It’s unfortunate that our children still deal with bullying, be it virtually or physically. Fortunately, there are proper channels that we can use to combat it—such as learning self-defense or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. On top of that, this contact sport can help in many areas of your child’s life outside of just being physically capable of holding their own.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu can help your child with bullies. Jiu-Jitsu can teach your child to be strong, confident in themselves, empowered, and safe. If the bullying gets physical, they will know proper takedowns that keep everyone safe and deter future bullies from thinking they can push them around.
However, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu must be practiced responsibly when it comes to defending oneself against bullying to ensure everyone is safe, which is why it can be beneficial to enroll young students in classes to learn the sport’s proper techniques.
How Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Can Protect your Child from Bullies
Although some parents might be hesitant to put their kids through martial arts out of fear of them becoming violent, they’re much more susceptible to the opposite. One Nation Jiu-Jitsu and Atos Jiu-Jitsu HQ emphasize that learning how to defend and protect oneself could give your kid much more confidence, making them calmer and less likely to become unnecessarily aggressive.
BJJ Teaches Children Morals
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu teaches lots of defense and martial arts techniques, but it also teachings valuable life lessons and characteristics. When your child has good instructors and a supporting gym, they can learn from those who have been exposed to a lot more than just Jiu-Jitsu.
When you start Jiu-Jitsu, you meet people from different walks of life and varying experiences and ages. They want to roll with those who want to get better, help others get better, and come in to listen and without ego.
Some of the other older students and instructors your child will come across could easily become a type of mentor for them as well. They’ve lived a bit more life, understand what’s truly important and what’s not, and control the things you can, and let go of what you can’t.
BJJ Builds Your Child’s Confidence and Self-Esteem
Gracie Mag talks about how bullies prey on those who lack confidence and show it. Bullies are insecure and unsure of themselves, so they want to bring others down to the same level. They seek out those who don’t have self-confidence and are also unsure of themselves, but they might not be violent. Even better for the bully.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu teaches one how to defend themself, which brings about its own type of self-confidence. When you can adequately defend and protect yourself, you have a different air of self-esteem and assuredness that bullies can’t take away as easily.
When your child shows these traits to a bully, especially if an altercation gets physical, that bully, nor any others, will try to best them again.
BJJ Improves Your Child’s Decision-Making Skills
One Nation Jiu-Jitsu emphasizes how BJJ can have a positive effect on one’s decision-making skills. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a lot more than just rolling around on some mats.
From the outside, it might not always look like much is happening during a rolling session. With each movement, students are trying to manipulate body parts, adjust strategy, and move in ways to give them an advantage over their opponent.
When this type of thinking kicks in, the student must decide what strategy is the most effective and advantageous. Learning this critical thinking skill will translate into real life when the same student faces the most popular bully in school. Your child will know when it’s time to walk away, try to get a faculty member involved, or when they’re backed into a corner with only one way out.
Unfortunately, altercations with bullies can sometimes be physical. However, if your child is taught that this is the last resort, then he or she will still be confident and capable of defusing the situation in a manner that is safe for everyone and preventative of future attacks.
Children Learn Self-Defense With Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
Everyone should be able to confidently protect themselves against any uncomfortable, random act of violence. However, if a kid doesn’t know these tactics, then a negative encounter with a bully might stick with them and drive insecurities and depression for years.
Calvert MMA provided some very interesting stats regarding kids and bullies:
- 1 out of 4 school kids is bullied.
- 155,000 kids miss school daily out of fear of being bullied.
- 1 out of 5 kids admit to bullying.
- 282,000 kids are physically attacked by bullies in a secondary school setting.
Bullying is no joke, and unfortunately, it seems as if it’s a slower progression to have less of it around. Self-defense classes like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu aren’t used for people to learn, then become violent. They’re used to teach others the dangers of violence and how to save your life—and potentially the lives of other people—in dangerous situations.
Black Belts Believe In Self-Defense Against Bullies
If you’re not familiar with Joe Rogan, he has one of the most downloaded and viewed podcasts worldwide and has been involved in mixed martial arts his entire life. He currently calls some of the biggest UFC card fights and holds his own black belts in Taekwondo and Jiu-Jitsu, as pointed out by Distractify. Rogan is also trained in karate, wrestling, Muay Thai, and boxing.
In episode #1141 of the Joe Rogan Experience, Joe talks about the reason he started wrestling. When Rogan was in school, a kid got him into a strong headlock and brought his arm back like he was going to hit Rogan in the face, but the bully opted not to. Feeling defenseless and as if the bully could’ve had his way with Rogan, he immediately started taking wrestling classes.
Rogan has spoken many times about how bullies have something or someone that has pushed them to feel uneasy in their own skin and thus take it out on others. The kids who get picked on maybe haven’t built up the confidence from the people in their lives either; this becomes the perfect recipe for disaster.
Can You Reduce Bullying With Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Training?
If you take a bully and put them in a mixed martial arts class, you might see real change over time. They get the chance to learn why they act out, to understand violence, and to have other people build them up and be a shining light for them. Soon those bullies realize there’s not much of a point to bully others, except for what’s going on internally with themselves.
Rogan’s historical experience with mixed martial artists is that the people involved are some of the nicest and friendliest people he’s ever met. Those people don’t need to prove anything because they’re comfortable with who they are and know how to handle themselves safely.
Final Thoughts
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and mixed martial arts can be an extremely important release, but also an integral piece in a child’s upbringing. It’s doubtful that many parents think to put their children through mixed martial arts training of any kind, but in today’s society, you never know what types of situations they might end up in.
Your child’s learning of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu will not only keep them safe but will keep everyone else around them safe as well. If your child has encountered bullying, enrolling him or her into BJJ classes would be a great next step.
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