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How do!

Apologies if this is a repeat thread. But as you may know, I’m a proud God Father to a truly delightful five year old girl.

You can call her Wilf, for that’s her call sign to me.

Now, being a man of the world, I know what nasties lie in wait for youngsters of all genders. And whilst I want Wilf to be a little butt kicker, I also want her to learn discipline and not become a bunghole bully.

Instead, I want her to feel self assured when venturing out into the world. The sort of self assured where she can take certain risks, and be able, shall we say, enforce a ‘no’ answer.

I’m not fighter myself, well, not physically. Hence I’m opening the floor to my fellow Dakkanauts to weight in.

Ideally, it won’t be a discipline learned in youth which the body pays for later on. Just....something suitable to learn from a young age so, should the need arise, she can lay the smack down on any poor fool that treats her as a target.

No, you’re right, I am an awesome Godfather! Because this will all be my own *local currency of your preference*

Anyone?

Conscription..

OK Swiss jokes aside, you got quite a few but in General those you'd want to reccomend would probably be those requireing less strength and more technique..
Judo or krav maga?

You don't want to go near Krav Maga, it's far too inconsistent in it's teachings worldwide (Very McDojo).

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Judo is good but BJJ is actually more applicable as self defence, specifically for a female if they are subjected to a sexual attack.

When they get close to teenager, Muay Thai, which again is more applicable to self defence than say boxing etc, mainly because they bring in elbows and knees and the like, so you learn how to strike effectively when a person is trying to grab and grapple you. This way you can keep it standing to get away, the BJJ is just the back up then incase they end up on the floor.

Alternatively, mixed marital arts classes where you learn all of the above.

However, the most sound advice and preparation a child can have, that they carry through to adulthood is being physically conditioned. I rest assure you, have a decent 400/800m time will deter most people trying to harm them, they aren't going to be able to keep up.

First up I fully second Endless's point above about no matter what self defence class(s) are taken, if any; having a good level of personal fitness really really helps. Not only does it provide the basic strength and conditioning required to push back or get away from an issue, it also provides a level of self confidence. Sadly most sports at school tend to overlook this in the hunt for trophies which tends to mean some students get left behind because they aren't on the sports team list and hunt themselves.

Even if she decides that she doesn't want to do the classes or its not an option, then at the very least encouraging her to develop her personal fitness will be a good thing.

After that I'd say see what is on offer locally. A lot of schools offer self defence classes at various ages and it can be at least a good simple introduction as part of school life. After that search around locally and see what is on offer - whilst dakka might give some insights into specifics, what is on offer locally is the first port of call. At least then you know what your practical options are.




Finally I've never done self defence classes, however its my general observation that each discipline offers its own benefits and downsides. There isn't one overall "winner" and I'd argue that a good grounding in any would set you up with the basic skills and fitness to progress in another if one wanted.
The biggest aspects will be her desire to partake and the instructors qualities and style of teaching.



Bonus note - if she's not naturally "sporty" it can be hard to motivate such a person to endure the "pains" of getting fitter. Though at 5 most that age tend to be "Full of Beans" anyway. So if it is an issue or concern try to both find ways to exercise that are engaging and entertaining, but also show her how being fit has big benefits in life outside of sports. That its not all competition, wild flying hockey sticks and goals.

I have a point of contention with self defence classes personally. I've seen some taught by people who have earned a qualification over a weekend.

It generally is poor, however it is effective against a person who is not trained. Now, this is where my main contention is, there's plenty of people about who are trained now, and it is continuing to grow (MMA/BJJ is some of the fastest growing sports in the UK, let alone worldwide). It stands to reason that some people who train are also going to be bad people, and your off the shelf self defence classes aren't going to deal with it.

It's actually why I have huge reservations about plenty of krav maga schools, they actually give false confidence that can be extremely dangerous in certain situations. Things like weapon disarming and the like, yeah it looks cool but its efficacy is low, the issue with teaching such things to kids are, well, kids might be daft enough to actually try it, whilst adults know (or you'd hope at least) that it is a hail mary.

