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Crossing The Line. Martial Arts Creating More Danger

9K views 42 replies 22 participants last post by  ridgerunner1965 
#1 ·
A bit of a dramatic headline but since you are here would like your input. Especially if you are a martial artist or trainer.

My daughter has been in Kung Fu, Striking, Grappling, and Weapons Sparring/Training for almost 4 years. It has been great for her and she does well, but it has greatly skewed her concept of realty. Since she is tall and strong for her age she attends the adult classes were she does fairly well against people 4+ years older than her.

This has created somewhat of an ego and skewed view of her capabilities in a real World situation. I like her confidence and her feeling capable but it has crossed the line into a false sense of security.

I would like to bring her back down to Earth without squashing her confidence and eagerness to train.

Any thoughts?
 
#2 ·
I train by myself these days just to keep in shape. But in my younger days (early 20's) when I was tournament fighting I developed a bit of a ego myself. My instructor noticed this so one day during sparring he paired me with a little girl. I told him I couldn't fight her and I was afraid I would hurt her. He told me just to do it and take it easy on her. I said ok and we began. She picked me apart. I was bigger and stronger but, even though unassuming, she was more skilled than me.

I learned never to take my opponent for granted or underestimate them. Maybe your daughter needs a lesson like that.

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#3 ·
Find a partner that can beat her without hurting her.

Put her in a harder class.

Take her to the range or hunting; shoot some targets of wood or cans or bottles that demonstrate the impact and power; so she understands you can't kick a bullet out of the air, nor choke it out, and remind her, bad guys don't fight fair, and tapping out isn't an option.

Do they do any 2 on 1 work beyond kata? That changes any martial art.


We have this issue often with our school teams, we can destroy the region, but we get to state and the level changes; even though we CAN compete and do well, it's far harder and if we haven't got their heads on right, it can be a disaster.

Kudos for staying ahead of the curve with your daughter.:thumb:
 
#4 ·
Oh man, I think maybe our daughters must be kindred spirits!

She got her black belt in Karate at 16, started at age 4 ( I have done some form of martial arts until I was in my mid 40s and got too old to spar and get injuries all the time ....)

She is now i26 and just joined the Navy ( currently at boot camp), and yes, she thinks she is invincible...
Her idea of fun is jumping out of a plane with a parachute

My thoughts on yours: teach her to shoot. A bullet stops a martial artists most of the time. Even if she was the best fighter ever, if someone shoots her from a distance it won't do her any good. Make this clear to her. Martial arts is ok for self defense if she learns it from a good sensei. If it is strictly for sports, and all about fighting with rules, it's useless for self defense. She needs to learn from someone that teaches real fighting and self defense. Hope this helps
 
#9 ·
I saw you said she's done grappling as well so I assume she trains in a school or schools that do actual one on one sparring/training rather than just kata? Put her in a more advanced class or have her work out with some males who you can trust. Confidence is great, but if it expands to cockiness it can be dangerous. I liked a lot of the other suggestions here as well. Maybe talk to her instructor if there's not another good option. When I was training, especially children or teens sometimes I had to take a hand and help educate the students when they got a little too above themselves.
 
#10 ·
Thanks for the great insights! For clarification, she is a 12yo that is the size of most 18 year old females.



Thanks. Yes, the school is Kung Fu as the discipline/art but 5 nights of the week she is in grappling, sparring, weapon sparring, and weapons training so there is lots of mixed sparring and it is mixed gender so she gets a bit of hands on experience with different opponents.

My main concern is that she thinks she can fight adults or put herself in situations where she should run instead of fight.

For example. Answering the door without checking who is there is a big no-no in our house. I have caught her doing it a few times and her answer is "Well I will just choke them out" etc..

Not the end of the World but a somewhat dangerous mindset to have at such a young age.
 
#11 ·
it is not just the martial arts students my daughter that I taught to shoot then was raised by her liberal mother. would spout the "I'm a strong independent woman and if a man tries to hurt me I'll kick him in the balls" bull**** camp.

she married a guy on his way to Schofield barracks. once there they had a domestic , he beat her bad enough that she wound up in the hospital. then put on the plane home with an escort
(I heard this 2 years after the fact through a third party)

when she was young I wondered the same thing "how do you show them it's not true without maiming or crushing them?"
 
#13 ·
Boxing, and MMA, and maybe some Muay Thai will have legit sparring.

