So I took my son for his first session this morning. It's been on the cards for awhile. Obviously I have my own martial arts interest however I wasn't sure whether to get my son involved - life has been busy and I was concerned that he would be too young or too small for the class and a number of other concerns - actually in retrospect all of them groundless.
However as time has gone on (he's now 10) it became clear to me that he has the energy and athleticism and i began to feel that he was missing out. He has never wanted to do martial arts particularly and my efforts to get him interested in kickboxing in the past didn't bear fruit. He's tried Skateboarding, Surfing, BMX, Piano, but nothing has really stuck. His main interest is computers (he probably gets that from me!) and he seems most happy when he is in front of a screen.
However lately something else spurred me on to seriously think about Jiu Jitsu for him. At school he has been getting into more scrapes with the other boys and some of them already do Judo and other martial arts and he kept telling me that he has been getting into fights or getting beaten up! He would come home covered in mud....presumably from rolling around on the school field with one of his class mates.
The Gracie Barra gym in my home town has a good rep and we both took a look at the class last Saturday, the instructor seemed kind and friendly and the kids there all seemed to love the class.
So anyway it was his first proper session today and i'm really happy to say that he smashed it! He would come over to me every now and again to get a drink of water and for me to tighten the belt on his Gi and kept saying how much he was enjoying the class!
He spent most of the session rolling with the instructors son who is also a beginner but already skilled and they are similar sizes. They appeared to hit it off as friends too and at the end of the session I had to coax my son off the mats as he didn't want to leave!
Have any of you got young kids who do martial arts? What have been your experiences? And what do you think about kids BJJ? So far i'm really impressed with it and as you can probably tell chuffed to bits.