I'm sure some self defence schools out there are good, but in my own experience and knowing what I know from plenty of FB groups and the provision in my local area, they are terrible.

A very good point and one I've heard repeated by a good few others too. That disarming and even many grapple and such moves are fine in the ring, but in the "real world" your opponent either knows the move and how to counter it, or they know how to actually "brawl fight" through experience and thus don't move like a student in a class and instead use approaches and methods that are so different that a student who only has experience from class, will be basically as bad off as someone without much training.

Then again there's a line between instilling personal confidence and becoming a trained and experienced fighter.

Hey buddy

I think any sort of sport thats somewhat challanging, provides untold benefits to a developing human being.
Swimming, football, running, tenis or martial arts etc.. I think any 5 year old will go wild for an opportunity to run around/do stuff with other kids.
The key is to be exposed to competition, have discipline ingrained as natural part of life and as well as grasp that failure is part of of life and the road to success is filled with hills that need to be conquered.
I think any sport will provide a framework for these really.

I would argue that contact sports with an adversarial element can benefit more as you tap into the primal part of the human condition.
But thats more for later in life I believe.

Nothing compares to stepping into a ring with another human being and actually fighting. Nothing else will ever prepare you for the real thing. Nothign else will compare to being humbled by someone far more experianced and skilled.
Martial arts - and there are a LOT are great and I have nothing but respect.. but there is no substitute for the real thing if applicable skill is what you are after. Boxing, kick boxing /mui thai. (Boxing being rater the highest IMO in terms of prgamticsm) is the way to go. Not to say other "martial art" are useless but... they are mostly useless. I tried a bunch.. Variation of teakwondo, karate, kung fu etc.

People get really wierd about it but I've seen countless pople over the years from various of Karate/kungfu etc. come by our gym eager to spar.. But they just don't know what to do as soon as you hit them with a jab as that's the first time anyone has ever punched them and meant it.

I would rate kicking lower than punching from a pragmatic sense because 9/10 you would only engage in very tight spaces such as a bar/concert as there would be no room for retreat or to create space and its just too late.
In any other eventuality you should always remove yourself from the situation, seek security/police and NEVER fight. Its just far too dangerous for your opponent outside of controlled conditions (matt or ring). Once you get it you also get its the very last resort and will not let yourself be provoked. In all my aquintances form various gyms I have never seen anyone with basic+ skilset ever get involved in an altercation. People who know what they are doing just don't do it because they understand the risks and they understand there is always a bigger fish out there that will humble you.

From this side of things a kid from 5 year old bit too young IMO.

Therefore I would suggest just sticking to any sport that allows them to compete with others as well as continue to improve.
But if the objective is to secure real applicable skills for self defence then boxing is the number one thing. Supplement that with ju jitsu and you have the best skillset to fight standing up and when the fight goes to ground.

5 might be a little young. My brother teaches karate and won't take kids that young, they don't have the discipline. Likewise, my eldest wasn't able to start ju jitsu until he was 8 for much the same reason.

It is probably going to be easiest to find a Karate Dojo that will take very young kids. I used to go to a dojo that kept all the under 12s together in separate classes with more supervision, fitness games and no contact work. Plenty of pad work, speed and safe flexibility training, young hips are pretty vulnerable to bad training.

Tai quon leap.

Boot to the head.

At age five a child cannot really train in any martial art or martial sport. In fact it could be dangerous considering those activities include contact. I would not recommand a child to take up martial arts before the age of 10 or so when they have acquired more maturity both physical and psychological. Of course, you can send a young child like that in "initiation classes" which basically introduce children to the principle of physical conditionning in group, martial art "culture" and principles. These are advertised as children specific classes and are common in popular martial arts and sports like karate, judo, taekwondo or boxing.

