It was good for me to spend some time around the normies lol.
I spent the last 5 weeks around children ages 1.5-5 on playgrounds and hiking trails around San Diego, getting to test my theoretical knowledge of how kids work “in the field”.
I’ve had kid experience before, with some babysitting and teaching ages 4-14 Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
But the Jiu-Jitsu classes are modeled after a specific purpose with a larger number of children choosing to be there for that purpose, and for an hour or less.
This was almost entirely open play, from parent drop-off between 8:30-10 to pick-up between 3 and 4. My goals were much more in alignment with this setup, with overall physical, social, energetic, emotional, mental, spiritual (I at least encouraged them to ask the flowers if they could pick them - not trying to indoctrinate into any religion), and psychological development at the forefront of watching them play. I keep adding words. I had intentions to maintain the overall safety of the kids at the leading edge of their comfort and autonomy. This varies day to day and moment to moment for any human, especially ones literally outgrowing their own bodies into new humans by the minute. They are contextualizing the world in new ways constantly in a manner that still happens as an adult but tends to be slowed.
That’s kinda heavy for just watching kids play, huh? Nope. You may not know this but humans have even studied play, real studies you can look up, showing how much play IS development. One fact that lives rent-free in my head from these studies is that learning through repetition takes approximately 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain, unless it is done in play, in which case it only takes 10 to 20 repetitions. There’s a lot in service here, including the fact that play involves autonomy and choice. A skilled “teacher” can harness this by doing all sorts of stuff I plan to write about for years.
But this newsletter is for the purpose of encouraging parents to join Jiu-Jitsu.
Seems a little biased, I know. I’ve been doing it for like 20 years now almost nonstop, meaning at least 2 times a week for 20 years, probably more like 4 or more times a week for the vast majority of the time. I recently took the biggest break I have here in moving to San Diego this time, approximately two months or so. I’ve been a black belt since 2015, and at the lower ranks I won or placed in numerous international competitions. I used to write extensively for Digitsu and a little for Inverted Gear.
There’s a lot at play here, including the relationship to rough and tumble play that fathers generally exemplify better than mothers do, and which is something they are often vilified for and told to stop by mothers without enough context to see it as beneficial. Mothers and most women are less likely to have firsthand experience with the benefits of wrestling. Fathers and men are more likely to, but might not be great at being able to convey the benefits. It’s a total shame for someone’s value and virtue in the raising of a child to be seen as a threat. It’s terrible for all involved, spiraling all relationships into a bit of paranoia around doing things wrong. I encourage moms and dads both to read and apply the ideas I say here. It will help everyone in the family feel more empowered.
Here’s the thing. Normies - here meaning people that do not have grappling experience - are missing context to some extremely important things. They tend to discourage kids from taking physical risks that would develop their brain the most sharply, be worse judges of risk itself, and be more uncomfortable with physical closeness. Normies are the parents who say “no!” every time a kid tries to wrestle either them (or wrestle another kid) and think it’s horrible. They are likely to react with a twinge of fear, from minor ones to judgement calls about “what kind of person” their kid is who wants to wrestle and grab all the time.
Imagine the difference for a moment between a kid laughing and pushing their parent (the laughter signifying play intentions and an emotionally regulated state) where in one scenario the parent becomes stiff, has a snap reaction of yelling at the kid, and says they don’t like it and “never to push - we don’t push people - that’s not kind” and a serious, solemn look in their eye VERSUS a kid laughing and pushing their parent where the parent understands the game, creates physical space and invites them to a greater challenge while smiling, up until the point the parent no longer wishes to play the game any more, wherein they calmly end it. Imagine you are the kid in each scenario. What does that bring up?
It is fair, because the parent and most commonly a woman parent does not know any better. If they don’t have experience with grappling aka Jiu-Jitsu, they don’t know what’s risky themselves or not. How could they?