She needs to actually fight, at an amateur level, to get a taste of actual combat in combat sports.

Other than that, it's hard to know if someone knows / thinks their self defense abilities are for real until they are in a situation where they need them, and no one wants that for a loved one.

Sent from my Note 8 using Tapatalk
 
#17 ·
Has she tried BJJ? I know you say she’s done some grappling, but BJJ is often at another level. Unless she is an exceptional grappler, chances are good it would be a humbling experience. And the great thing about BJJ is that you can spar at 100% without hurting your partner (or vice versa), and she can go up against all sizes of partners.
 
#39 ·
I think something like this is what you guys are talking about:

Quit Lying to Women About How to Survive Violent Attacks...Please. - YouTube
This man is ABSOLUTELY correct! I trained both of my daughters in "real world" combatives. I pulled their hair, threw them to the ground BY their hair, put them in a "choke out" situation, thigh kicked them, etc, and not gentile either. Can't tell you how many rubber knife edge lipstick marks they've had on them from knife attacks. They stuck with it. I sacrificed my own body, to give them a "real world" fight experience.

Eventually, I wound up with my own injuries:

Spiral forearm fracture
dislocated shoulder (twice)
Torn ankle ligaments from a heel lock
Dislocated clavical
badly sprained knee's and elbows.

I'm not a small man, and tend to be even stronger than I look.

If you love your daughters, YOU show them what happens in a "real" fight. You don't have to punch them in the mouth, or anything like that, but rough them up pretty good. However, be willing to take back what you dish out, when they DO get better.

To this day, mine understand the benefits of that type of training.

Miss K even ended up teaching some combatives in the Navy. There were MP's taking her classes.

It's all about VOA, and heightening their pain threshhold.
 
#20 ·
Take her out of the dojo environment and find someone near her age or younger that has some experience. Enough not to get hurt by her.

No uniforms. Street clothing, including dresses and skirts (some type of shorts underneath for modesty), Sunday-go-to-meetin' shoes (even low heels). A purse on her arm, hair done up. Heavy winter jackets. Winter boots. Possibly armor on under the street clothes for safety. Out on the grass in a park or your back yard. And the other person does the same, but with the instructions to 'cheat'. In other words, do not go by dojo rules. Nothing lethal, of course, but other than that, dirty tricks, trips, hair pulling, below the belt strikes, etc.

Have a few well-padded sparring weapons that would be applicable in a street encounter. Baseball bat, knives, nun-chucks, staff, rocks/bricks/piece of concrete, dirt to throw in the face (clean stuff you take with you). Might want to have a few others as agitators to egg the fight on, toss a few foam rocks to distract her. Some flour or chalk to throw out. Basically anything and everything that is not allowed in a dojo.

If you can get a blue gun or make one, if her opponent can get it out and simply say 'bang, you're dead, I win' then a very compelling lesson will be taught. Especially if it happens over and over, no matter what she tries to prevent it.

Do be careful not to turn her off the martial arts for what she does get out of it, or discourage her from taking actual combat fighting classes where the deadly arts are taught and not the competition and metaphysical arts that most martial arts are today.

Just my opinion.
 
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#25 ·
So she is 12 years old, maybe 5 ft 5 inches tall?

I would suggest that if you watched the classes, maybe there is an older
gentleman (and I do mean Gentleman), who is small in stature, experienced,
and skilled, who can give her some up close and personal sparring lessons.
This should teach her some humility. This should be some one the instructor
really trusts.
 
#27 ·
Its not unique to 12yo girls. Right now we have two young female Marines in one of my subordinate units with fractured hips, that will be medically separated from service before 2 years, and ineligible for VA education benefits as a result. They were injured in MCMAP, overly aggressive, trying to prove something to someone.

There is a generational cultural difference in the way younger folks today approach the martial arts, that cannot be ignored. I see little restraint practiced in both training and in sport. My kids learned martial arts, but to the point they obtained confidence and control over their own power. After that they moved on, of their own accord, but quite possibly because of how we approached the use of power ... which they learned through firearms training.
 
#28 ·
A fractured hip sounds painful.

I always felt bad / sad for the peeps who voted injured in basic, or early on, and either never got to deploy or had to get separated against their will.

