Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for Kids

Yes, seriously! Getting your kids to learn Brazilian Jiu Jitsu will change their lives for the better. It will also equip them with the necessary skills to help them navigate the minefield that is life in the 21st Century.

Your Child

Gone are the days when everyone had a sense of community and personal responsibility.

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Taking kids through a properly instituted martial arts program allows kids to learn essential life skills such as temperance, resilience, discipline, and respect for themselves and those around them. However, these virtues are no longer enough to get by in this ever-changing world. 

Let's examine how Brazilian Jiu Jitsu enhances your child's life.

Tempering their Egos

We live in a dichotomy between maintaining traditional values and attempting to blend them with modernity. Add in the differing cultures and religions, which, while a melting pot of diversity, can lead to clashing societal philosophies. 

There has been a severe clash in certain spheres between the two. These differences have led to a chasm in terms of values to emulate. To successfully thread through this constant clashing, our children require the right attitude of being reasonable. 

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tests your child's limits physically, mentally, and emotionally. They will experience failures, attempt to compare themselves with others, and even try to match up. This will lead to pain that is necessary for their growth and tempers their egos. 

This discomfort will be the flint that sparks their internal development and gets them to learn how to be the best they can be. It allows them to appreciate the ups and downs of life, as well as the meaning of effort. 

Buttressing Their Self Esteem

It isn't easy to discount the impact of social media and society on how your children see themselves on the inside. Most media channels, at the moment, focus on bragging and showing off, which can be things your kids aren't capable of doing. Being around people who want nothing can be a real stab for many children. 

Through immersing themselves in martial arts, the child learns to trust in themselves and what they have on the inside. The learning process means they see improvements, no matter how small; filling them with confidence. Since they have worked hard on these improvements, they have what it takes to do whatever they have to, no matter how difficult. 

The Power of Compounding

Jiu Jitsu black belts aren't built in a day. Getting to that coveted belt takes years of concentrated effort and action. What's even more interesting is, in those years, the learner has gathered many skills which they can use to get them to their goal. 

This is a directly transferable skill. Compounding is necessary for personal finances. The little skills, mistakes, and corrections one makes during their Jiu Jitsu journey are the perfect analogy for the road to financial freedom. It doesn't happen in a day, but it takes deliberate effort, discipline, and focus to attain their goals. 

By learning different financial skills, the child can leverage them to gift themselves a type of freedom not many enjoy in this world. 

It Starts with The First Move

The Shrimp is a familiar technique for someone already in a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class. For your child, however, the first move will be to take a free trial with Strong Heart Academy. We are a family-friendly martial arts gym based in North Phoenix and are members of the Caio Terra Association. 

We have structured our classes for four different age groups, from the Tiny Tigers at 4 to 5 years of age, Mat Monkeys ages 6-7, Kids BJJ from 8-12, to the Teens between ages 13-16. If you'd like to know more about how we work, get in touch with us now. 

You can also view our blog here.

Strong Heart Academy Student Principles #3 - BALANCE

View all 8 of Strong Heart’s Principles to Live By here.

Uh, the third thing is balance. This is the hardest, okay. Balance for me is hard. Uh, I really try to balance my life as much as I can. And this is like all aspects. Like people think sometimes when I say balance is like, oh, can, are you on balance? Like, um, athletically? And that is important too, because that is, uh, balance is a aspect of athletics. And, um, you know, some people will only go to strength, training, endurance, training, stamina up, but I think sometimes flexibility, but balance is huge. Um, huge for Jitsu, uh, huge for almost all sports, really. So that is an aspect of it, but I'm talking about the balance of life.

You know, we try to talk about kids like, you know, and even adults really honestly, uh, is with, you know, video games are video games bad. Absolutely not. If you're playing eight hours a day. Yes. I had a student one time, years ago that, uh, he lost his job because he was playing world of Warcraft, uh, until like four in the morning had to go to work at like six or seven. And he would call in his work, his work dropped, and then he ended up losing his house. Um, you know, these, these are, that's a dangerous thing. You're not having balance in your life, you know, like you need sleep. And that's the thing thing too, like not just video games, but sleep, sleep is a part of balance. Part of the health too, is a healthy person, is someone that gets their sleep.

You know, you work X amount, you, you have X amount of time with your family. You know, sometimes for myself, I, I struggle with, you know, a small business, uh, staying with my family and, and making sure that they're giving time. My kids, my wife is getting the time that they deserve. Uh, and then I also have to work, you know, like if I'm just only hanging out with them and I'm abandoning my, my school, my, my business, it's gonna start to degrade, not do as good. So like, it's constantly like checks and balances of balance in your life. You know, work it out all the time. Your body will break down, you need rest. That's part of the balance. And, um, you know, with school, like you gotta study, you know, if you're not gonna study, then it's gonna be difficult to get good grades and achieve the things that you're trying to achieve.

Um, so, so that's kind of my, my, my take on balance is you need to be wor thinking about it. You can even write it out, like what you're doing. If you write out your day, like at the end of the day, what did I do at this time? What did I do at this time? You'll start seeing the hours of the day. We only have so many hours of the day and you know, you gonna have to get your balance down. What, what are you gonna do? And there's gonna be sacrifices as far as balance of concerned. You know, there might be one month, like I gotta work a little extra hard, but you need to make sure that you're gonna come back and work with your family, see your family, you know, maybe take a weekend off with your family, something like that.

Okay. Um, but these things are important. So even with jiu jitsu, like I'll tell people set the days they're gonna do jiu jitsu. Okay. Sometimes, uh, our spouses are like, why are you always with these people? You know, like, but it'll make you better for your family because you get this, um, respite in doing jiu jitsu and you're being healthy and doing something positive. And then you're gonna go back to your family. And I promise, you'll be a better person. You need to explain this balance to your parent, to your spouse, but your, you also need to be with your spouse. So like, if you're training every day, six times, you know, if I'm training twice a day, five to six times a week, and maybe you're not seeing your, your, your, your spouse, this could be a problem. Okay. And you know, a lot of the champions that I've known in my life, their balance is a little off.

And a lot of times families, um, take the brunt of that. And, and professional athletes is the same thing. You know, the door horse rate is so high because their balance is outta whack. And so to, in order to achieve the levels that they need to achieve, there's a lot of sacrifice. And sometimes, unfortunately, the family is the first thing to sacrifice. So if you're a competitive athlete, you need to be asking yourself, are you willing to make these sacrifices to be the champion? Is it worth the sacrifices? And then, you know, I've known some people that they find out that later, it's not, it's not worth it. You know, like, man, they look back and like, I, I didn't see my kids. I didn't see my wife. And now I'm, you know, I had these gold medals, but what does that mean? Um, so it's a tough one.

It is a tough one. And, um, work and balances for, for me is the toughest on this list, the toughest on this list.