7 Reasons Why Martial Arts Should Be Taught In Schools

Schools can be tough for some kids and are often very polarising places. Whilst some children are able to make a lot of friends and excel from an academic point of view – many others do not.

Currently, in the western world, we have a very “one size fits all” approach when it comes to academia and schooling. This makes sense in many ways since it is cheaper to implement and requires a basic curriculum to be followed. On the other hand, children who are not academic are discouraged and are wasting their own time. Some kids would simply do a lot better in both academic and non-academic pursuits if they did other things during school hours. One great thing for almost all kids would be to learn martial arts in school.

Martial Arts Has A Style For Everyone

We already know that kids on the wrestling team in high school are extremely mentally tough. If they weren’t, they simply wouldn’t be there. Wrestling is a single martial art with a very grinding and physical style of grappling. Not all martial arts are like this.

If a kid was a bit nerdy and did not like a physical grappling style of martial art, there are many other cerebral martial arts they could learn. Two examples are Wing Chun and Aikido. Both of these traditional styles are reactive and aim to use the energy of an attacker against themselves.

Put simply, martial arts is not a broad brush. There is a style and way of learning for everyone. This is not just true for different martial arts, but even for singular styles within a specific martial art.

Confidence, Assertiveness & Mental Toughness

As all martial arts are individual sports, there is no blaming anyone else for your mistakes. Also, as combat is not a game of chance, you cannot blame luck for your failures either. Due to the striking and grappling sports being very at one with reality, a child will quickly realize that the only way they are going to improve is by consistency and effort.

Over time, this develops mental toughness and a strong character within a child which is difficult to replicate elsewhere. Even the most intelligent child would not have developed such mental toughness from tests or textbooks.

As time progresses even more, a child will eventually become more confident and assertive, since they have learned their strengths and weaknesses in life.

Fitness

Within the western world, obesity is a huge problem. This cannot be solved by pure exercise, but martial arts does at least begin to address the overall issue.

If you begin training martial arts from a fairly young age in school, there is a good chance that you will continue these habits throughout life. Even if a child decides that they no longer want to train karate, judo, or any other combat sport. It is much easier to change over to another sport such as soccer or hockey if you already have a baseline of fitness.

Having a conditioned body is an extremely positive thing and will lead to a healthier lifestyle, more confidence, and less chance of developing chronic conditions. Being fit is something that often plays second fiddle to everything else in life, but really it is the most important, especially as children become older.

Body Image

In an age where social media is massively overused and photoshopped pictures are the norm. Martial arts still keeps it real. You cannot fake how conditioned your body is, neither can you fake your skill, dedication, and commitment.

Not only this, but martial arts also teaches people that looks don’t really matter. There are plenty of martial artists with cauliflower ears, scars, rough skin, and worn hands. After training for a long time, kids will come to understand that these things are fairly irrelevant in life. Of course, it is fine to take pride in your appearance, but to obsess over it will not take you down a positive path.

Lastly, as martial arts breeds confidence and fitness as a by-product. A practitioner’s body image should improve naturally by itself anyway.

Some Kids Are Different

There could be an argument made that martial arts is not for everyone. To go further than this, most kids may actually dislike martial arts. However, it is often the kids that do very poorly in academic work that excel in martial arts. The likes of Mike Tyson and Nate Diaz were never going to be in a position to become professors given their start in life. However, as they were introduced to the worlds of boxing and MMA respectively, they were both able to make a career out of fighting.

Of course, not every non-academic child is going to become a professional fighter, but they will at least learn discipline and hard work. These life skills are difficult to learn anywhere else, particularly if a kid does not have a good home life. This is why martial arts are priceless for troubled children.

Martial Arts Means Equal Opportunity

There are no two ways about it, learning martial arts is an equal opportunity for any type of kid. Whether you have rich parents or poor parents, this will not help you on the mats. You cannot really get ahead in combat sports without putting in a lot of effort. Sending your kid to a math tutor may be common for a middle class family, but a judo tutor is not.

Since kids are pretty much in martial arts by themselves, nobody gets an extra helping hand or second chance to pass a test. Better and more expensive equipment isn’t really going to help either. If your child is getting outwrestled by a poorer kid, new $200 shoes are not going to change this.

Anti-Bullying

Having kids know how to defend themselves is a big positive. Although schools are currently places where children are discouraged from defending themselves, we all know that this is not how it should be.

Even a child with confidence means that they are more likely to stand up to a bully, even if they do not need to get physical.

Critics of martial arts in schools claim that bullies become more dangerous with martial arts, which is simply not true. As bullies learn a higher opinion of themselves and develop real self-confidence, they become more comfortable in their own skin. Therefore there is no need to bully other children. Despite having martial arts skills, bullies will no longer feel the urge to attack other kids.