Kids and Hard Sparring

[Stac3y]

My school starts kids at age 5, and we do light (touching the target just hard enough to be visible) contact sparring from white belt (legal targets include face, head, front of torso, kidneys, and ribs above the belt). We emphasize control.

In open tournaments outside of the school, however, contact is harder--usually light to moderate contact to the face and moderate (target must move visibly) elsewhere. Since our competition team goes to outside tournaments, they tend to hit harder in practice as well, though only in practice with the other competition team kids.

Just out of curiousity, I'm wondering what level of contact your junior students use, and how you define light, moderate, and heavy contact at your school. Does this change depending on the relative size or belt level of the sparring partners?

 

[Steve]

Kids go pretty hard at our school, but I think that this typically starts at about 8 years old. Safety and sportsmanship are emphasized, as is the importance of working with each other.

Big difference, IMO, is that grappling in general permits much harder sparring on a regular basis than striking arts. I would have serious problems with my kids sparring at close to 100% in a striking art every class. Grappling, though... I mean, kids are bendy like little gumby dolls.

 

[ATC]

My school starts kids at age 5, and we do light (touching the target just hard enough to be visible) contact sparring from white belt (legal targets include face, head, front of torso, kidneys, and ribs above the belt). We emphasize control.

In open tournaments outside of the school, however, contact is harder--usually light to moderate contact to the face and moderate (target must move visibly) elsewhere. Since our competition team goes to outside tournaments, they tend to hit harder in practice as well, though only in practice with the other competition team kids.

Just out of curiousity, I'm wondering what level of contact your junior students use, and how you define light, moderate, and heavy contact at your school. Does this change depending on the relative size or belt level of the sparring partners?

Full contact to the body at any age. 8 - 12 light contact to the face or head. 12 and up is full contact to all areas. All sparring is continous, no stopping unless a fall, step out of bounce, or injury.

Kids don't really have enough mass or proper techniques, to hurt each other. Most times you see kids cry because they got scared by the hit not any pain. At about 10 things start to get a little dicier.

 

[dancingalone]

Just out of curiousity, I'm wondering what level of contact your junior students use, and how you define light, moderate, and heavy contact at your school. Does this change depending on the relative size or belt level of the sparring partners?

This is a timely topic for me since I've only started teaching children in the last year and it's a matter on months now when the first group of students start sparring. We're located in a church, so we do need to keep things softer than they would normally be at my private dojo.

I'm inclined to let kids 8-12 go with light contact only, face guards required. That means touching only. I shouldn't hear any pops nor should I see heads go backwards from a punch.

Kids 13-16 may go medium contact where there is obvious collision, but only if their partner (and parent) agrees. If they're not up to it, contact immediately drops back down to light.

I reserve the opportunity to revise this as needed. Like I said, I'm a newbie with kids.

 

[ralphmcpherson]

We spar using the WTF ruleset most of the time but with a heavier emphasis on punching because we dont score points. We just spar hard for one minute rounds and then we rotate and you get a new partner and start again. We dont allow sparring until blue belt, which takes about 9 months of continuous training but once sparring commences it is full contact to the target areas. As cruel as it sounds, the best thing that ever happens to a student (adult or child) is that first good kick that hits them in the head. We tell people to keep their guard up, but its not until that first good head knock that it really sinks in.

 

[Bruno@MT]

We're located in a church, so we do need to keep things softer than they would normally be at my private dojo.

Why?

 

[Josh Oakley]

Full contact to the body at any age. 8 - 12 light contact to the face or head. 12 and up is full contact to all areas. All sparring is continous, no stopping unless a fall, step out of bounce, or injury.

Kids don't really have enough mass or proper techniques, to hurt each other. Most times you see kids cry because they got scared by the hit not any pain. At about 10 things start to get a little dicier.

Have you seen the size they're making 12 year olds? I know 12 year olds taller than me!

 

[Josh Oakley]

That being said, I still don't have problems with full contact for kids.

 

[Tez3]

What you have to watch with children (and adults for that matter) is repeated blows to the head, not just the heavy ones but also the lighter ones. Head guards do nothing to protect, they just soften blows but don't stop what causes the real damage..the brain itself moving and hitting the skull, this is what causes bruising, bleeds and damage over time.

 

[sgtmac_46]

Kids go pretty hard at our school, but I think that this typically starts at about 8 years old. Safety and sportsmanship are emphasized, as is the importance of working with each other.

Big difference, IMO, is that grappling in general permits much harder sparring on a regular basis than striking arts. I would have serious problems with my kids sparring at close to 100% in a striking art every class. Grappling, though... I mean, kids are bendy like little gumby dolls.

Exactly! I think kids should always start in grappling, and then add striking later, if they decide to go that route.

I'm starting my son in wrestling this year, and he's 5.

 

[ATC]

Have you seen the size they're making 12 year olds? I know 12 year olds taller than me!

Yep we have a couple like that. Sometimes I have to remember that they are only 12 and not really hit them when I spar them. That is why I said that about 10 things start to heat up as far as hit power goes.

 

[xfighter88]

I think it's more a matter of protective gear. A 6 year old with 16 oz gloves and headgear isn't going to hurt another 6 year old geared the same way. It's just a cooler version of pillow fighting.

 

[K-man]

What you have to watch with children (and adults for that matter) is repeated blows to the head, not just the heavy ones but also the lighter ones. Head guards do nothing to protect, they just soften blows but don't stop what causes the real damage..the brain itself moving and hitting the skull, this is what causes bruising, bleeds and damage over time.

Further to Tez's comments, researchers at Boston University are conducting investigations on the brains of dead footballers. The cumulative damage sustained from impact to the head is not apparent in the living brain but most apparent after death.

http://scienceblogs.com/purepedantry/2009/01/brain_damage_in_football_playe.php

The are also new guidelines dealing with concussion.