As far as martial art effective for self-defense, your millage may vary enormously depending on the quality of the teacher. I personnaly have a preference for martial sports as they allow for extansive sparring in a rather safe environment so things like boxing, MMA, BJJ or good old fashion judo. Widely popular martial arts like karate and taekwondo are likely to provide a good basis for self defense since they are less likely to filled with frauds and/or inexperienced teachers (though do check their credential and ask if they belong to widely recognised organisations). I would recommand to stay away from most chinese martial arts as they tend to be very varying in terms of style and quality and aren't widely known so there are chances you will hit some sort of pseudo-mystic than an actual martial art teacher.

Of course avoid purely meditative and physical conditionning martial arts like aikido or tai chi for actual combat training. Also avoid things specifically aimed at women like "women self-defense" or "anti-rape techniques" those are often scam or of poor quality from my personnal experience.

One thing that is important to remember is that self-defense starts and end with high vigilence and physical conditionning. The practice of any sport, especially contact sports can be of tremendous help.

Something like Taekwondo or Karate that doesn't require any physical contact between children, and thus eliminates the issue of them possibly not having restraint, could be useful for general purpose training and introducing your child to the concept. It would also be helpful for developing body and spatial awareness. I think five is probably to young, in most cases at least, to get anything meaningful out of it, in the sense of self defense. I did two years of Taekwondo at around age 12 and while it was worthless for self defense purposes it did help teach me about progressing physically, learning new skills, training towards a goal, and it helped a lot with flexibility.

Edit: Later on, if you want to get into self-defense, or get her into self-defense, well that's tricky. A well-trained woman will be stronger and faster than an untrained man in many cases, but probably not by much and I would assume that most potentially aggressive men are going to be larger and stronger than other men on average. Technique can help in that regard. I've rolled with a guy who only had a year or so of BJJ (I had none) and it was a PITA to get him to tap even though the strength difference was immense, but real world altercations aren't going to be limited to combat sport rules. I would think that the default would be to evade and escape (cardio!), but if you can't do that than in the advice of Jocko Willink, conceal carry. If you can't do that, or won't for whatever reason, then the two most important skills I see emphasized for self-defense are striking and grappling. You could probably throw clinching in there was well. The problem with grappling is that if any other party becomes involved against you you are basically SOL. At least if you have heavy hands you could theoretically drop someone and move on to the next.

I don't see any way around the strength and size gap between men and women however. Unless you're a near professional tier fighter you're losing and even then...to me it's not worth the risk. Pepper spray, taser, concealed carry, or the speed to escape all seem more practical. Even for a physically fit, well-trained male. It's just not worth the risk. The last fight I was in went sideways and I ended up on the ground with three people on top of me and some gal kicking me in the head and I felt teeth start to close around one of my fingers. Thank god there was security. Point being is that actually getting into the physical stage of a confrontation can go very bad.

I can only speak from TaeKwonDo - do your research on whatever club you pick. With TKD the major UK governing bodies are the TAGB and BTF. For the club to register with them the organisations have to recognise their accreditations, so you won't be conned by the guy who watched Walker Texas Ranger back in the day and thinks he should be registered as a lethal weapon.

Secondly it doesn't actually matter what art you choose. Seriously, martial arts practicers will argue back and forth like whiney little kids about what's best. But unless you're jumping into an MMA cage none of it matters. The truth is that the core lessons of personal strength, confidence, interaction with and trust in others, reliability, self respect, awareness of dealing with violent interactions, all of that. All of those lessons are exactly the same, so pick whichever style she thinks is coolest and go with it. There is no best martial art.

Lastly make sure she warms up. I got a groin strain I picked up in my late teens and my legs haven't been the same since. You can really trash your body if you don't take care of it properly. Warm up.

Lot of really good points being raised here - for a five year old girl the biggest thing she will get out of this is self-confidence. I studied ten years of taekwondo in the UK before I went off to uni (and Henry is right - it's fairly well regulated here but YMMV) and while it only ever came in handy once against the school bully, I really valued the confidence it gave me.

Also on the point about martial arts not being for younger kids, I've attended plenty of classes and grading sessions with black belts as young as 8, and we all have to start somewhere!

