FEKM
BRIXTON KRAV MAGA
Scenario Based Self Defence Training
Krav Maga training teaches kids how to direct their energy in a positive way, develop the ability to make decisions in stressful situations, while making them more self-aware.
We know what you’re thinking – “Krav Maga shouldn’t be taught to children, it’s too aggressive.”. Okay, but hear us out. There is a lot more to Krav Maga than the military-style martial art it is often presented as. Krav Maga training also teaches kids how to direct their energy in a positive way while making them more self-aware. So in this article, we discuss the many ways in which Krav Maga training is beneficial to children and why you should consider enrolling your child in Krav Maga classes.
Krav Maga training for children teaches kids a lot more than just self-defence. Krav Maga training helps children develop the ability to make decisions in stressful situations and understand when to use the acquired knowledge. Learning Krav Maga also helps children develop core values like courage, confidence, camaraderie, self-discipline, self-respect, respect for others, sportsmanship and many other beneficial virtues that will help to mould them into well-balanced individuals as they grow into adulthood.
Physical fitness is as important for children, as it is for adults and learning Krav Maga, can help children stay fit. How so? First off practising Krav Maga, like any good martial art, burns calories and builds muscle tone. A typical Krav Maga session begins with a warm-up, features lots of different training and aerobic exercises and ends with a cool-down period, just like any regular workout session. Krav Maga’s techniques include kicks, punches, and other vigorous moves that tone muscles in ways that very few other exercise regimes will ever do, and this is just as true for children as it is for adults. In fact, due to the inherent flexibility of children’s bodies, they are far more suited to starting a self-defence system like Krav Maga and developing proportional flexibility and strength than an adult. The training that we do beyond improving physical fitness is the sharpening of the student’s mental fitness by teaching them how to take advantage of the body’s reflexes for self-defence, and how to target an attacker’s physical weaknesses and vulnerabilities, regardless of their size. So by teaching kids Krav Maga, they could be learning something fun and valuable while also simultaneously working out to stay fit and healthy.
There is no telling what kind of situations children could get into when their parents aren’t around and to be honest there is only so much protection you can give them. This is where Krav Maga’s training could prove useful as we help them to learn the best ways to avoid and defuse potentially explosive situations without an escalation. This is a tactic that can be useful to children should they find themselves in a potentially dangerous situation. We also train for cases where the aggressor engages in physical contact, so the children are taught how to protect themselves from slaps, punches, kicks, shirt grabbing, neck grabbing, choking and other forms of aggressive physical contact. Most people typically don’t expect children to fight back when they are attacked and when they do fight back, they do not always expect them to put up a good fight. This is what makes Krav Maga training all the more essential for kids because one of the cornerstones of Krav Maga is that it is not power and strength that matter, but knowing what to do to get out of that situation. When you combine the self-defence techniques with the aggression management techniques they learn in Krav Maga classes, they are no doubt better equipped to deal with difficult situations.
Statistics show that 60% of young people have been victims of bullying in school and nearly 30% have been bullied online, this is according to a survey of more than 1000 kids aged between 11 to 16. Also, according to the Office of National Statistics (ONS), more than 80% of bullying happens completely, or partially, in school based on a report of 10-15-year-olds who were victims of bullying. These disturbingly high figures suggest that bullying is quite rampant in schools and while most schools have certain disciplinary measures in place to combat bullying, they can’t guarantee your child’s safety. As a matter of fact, there is no guarantee your child will never be a victim of bullying, whether online or offline. However, as a parent, although you can’t always protect your child from being bullied, there are a few things you can do to help prevent and reduce the impact bullying can have on your child’s life and future. Granted, learning physical self-defence techniques can help to scare away bullies, but today, these methods are not enough to protect children. Bullying, especially cyberbullying is much more of a mental game with verbal taunts to make victims feel insecure and inferior. Within the Krav Maga classes, our aim is to tackle bullying from both ends – proactively by developing physical self-defence skills while residually building confidence and emotional resilience to protect themselves mentally.
Martial arts in general are goal-oriented pursuits – even if belt systems are not a part of it, there are techniques to learn and skills to train. In Krav Maga, there is a ranking system of 7 belts: White (beginner), Yellow, Orange, Green, Blue, Brown and Black. A white belt denotes the lowest skill level and black the highest with the students being awarded each coloured belt as they progress through the stages of training. Each new stage offers a more difficult set of challenges and training styles, and as such, climbing higher to each new level is an accomplishment. This ranking encourages students to work hard at attaining the next level, which in turn, teaches them how to set and achieve a goal. By developing the habit of setting goals, children learn the essence of working hard to succeed at other goals in their lives. Regardless of how mundane or huge these goals maybe, people who learn a system like Krav Maga at a younger age are often better equipped to set goals and subsequently accomplish them.
In the Krav Maga system, it can take a student a minimum of 6 years to go from a white belt to a black belt. As with most endeavours in life, climbing up the Krav Maga belt ranking system takes time, focus, and a lot of hard work. This is a valuable lesson that is extremely worthwhile for children to learn early on in life. By being taught Krav Maga, children can learn that by working hard, concentrating their efforts, and patiently learning their lessons, they can achieve their goals and by extension, almost any task they set their mind on. Additionally, in Krav Maga classes, the students are taught to consistently strive for daily self-improvement. It takes a lot of self-discipline to keep pushing on, so when children are in an environment that constantly encourages them to put a little more effort into improving their punches and kicks or doing one more push up than they did before, this sets the stage for these children to believe in themselves and see the value of working hard at something.
There’s plenty of published academic research that suggests martial arts training offers intellectual and cognitive benefits to children. According to a study on the beneficial effects of martial arts training on children, conducted by Ashleigh Johnstone, a PhD researcher in cognitive neuroscience, martial arts training can lead to increases in alertness and vigilance. Krav Maga training involves developing and learning a series of movements as a reaction to a physical or visual stimulus, and every student is required to learn and repeat these until they become an automatic reaction. This type of training develops muscle memory and gross motor skills, which can be carried over to the classroom to help children hone their retentive capabilities for school work. The retention skills, self-discipline, focus and patience learned through their weekly self-defence lessons could help kids dealing with attention or learning difficulties become more focused in class which might eventually lead to an improvement in their grades. Considering these potential educational benefits of Krav Maga training for children, these classes could be a significant boost to the CVs of these kids later in life as they progress in their careers.
Overall, Krav Maga training offers a lot of tangible mental and physical self-confidence benefits to children. It can also serve as a fun and positive after-school activity that teaches them valuable lessons and instils patience, respect, discipline, and ethics. These values can help your child build upstanding character traits they will carry on into adulthood. If you are looking to enrol your child in a Krav Maga class, then you should sign up with Brixton Krav Maga. We teach a practical high-level self-defence system featuring realistic self-defence techniques suitable for kids for situations they may face in their everyday life, with their peers and adults. Have a look at our Kids Krav Maga Self Defence Classes in Brixton and find out how we can help.