I remember one poor solid recycled like 3 times and had an injury and was basically doing CQ every day. He was flat out miserable lol. I couldn't wait to graduate and he wasn't going anywhere for months.

Then there are the people who used to talk a real big game during processing, and literally would fall apart in tears prior to being sent to bct, or would try to escape once there, etc. Good riddance to those, they weren't cut out for soldiering, and would just be liabilities.

Sent from my Note 8 using Tapatalk
 
#32 ·
Has she been to tournaments yet?

When you fight at tournaments, the mix of opponents can be a lot more competitive and more capable than at your home school.

Don't want to hurt your daughter's feelings too bad, but since you asked...

Also wondering if she runs or lifts weights... If she goes in at the ground level, she may realize that people who have been doing it for a long time often may have a lot more capability than her--- and some of them are the badguys!

Where I live, there are a ton of very fit people, especially at the beach or ski slopes! It's important to stay aware of it. A martial artist has to know that the difference in fitness level can cancel out your edge in skill, depending on what happens in the fight.

Also maybe just don't forget to keep her looking at the strategy big picture-- that sometimes, the best answer is to run, use weapons, have great allies to help you, or call for help. Or for instance, you plan / install / rely on preventative, home security measures, etc. Talking about that broader picture of her security / self-defense strategy every so often may help her realize that when you're doing great practicing your kicks or whatever, you're not actually expecting her to be like the paragon hero in a Van Damme or Jet Li movie. Instead, she needs to be a real world security person / martial artist, who gets it done with more than hand to hand combat, depending on what the situation calls for.

***One more thing-- to a certain extent, the answer is that sometimes you're really as good as you think you are, though. Maybe we can usually say that about someone who has four years in and who is feeling pretty confident. You know, the badguys often don't got what they think they got. They might believe that it's all about being raised in a tough neighborhood, and that you can't get tougher in a martial arts school. And they just don't know what they're talking about. They'd actually end up flat on their backs.
 
#33 ·
Before I posted, I didn't read everything above, and see that she's 12.

Just want to say, don't know if she should really be lifting weights or running much yet, then.

But when it's time, what I wrote above still applies-- a martial artist should lift weights and run during part of his or her life, if they're taking it pretty seriously. Starting out at that will show them there's a big difference between their capability and someone else's.
 
#34 ·
Maybe you could find an old episode of celebrity boxing which had a match between Chyna (an overly muscled female professional wrestler that used to successfully compete against men) and Joey Buttifuco (an out of shape chauvinist). Everyone expected Chyna to teach Joey a lesson. But, Joey beat the crap out of Chyna. What your daughter needs to learn is that real fights do not always go the way you might expect. There are no rules. Biting, eye gouging, small joint injury, and groin kicks are all legal in a real fight. And can bee real game changers in more ways than one. Good luck teaching humility to a 12 year old.
 
#36 ·
I used to hate sparring women in boxing because I hold back and pull many punches I would normally throw against a man because I'd be touching up her breasts anytime a body shot goes high or I'm probing with a jab.


I can respond with swift action and turn that mentality off if my life is actually threatened, but for sport / competition, I don't care what her credentials are, I have yet to get myself to throw a punch full steam against a women in the ring lol.

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#35 ·
It the dojo environment, things are very controlled.
Out in the real world, things are not. Criminals don't fight fair, ever.

No matter how "bad ass" she thinks she is or really is, there is always someone bigger, faster, crueler, smarter, etc that the inflated ego wants to believe.

Case in point:
1. My sensei, a 4th degree in Shaolin Kempo, was a show off, arrogant, cocky young bar fighter (read as Johnnie from Karate Kid movie). Would constantly show up to teach class with a black eye or bruised up elbows. "You should see the other guys!" blurting out in the middle of class like a frat boy. That was until the 10th degree called him up front and center in a closed dojo and then he suffered the gauntlet of pounding from his peers. Never did that again..

2. We were at a belt test with another dojo and we had to run barefoot to the beach, about a mile or more. The other dojo's sensei is teaching a very specific lesson and one of my class mates states that he can block anything: Black belt sensei takes that challenge and cup checks him hard enough that he falls to the ground. If he didn't have a cup, it would have been really bad. There was no possible way that he could have blocked that. The ego got put in check...

It sounds like your daughter doesn't need to work with others that could possibly "teach her a lesson", it sounds like she needs a dose of humility.

