide up a class. White belts go here and work on this form, blue belts go there and work on that form, black belts over here with me. That sort of thing. It’s so much more convenient to call out by color than it is to remember each student’s name and progress level, especially in large classes. This is also convenient for schools who have rotating instructors. The belt system really is a tool.
The Dark Side Of Martial Arts
Of course, there’s also a dark side, too. How much did you pay for your yellow belt test? A Karate studio a town over from me charges $50 for a test. They say it’s to cover expenses like boards and belts. I doubt that, boards cost $1.50 apiece if you buy in bulk, and belts are $2 apiece if you buy in bulk. So there’s a potential for revenue generation there. And that’s magnified by the number of belts: some schools are white/black only (Aikido is noted for this). Others have a dazzling array of colors, sometimes 15 colors and color combos before getting to black belt.
And black belt itself is also another revenue generator, some places charge as much as $2000 for 1st dan black belt. That’s like an entire year’s worth of memberships! Most around me charge anywhere from $400 to $600 for 1st dan, and it goes up from there. That’s all highway robbery. But when you have kids, that black belt is like dangling a hunk of gold in front of them. You don’t want to disappoint them, do you? So, you shovel out $500 for their black belt test. That is where the abuse settles in.
Conclusion
And that is why martial arts was ruined because of children. It’s not their fault, it’s the fault of the institutions running the styles. If Taekwondo or Karate were run like boxing or wrestling gyms, I don’t think we’d have this problem: You want to get your next belt? Then score 20 points in your sparring match, do your forms, break your boards (one shot), and demonstrate standing/static techniques, or whatever your style allows for. But leave the subjectivity out of it. Because of subjectivity, we do not have control over who gets promoted and who needs more work.