"A concussion is an injury in which the brain is shaken inside the skull," explains neurologist James P. Kelly, co-author of the ANN's Practice Parameter on the Management of Concussion in Sports. "People throw around the phrase `minor concussion,' but there is no such thing as a `minor' concussion. Repeated concussions can cause not only permanent damage to the brain, but even death," Immediate symptoms of concussion include headache, dizziness or vertigo, lack of awareness of surroundings, and nausea or vomiting. As time progresses, an individual who suffers a concussion can develop mental dysfunction, sleep disturbance, lightheadedness, and ringing in the ears.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1272/is_n2629_v126/ai_19841015/

As for children sparring, we only allowed light contact to the body until about age 15. It is no longer my concern as I have elected to only teach adults. However, even with adults, I feel it is most important to limit head contact or risk future litigation. :asian:

 

[Tez3]

In MMA here we prefer that under 18s fight amateur, no head shots at all. One of the things we've always said is that in MMA there are so many targets and ways of striking that the head isn't targeted as much as in boxing.
There is obviously a need to teach martial artists how to strike to the head and it will involve being struck but it should be limited. Children's skulls are thinner than adults and relying on head guards makes little difference as non knockout blows are equally damaging. It's not just the initial blow either. When the head is hit it stops but the brain doesn't, it 'collides' with the front of the skull and it may well move backwards too and hit the back of the skull too causing two sites of bruisng and bleeding. It's also what causes the damage in 'shaken baby' syndrome even if the baby isn't shaken hard.
Protective gear doesn't actually provide as much protection as one would like, the only protection that would be ideal would be actually wrapping up the brain itself. Watch some heavy sparring or a boxing match, see how the head moves and imagine the brain moving inside the skull.
Boxers are more at risk because they also use head shots during training so that the amount of blows to the head even the 'softer' ones are cumalative but because they very often will dehydrate to cut weight, this also lessens the fluid around the brain. Jockeys also dehydrate and often have bad brain injuries when they fall because of this despite wearing the hard hat type of protective headgear.

 

[dancingalone]

Why?

Why are we in a church or why do I need to keep things softer for the students?

 

[Steve]

What you have to watch with children (and adults for that matter) is repeated blows to the head, not just the heavy ones but also the lighter ones. Head guards do nothing to protect, they just soften blows but don't stop what causes the real damage..the brain itself moving and hitting the skull, this is what causes bruising, bleeds and damage over time.

Seems like I read an article about American football and how even in kids who haven't had an injury severe enough to be diagnosed as a concussion have signs of persistent brain injury. While I can't find the one I read originally, here's another one on the same subject: http://ezinearticles.com/?Football-...Your-Child-to-Play-Youth-Football?&id=3145128

Personally, I think that striking is critical for self defense, but that blows to the noggin, particularly as a child's brain is still developing into adulthood, is a bad idea. I'd have serious reservations about putting my kids into anything where they are going to receive consistent blows to the head.

In contrast, the rest of their body is pretty much indestructible.

 

[Stac3y]

Kids don't really have enough mass or proper techniques, to hurt each other.

I have to disagree with you here. Kids vary a lot in mass--for example, we have a 45 lb 7 year old and a 90 lb 8 year old in one of our classes. So the 90 lb kid can definitely hurt the 45 lb kid. Since kids' competition divisions are usually determined by age, not weight, I see this kind of size inequity a lot.

My older son just turned 12, so he'll be fighting in the 12-13 division next year. He weighs about 80 lbs (maybe a little less). A lot of the kids in that division are bigger than me. I just hope he's fast enough to avoid most of the hard hits.

How do you define contact levels? Do you define "full" as the same level of power/speed you would use to say, break multiple boards?

 

[Tez3]

I have to disagree with you here. Kids vary a lot in mass--for example, we have a 45 lb 7 year old and a 90 lb 8 year old in one of our classes. So the 90 lb kid can definitely hurt the 45 lb kid. Since kids' competition divisions are usually determined by age, not weight, I see this kind of size inequity a lot.

My older son just turned 12, so he'll be fighting in the 12-13 division next year. He weighs about 80 lbs (maybe a little less). A lot of the kids in that division are bigger than me. I just hope he's fast enough to avoid most of the hard hits.

How do you define contact levels? Do you define "full" as the same level of power/speed you would use to say, break multiple boards?

When I did karate comps the children were divided into grades and weights to make it fairer.
I have some kids in the class at 10 that can really punch hard and I have some who are older who can't. However it doesn't matter if it's a hard strike to the head or not, it needs only to be hard enough to make the brain move in the skull. Constantly taking headshots is not good for anyone.

 

[Stac3y]

When I did karate comps the children were divided into grades and weights to make it fairer.
I have some kids in the class at 10 that can really punch hard and I have some who are older who can't. However it doesn't matter if it's a hard strike to the head or not, it needs only to be hard enough to make the brain move in the skull. Constantly taking headshots is not good for anyone.

Strikes to the head occur, and are allowed, but if I had a student who was taking them constantly, I would not allow that student to spar with the advanced students until s/he improved. I would say I get hit in the head maybe twice in an average 90 minutes of sparring; my sons probably about the same.

 

[Bruno@MT]

When I was an assistant JJ teacher for the kids modern jujutsu class, we had 1 kid who was freakishly strong. At that point I had about 3 years experience and I trained many times per week. Yet one time he made me tap out because he was choking me so hard that I thought for a second he was going to rip my head off and I could not get him off me or break his hold.

If you are going to allow hard sparring, you should make sure they are matched evenly. Because a kid like that would put other kids in the hospital in full contact sparring.