At this stage don't think about it as self-defence classes, because as others have said martial arts training is only so good in a real fight, and your best option is always disengage or de-escalate the situation if you can. Instead, look at it like fitness training as you would any other sport - with the exception that it can be a lot more interesting than gym work - and it may inspire your god daughter - even if she's not the sporty type.

Local clubs website says the following...

The school is part of the All England Taekwon-Do Association (AETA), registered with the BTC and ITF England. Mr Thompson is an international instructor with the ITF, national team coach for England and examiner for the AETA.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Local clubs website says the following...

The school is part of the All England Taekwon-Do Association (AETA), registered with the BTC and ITF England. Mr Thompson is an international instructor with the ITF, national team coach for England and examiner for the AETA.

Welcome to the world of martial arts associations. A huge issue within traditional martial arts, TKD, Karate (kickboxing), Akido, Japanese Jiu Jitsu (not so much judo tbh) is they have become watered down and are operating a business, churning out black belts.

To aid this mentality, many instructors moved away and started their own associations to aid this practice. They can choose how quickly to progress people etc now, meaning they can make more money from gradings etc.

It may seem harsh, but a red flag for me is junior black belts and the like. If there are black belts milling around under the age of 16, then don't take them there. Drakeslayer mentioning 8 year old black belts is horrifying to me personally. You should only achieve that rank or senior ranks where dedicated and fairly intense sparring is a part of it, you don't have to be getting hurt but you need to demonstrate under pressure, and real pressure that an opponent can put on you, not pressure because someone is observing you. 8 year olds are not doing that whatsoever.

A good rule of thumb to follow with a school is time length to earn a black belt if you go down that route, if the average time is under 7 years, most of the time it is not worth it. In contrast, you want to look out for instructors who sandbag as well, and hold people back whilst teaching them trash... IMO traditional arts are dying a slow death, not many realise it as of yet, but it is happening. Major shake ups needs to happen.

I have time for people above talking about the increased confidence etc, but if you're being taught absolute BS, it is a waste of time.

Also, controversial and someone mentioned above that a lot of traditional martial arts get slandered etc nowadays, I tend to believe it's a little bit of denial on that persons part. They don't want to believe that the time and effort they have put in is wasted.

However, I will add, when you come across the few and rare now legit traditional martial art instructors, they are very very very good, especially for kids, you see the kids change over a period of months, the effect is amazing, but then you have the added effect they aren't be taught waffle.

Also, agree about the above, never ever ever send a child to a 'female self defence class'. They tend to only teach one good thing, and that is what to do if someone grabs your hair (if it is long) and how to regain control of your head.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
BTW, just to add. I have done it myself, and have seen countless times where a person with a 'black belt' have been thoroughly taken apart by someone who has trained in a more appropriate environment to learn how to fight with only a year training, and that is just that, as brutal as it sounds, that's what you want your students to learn... When they need to do so, they can legit fight.

To clarify, we didn't have 8 year old black belts at my local club - only at county-wide gradings from other dojangs. My instructor was professional, firm but fair, and it took me 10 years to attain black belt.

That's cool, I will add, some places do 'junior black belts' that get stripped back down to a more appropriate rank when they turn adult which I have no problem with (separate belt structure for juniors and adults), I'm sure some of those kids do though, I just think they should hold off personally from awarding black belts unless they are adults and properly earned it.

I like how BJJ do it. There's belt colours for juniors that are different to adults with green being the highest for kids.

A kid that is green that turns adult (16) then gets automatically promoted to adult blue, and in some very rare cases purple and they start from there, which is fair as they will be that standard but they are going to have to earn the senior grades by demonstrating skill and technique against senior grades that are adult.

Athletics. Running fast is the best self-defence that exists.

The best is being willing to hurt someone. Properly hurt someone. The actual techniques probably don't matter that much unless you're fighting someone skilled, and most will teach you to strike reasonably well, but it really must be something that involves full contact sparring. That's gonna be a struggle to find for young children. Boxing probably starts earliest? Krav maga is a good option but as above, it's very variable because it seems to be the Israeli equivalent of Brits teaching English abroad.