My goal here is to introduce you to something that is fun, beneficial, and incredible for kids of all ages, boys and girls. And it’s all the more meaningful if they can do it with their parents, the people who are literally the most important in the world to them. If you try this, you will get to share a new closeness that encourages your children to embrace and develop sides of themselves that otherwise may be shut down out of ignorance.
The worst thing I see in parenting is shutting down a child’s natural inclinations entirely. Instead, I want to show you it is an option to identify the inclinations and then channel them in a manner that is deemed appropriate by the more experienced human/adult. If a parent is uncomfortable with aggressive touch similar to Jiu-Jitsu or wrestling, this leaves a huge part of kid’s interests out. Children want physical closeness and they need to take risks that let them know their own power. They WANT to climb all over you front and back and try to “win.” And it can be done in a way that is fun for both of you.
Most adults today have almost zero platonic physical touch. For the non-Jiu-Jitsu-ers out there, How comfortable would you be with another human lying on top of you stomach to stomach? What if they were trying to figure out how to move your arms against your will?
I can literally get bored in this situation now, thanks to Jiu-Jitsu. I know how to stay safe there.
AND - there are rules to the game that allow it to work.
First, there’s tapping.
Actually first - there’s voluntarism. The mere act of choosing to be there in the game recontextualizes the entire circumstance.
But then there’s tapping.
This was the first thing I taught and put down very seriously for the preschoolers I began to grapple with who had zero experience.
You can do this too, if you want to experiment with your kids.
How: tell them that you’re going to wrestle (if they want), and practice this first. Ask them to tap your arm with their whole hand several times and say the word ‘tap’ loudly and firmly. Demonstrate it on your own arm, on theirs, or on each. Be firm but gentle (no softy soft barely felt taps here but you’re not trying to strike anyone).
Note your own internal reactions to this firm and intentional touch when they practice on you.
Practice this several times on each other to make sure you both get it, and pull your hands away after each tap, holding them up palms forward to signify a clear stoppage. Inform them that if ANY OF YOU say or do this that you will stop whatever is happening immediately.
This puts the risk assessment squarely in BOTH people’s hands. It doesn’t matter if nothing is going wrong per se, if the perception of one person is that they do not wish to continue playing in that moment, they can tap and the game is over. It is a very empowering way to lose, truly. I recommend also treating any cries of “ow!” etc as taps and to let them know that’s why you’re stopping if you do, and remind them about tapping as the preferred option. Try for the life of you to stay away from saying “You’re ok.” Instead, simply stop and let them evaluate for themselves. For the adult, I recommend tapping whenever you see the game reaching an emotional peak and using your own developing gauges on when it is a good time to tap. My intention is to keep the child interested yet challenged. Giving kids control like this can have an overflow of benefits around neurotic behavior such as not wanting to get dressed or eat food, which are some places micro-managed kids seize choice in their lives.
Secondly, all you need to complete the framework is a bookend for the other side. Tapping ends the game.
Slap-bump starts it.
This is a virtually universally recognized sign of starting to wrestle in the Jiu-Jitsu community. You simply slap hands, probably but not definitely right hand slapping the other person’s right hand, then make fists with those hands and bump the knuckles together, signifying both people’s awareness and consent to the beginning of the roll (wrestling/grappling game). Teaching this allows kids to ask to roll using a sort of sign language (usually smiling) by holding their hands up to begin the slap, and should over time reduce the amount of surprise-jumping they do on you or anyone else that is easier to inflict harm with, if you set a boundary of no wrestling without slap-bump first and stick to it every time. One of the 5 year olds at the preschool would of course try to grab my hand and force me to slap-bump his so we could begin the game, but I held my ground if I didn’t want to lol. If they want to wrestle other kids, they may teach the kid slap-bump themselves as they negotiate.
If dealing with multiple kids I also recommend a rule of “one at a time” in order to stay ahead of variables that could quickly make things dissolve into not-fun. This will take time to implement because it’s so irresistible to want to pile on, but it will eventually be respected if you can let it take a little while of gentle or firm reminders.
