Confusing Sport Martial Arts and Self Defense Training

Most people will enroll themselves and/or their child into a Martial Arts program because they want to build confidence. It is the actual self defense training that will build a TRUE sense of confidence in the students. Unfortunately, people are misled when they attend a sport Martial Arts school into thinking what they are learning is self defense training. They simply do not know better and figure eventually this will lead to more realistic self defense training and it never does. Sport Martial Arts focuses on winning and working within the rules of the particular game. Self defense training takes a realistic view of what will help you survive a potentially dangerous situation.

To be real, most children's programs, for safety purposes, cannot teach hard core street defense techniques. However, they can start to learn the fundamentals, the concepts, and the self control, so eventually they will be PREPARED to learn the more intense self defense trainig as they get older.

I would stay away from any school teaching dangerous techniques like chokes, joint locks, eye jabs, etc, to younger, inexperienced kids. Younger kids have not developed the maturity and control for such training and can seriously hurt themselves or others. I have my own 3 children training in our program and no one is choking them out, locking their arms, or poking them in the eye. Don't let anyone do this to your child especially in the beginning levels. Instructors who willingly teach this type of material to younger, inexperienced kids are acting irresponsibly.

Here is another common problem. A student will have taken sport Martial Arts since they were 4 or 5 years old. They are now 13 or 14 years old and by their own admission, cannot defend themselves and have a huge ego. That's nearly 10 years of training so they cannot be confident in their ability to defend themselves! Even worse is that the student has become a "high rank" in the sport system and is usually not willing to "start up" a new self defense system. They think their "high rank" translates to anywhere they go. Not true!

If you want to learn self defense or if you want your child to learn self defense, I would not recommend attending a sport Martial Arts school that is masquerading as a self defense school. You will learn a great deal of bad habits and concepts so that you and/or your child will develop a false sense of confidence in the long run. At American Kempo Karate Academy, we have proven, age specific, and safe programs that develops a student's ability to effectively defend themselves which builds a TRUE sense of confidence. For more information, visit http://www.akka.com/ If you would like to see a great video that compares sport martial arts to self defense training, click on the video below.