Sparring Age

[Rathe]

I've been teaching adults for going on 5 years now in small classes. I have recently taken on some younger students. I am wondering though, what is a good age to start letting younger people spar. I wasn't honestly going to let them for awhile but I wanted to get some other opinions on this (figure we got this forum for questions just like this). I don't feel young children would gain anything from it unless they truly understood what they were learning. By young I mean 6 - 8.

 

And before anyone ask, I was trained one on one most of my life with occassionally 1 or 2 other people in the classes. So I can't fall back my experience for this one. Thanks in advance.

[RavenX]

Actually, in my opinion, sparring at any age is beneficial. When your 4 it's safe, fun and you LIKE to spar. Also it gives you a good idea of how your using the things you learn in class. 8 - 10 year olds can learn very good self control, and fighting concepts from a sparring experience too. Anything older then that can be taught sparring at the level that you already teach it at.

[martialbrown]

For young kids, they may not be actually learning much in the way of skill, they will over time, but most likely not in the beginning, but it will be fun, and let me tell you it is difficult. Our kids class wears you out, they are full of energy and keep you moving the entire night. We have students ages 6 to 60 sparring, we rarely ever have injuries if that is what you are worried about, because the young ones are not going to be hit as hard as the older students. Mainly, they have fun, it is something different, it poses a challenge, and for your young students it would be something new.

[SloMo]

Our kids spar all the time. They do learn from the experience. Maybe not all the technique you would like them to learn but things like, to not be afraid to spar, sportsmanship and how to block! ( or not )

 

Also, our kids are required to wear padding when they spar. Figure they weigh about 60 lbs soaking wet and it would be tough for them to hurt each other. Our kids are always begging for more sparring classes.

 

Something else you can do is have your kids spar your black belts. Our black belts know that they are basically nothing but moving targets for the kids so they have fun as well. They also have the control to just tap the kids to remind them to keep their guards up.

[Rathe]

I guess the most important thing is to truly keep their interest so they stay long enough to learn. Even sparring with their bit of knowledge will help them grow. Thanks for the advice, I have a syllabus of information and techniques I must train. But its certainly lacking aspects of larger class training and doesn't go into children much at all. So I'm trying to adjust it to make it interesting for the little ones.

[Goju 4 Life]

I gotta agree. We have kids sparring as young as 5 year olds probably won't break each others bones. And they learn how to be comfortable in the ring, certain principles like moving, staying on your toes etc, and they have fun. The always have smiles on their face. So as long as the mouth guard protects those smiles and all that other gear is on FIGHT!

[Dojo Dan]

5-6 is fine for sparring, as long as they know your RULES, and wear protective gear. Always try to pair up like sized kids and abilities if possible. Try to avoid boy vs girl at this age if possible also, avoids additonal conflicts

[AngelaG]

Golden rule: Avoid siblings sparring with one another!