I’ve also encouraged two tiny kids wrestling to slap the surface they’re standing on first - soft surfaces are good for wrestling, hard ones are too hard to have fun on.
But what do I do if my kid is hitting or kicking?
It is difficult to continue a grappling game with control if one starts hitting or kicking. Jiu-Jitsu is something we can practice with relatively full force compared to many martial arts because of the lack of striking and the emphasis on controlling without needing to harm the other person. If your child begins to kick or hit (or pull hair, or grab your fingers, or whatever) in a way you don’t feel comfortable with, I recommend stopping, perhaps holding the offending arm or leg calmly, and saying that there’s no kicking or whatever and if they continue to do so you won’t wrestle them any more.
If you are angry I recommend stepping away for a moment to calm yourself and then returning to explain what happened and that you won’t play if they do that again. The game is so fun and so natural for all children that they will want to comply with the rules in order to keep the game going. If they don’t right then, they may after a break. If they don’t right then, they may have gotten too emotionally heightened and were no longer playing. I would check with my own emotional state to gauge its influence on the situation first and go from there.
Here are three games for parents to play without joining a Jiu-Jitsu gym yet:
Solo game for the parent: move on the floor. You can look up Animal Flow or free movement practices, then get on the floor. Practice balancing your own weight on your body in different ways (hands, forearms, knees, feet, at different angles…) and getting up and down frequently. This will really help prep you to play on the ground with your children. My own personal invention I call Spider Trap is to try getting up and down and moving all around with one hand or one foot “glued” to the floor in one spot. Also try rolling around on your back, creating and playing with momentum as well as control. Your body will feel really good after.
Hold me down! Simply lie down either face-up or face-down or go on all 4’s in some way and invite your kids to hold you down! Feel free to make exaggerated noises as you slowly make your way up through their efforts to hold you down, occasionally dropping down again as if they were able to knock you down again. You’ll learn a lot in this game on both sides. Practice “tap” occasionally when nothing is going wrong yet.
Rodeo/bronco - a real winner here. This game is putting them on piggy back and trying to “buck them off” for whatever amount of seconds you want. You can involve counting practice into this game too, either for them or for an outside child who is waiting for a turn. If they try to cheat the game by counting too fast, use a timer they can look at or count out loud yourself instead. You can do as low as 5 seconds or go crazy. When putting the kid on, I recommend instructing them to put one arm under one of your arms and the other over your shoulder to create a “seat belt” joining their hands together across your chest and each leg around your body trying to hold on. If their arms are short you can have them grab around your neck. You can demonstrate why the seatbelt works by having them grab just around the neck and bowing forward like in a downward dog yoga position, which will tip them over your head with a few shakes since no arm has anything to catch on. If they grab under both of your arms, it’s easier to fall off in different ways. Obviously use discretion per individual kid about how crazy to go and how much support you use when you feel them slipping off. Always seek to protect their heads from impact or fall by cradling it or them when possible or necessary. Game number one, solo floor play, is great prep for this because you can imagine and experiment with all the ways you can move with a kid on your back without actually touching your own back on the floor.
Some people that train Jiu-Jitsu could be reminded that it’s supposed to be a fun game they do voluntarily lol. Try to keep that in mind while you play.
If you do join a gym, find one that is convenient enough to go to for a minimum of 2x a week for 6 months in order to move through some uncomfortable learning steps and really begin to see progress for yourself. If you have options in your area, check a few out and see what vibe makes you want to come back the most. Everyone there was a beginner once, and is happy to help you get acquainted with the abnormal art of grappling.
There’s more, including how Jiu-Jitsu improves yours and your kids own physical development using muscles and joints in more ranges of motion, and risk-assessment which I touched on, and just a general ease in the household because of a healthy, encouraged outlet for aggression to go to.
If you have any questions, drop them in the comments! Free and paid subscribers can both comment. Thanks!