I'm pretty sceptical about BJJ because it's so focussed on grappling and the vast majority of times if you find yourself in a fight in real life you absolutely do not want to be on the ground.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
I have a point of contention with self defence classes personally. I've seen some taught by people who have earned a qualification over a weekend.

Honestly, I'm baffled how many people go into a self-defense class with the mentality of becoming Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee. It looks great in an action flick. Is a god awful way to defend yourself from harm.

The best thing you can do in a bad situation if your priority is your own well being is run the feth away. Any self-defense that isn't predicated on safe disengagement as a first principle is bad self-defense. In this regard, I personally dislike any sort of grappling art as 'self-defense', predominantly because being on the grappled with an attacker is the worst place to be if you want to escape (especially if there are multiple attackers). It's something I appreciated about my own instructor. He started all his white belt classes with the story of how he ran from a girl's last boyfriend by clocking him in the jaw and using that moment to beat it to the far end of the block. We started every practice with a jog. The first rule of self defense is also the first rule of Zombieland: Cardio.

Real life is rarely like movies. As awesome as learning karate or kung fu of what have you is, I agree that far too many people go into self defense with the wrong mentality and instructors spend no real time adjusting it.

Things like weapon disarming and the like, yeah it looks cool but its efficacy is low, the issue with teaching such things to kids are, well, kids might be daft enough to actually try it, whilst adults know (or you'd hope at least) that it is a hail mary.

Honestly I think this applies to adults too as my life has taught me the idea adults are more intelligent than children is wishful thinking at best. Adults are more intelligent than children in the areas they've actually trained and educated themselves in.

In everything else they're about as knowledgeable as any teenager off the street.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Local clubs website says the following...

The school is part of the All England Taekwon-Do Association (AETA), registered with the BTC and ITF England. Mr Thompson is an international instructor with the ITF, national team coach for England and examiner for the AETA.

BTC - that's the bugger I was thinking of. BTC/ITF is also the standard used at Olympics. I know all TAGB had to gain their grades through the TAGB. My first lessons were an independent in Germany. I got quite far, then returned to England and TAGB were like "nope, we don't recognise you, you're starting back at white belt".

Black belt meet ups were amazing work out sessions. Came out sweating so much it looked like I'd been in a swimming pool.

So is that a tentative endorsement of the teacher?

Sorry, I really know bugger all about fighting. Despite being a 6’2”, 17 (now maybe 18) stone monstrosity, I’m a massive, massive wuss with no interest of my own in getting good.

And I only ask for tentative. I promise not law suits in case of reasons!

All I need to know is that I’m not wasting my munneh, and Wilf is getting decent lessons.

I did martial arts for years and years (ju-jitsu, kick boxing and a few weapon based arts), training every day. I quit when I realized that after all the hours I put in, I would never want to get into a proper fight with the skills I had. If I could have gone back and done it again, I'd have found a good boxing club, and a good judo club.

All about giving Wilf a great deal of physical confidence.

Because, let’s face it, if my fears for her as a woman become true, I only hope she’s skilled enough to knee someone in the nads, for them to really, really rethink their life as a result, and for her to extract herself from the situation.

Because I can’t be there, subtly splungeing in the background all the time. And she has her own life and her own mistakes to make, just as I did. And, frankly? I want her to be about as free as I was to make said mistakes, with absolutely minimal consequences.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
So is that a tentative endorsement of the teacher?

Had a quick check of his bio and he appears to be up to scratch. As others have pointed out, and as I've said, martial arts classes are not necessarily the best way to learn self defence (as contradictory as that sounds). I got out when it became a cycle of finish one tournament then start preparing for the next - but I was much younger and hadn't worked out how to get what I wanted out of life, so that's not going to be everyone's experience.

For young kids it's an amazing way to expend energy in a structured and controlled environment where everyone's safety is the number one priority. The awareness of concussion and damage to developing bodies is so far ahead of resistant organisations like organised football - over 20 years ago restrictions were in place for no headshots to juniors. I can't say definitely go for TKD - go with what she thinks is coolest, I used to work with a guy who's 5 year old daughter was massively into kickboxing - but you can't go wrong with a large organisation like the BTC that has massive instructor training and insurance protocols in place.