Just because she has the ability to dojo "kick ass" doesn't mean she should use that power/ability/knowledge/arrogance outside of the dojo.

Also, my sensei would give "dead legs" to anyone, except himself", where he heard or encountered arrogance or ego. It was a way of stating: you are good but you aren't that good.
 
#37 ·
Another thing to realize about a 12 year old girl is that they tend to have a
very low threshold of pain.

I weigh 240 and am 6ft. When my daughters sparred in competition I tried
to let them try to kick me as a moving target. It didn't work because I don't
yield to their feet like a bag would. They did not hurt me, but their kicks hurt
them.

Teen age Girls have a lot to learn. As a father, its up to us to try and teach them
reality without too much trauma. A small strong man could be her punching bag,
and as long as he wears a cup, it would teach her some
humility in my opinion.
 
#38 ·
The way we fight ego problems at my dojo is to make sure students regularly get paired up with people who can take them. For the apex students, one of the instructors will pair with them sometimes just to make sure they know there's ALWAYS someone better.

I see most of that cockiness come with youth. She sounds about right for a 12 year old (I have one of those in my dojo, too ... 12 but as tall as I am ... now 13, actually and both in class and at seminars she regularly finds the biggest, baddest blackbelt she can now because she's learned that is how to get better: finding the people who can take you and learning how they do it). By late teens the cockiness and ego are usually gone (I say, "If you have an ego, it means you haven't had your rear end handed to you enough times").

In sparring, we have a saying, "Someone will win, and someone will LEARN," because on the mats, you learn more when you lose, unless you let your ego get involved. I can remember when I was going through a phase that I don't think I won for nearly a year when sparring, and yet I'd won real-life serious down-and-dirty fights (LEO) quite easily. I didn't spend a year "losing," but rather "learning" where I had developed bad habits, what to improve, etc.

We also do multiple attack drills. For lower ranks that might be, in a 4-corners situation, simply where each attacker walks up with a push or some such and if the student messes up, they just go on to the next "attacker." This works its way up eventually to, say, 4 attackers who, while they come in turns, they come in with real attacks (punch, kick, grab, attempted throw, tackle, bearhug, choke ... but full on) and the 2nd attacker begins HIS attack as soon as the first attacker makes contact. And "Tori" the defender, must be successful in dealing with the first attacker or next thing he or she knows about 5 or 6 seconds later, they're having to deal with ALL of them at once and that is not a situation wherein one is likely to escape unscathed.

Lots of good advice already on this thread. I just toss in my vote with the "Pair her with people that can take her," suggestion and the "Have her defend against multiple attackers" idea.

That cockiness will begin to fade a bit as she ages, but hopefully the self-confidence and pride will carry her through those ROUGH teen years.
 
#40 ·
I like the multi-assailant and some losing-to-learn set-ups, but I don't think it's enough.

Krav Maga. More useful than sport MA, for both real world fighting/defense and mental reality. Talk to the instructor and see if he/she has an appropriate class, particularly for what you see in her. When she's ready, some full contact (listen to the instructor's advice)

Get her the book The Gift of Fear (read it first to be sure it's right for her stage of mental development, but it sounds like she may be).

There might be a good female cop or corrections officer that can sit down and talk to her about what really happens in fights... from a female perspective... from someone your daughter would understand is knowledgable, experienced, and tough. Sometimes it's hard for a young lady to hear stuff from men because they feel or think they're being patronized and their abilities minimized. And hearing it from a "powder puff" woman doesn't cut it because a young lady will size herself up against that and poo-poo what she's being told. A friendly lunch just for the two of them at a restaurant so the cop/corrections officer can steer the conversation and your daughter can speak freely/ask questions since you're not there. Be sure the adult isn't someone who'll be perceived as a snitch or spy... don't ever let on there *might* have been feedback... betrayal of trust and all the harm that goes with it.
 
#43 ·
well I hope you get a pretty penny for her!

all kidding aside! yes,martial arts can add maybe to much confidence to too small of a person.

if your 100lb daughter is confronted by a 6ft 220lb man, she can prob kick him in the face all she wants and he is not really going to be hampered that much. even if he has no training. its just really hard to put down a person that outweighs you by more than 50lbs. not impossible but hard


now if she is in shape I would suggest she run like a track star. those who run away will live to fight another day. running from overwhelming odds is not a reflection on their honor.
 
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