I'd highly recommend finding a BJJ gym near you, mostly because of the way it's taught. My kids are broken down to 15 of warm up, 15 of teaching and drilling a particular technique, and 15 of grappling. The grappling is to me what makes it a great teacher of self defense. That's unscripted, and you may be going against someone much larger than you, much more skilled, or much stronger. My 10 year old has been in it for 2 years now, and his little 75lbs self can throw me (150 lbs). My other son, at 6, has been going a year.

The other major benefit of it is that for BJJ, the fight starts after you get grabbed or knocked down. Add to that the nice bonus that if your young one gets in a fight at school and kicks a kid in the nose, they're going to be in as much trouble as the bully. If they put them in an arm bar, all that it sounds like is they pulled their arm and held them. There's a very good chance they win the fight, and avoid any disciplinary action.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
I'd Add to that the nice bonus that if your young one gets in a fight at school and kicks a kid in the nose, they're going to be in as much trouble as the bully. If they put them in an arm bar, all that it sounds like is they pulled their arm and held them. There's a very good chance they win the fight, and avoid any disciplinary action.

The problem here is that if they try with someone in the street, there's plenty chance the assailant's friend will stamp on their head. Striking and running away is almost always the second best tactic (The best one skipping the striking).

nfe wrote:

 Gitzbitah wrote:
I'd Add to that the nice bonus that if your young one gets in a fight at school and kicks a kid in the nose, they're going to be in as much trouble as the bully. If they put them in an arm bar, all that it sounds like is they pulled their arm and held them. There's a very good chance they win the fight, and avoid any disciplinary action.

The problem here is that if they try with someone in the street, there's plenty chance the assailant's friend will stamp on their head. Striking and running away is almost always the second best tactic (The best one skipping the striking).

You are statistically very likely to end up on the floor if you are assailed in the street, this chance increases exponentially when assailed by more than one person. You may as well know what you are doing when you are down there. You can also use the persons friends as leverage.... "Tell them to stop or I will fully break this arm, choke you unconscious etc etc".

You need to learn to strike effectively (Muay Thai, Boxing etc, not the likes TKD), but you need to be able to deal with worse case scenarios. BJJ will teach you how to choke a person who is considerably larger than you unconscious whilst your back is on the floor (or break limbs, or destroy the ligaments in a person knee to the point they won't be walking with ease, let alone running after you). It's genuinely the best anti sexual assault martial art, with the only real arguments being Sambo or other submission grappling based arts.

Also, and whilst I do advocate physical conditioning and learning to strike. Females are going to struggle to attack a man with enough force striking wise to deter them whilst they run away, secondly, plenty of men will be able to catch them. I had a male student in my class last year, he had a mediocre at best 100m time, it was in the top 10 womens 100m times in that year... You can't rely on being faster and fitter, always be prepared for that not to work.

Listen to what the likes of Jocko Willick say about it. If you are truly, honestly and seriously wanting to have the girl taught to a standard where she can actually defend herself, she needs to learn how to fight. It's plain and simple. The likes of TKD don't teach you how to fight, they teach you how to kick in a pattern, with no real pressure testing... It's essentially a choreographed dance that may hurt a little if you used it on another person.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just to add, there is a strong focus in BJJ and other grappling arts about getting back to your feet as well and how to do that, it's not always about staying on the floor, many people underestimate how hard it is to get back up standing when someone is on top of you on the floor, it's not like bench pressing weight, human bodies don't move and load mass like a static bar.

One interesting thing I picked up is that some martial arts training will teach you not just how to fight or dance or such, but an important skill in how to fall.

A lot of people don't know how to fall properly and as such when they slip/trip/get tripped etc... they fall like a sack of potatoes because they've no muscle or memory reflex nor idea what to do so they just sort of tumble with no plan. This can result in greater injury to themselves, even if they are just tripping over a step.

It's called break falls, BJJ, Judo, Sambo and wrestling.