Liam's Belt Promotion

Backtracking... Liam had his belt promotion couple of months ago. Despite Emilia's bad competition experience, the kids are continuing with judo classes. We have adjusted our focus for the kids to prioritize being proficient in judo first.

Emilia has learned quite a bit and her understanding grows with each good and bad experience. Liam, being younger, is still grasping at the concept. He has slowly, but surely been improving, and has improved so much in attitude and skill since his first weeks where laying on the mat was a frequent occurrence.

In order to have a belt promotion, the student needs to gain both sets of 5 character stripes and 5 skill stripes. Then the sensei will recommend for promotion. In order to be promoted, the student also needs to have approvals from both the student's teacher indicating he is doing well in school, as well as the parents, indicating he is behaving at home.

Liam has been looking forward to getting promoted since the day he finally received all his stripes! He has seen 3 promotions now with kids he knows, including Emilia, all get promoted.



Happy kid to be joining the ranks of the yellow/white belts.

Winning or Learning

In competition, there will be a winner and a loser, but there is no losing (unless you quit), only learning. This was a lesson from a recently kids library book that we picked up and read. The simple point of the story followed the emotions and thoughts of two young siblings' journey into competitive sports as they joined a soccer team. It went through the ups and downs of emotions, thoughts, insecurities, and struggles of the siblings as they learned about perseverance, to work hard to develop in skill, and to understand a bigger, personal concept of competition and winning through the game of soccer. They were guided by their dad to view each challenge and loss as an opportunity to learn, and that true winning is about what you can gain through attitude and perspective. Great simple kid story that was so direct with the message.

When my kids struggle, whether they are frustrated with not being able to do something right, or they want to give up, I remind them that there is no losing, just learning and to find what they can learn from the situation to become better.

The story we read coincidentally came at a great time, a few weeks before Emilia's first jiujitsu competition!!

Let's start at the beginning. Our dojo hosted a local jiujitsu competition and encouraged the kids to participate. It would be good experience in a kid-friendly format and have more kids from our own dojo attend. I thought it was a great short term goal for Emilia to keep focused on as we encouraged her to practice and learn in her BJJ classes.

One of the moms at the dojo made signs for all the kids.

Competition experience is so different than regular practice at the dojo. When we walked into the gymnasium, there were so many people there - People in the stands, kids in their Gis warming up or playing on the 6 competition mat areas, people going about with a purpose, getting ready for the competitions... the referees, the coaches, photographers, nervous kids, parents, etc. The feeling in the air was that of excitement and nervous anticipation. I could see my kids looking around and observing, taking it all in.



Emilia was simply being Emilia.. which I love! I tried to get her to warm-up, maybe spar with some of the kids that she knows, but she was really just taking in the surroundings, eating some snacks, and practicing her version of "cartwheels". Competition environment? It didn't change how she goes about things.

Emilia's version of "Cartwheels"



The competition was soon starting, and the kids were lined up and sat on the edge of the mat where they would be competing on. Emilia's bracket was the TODDLER DIVISION, AGES 4-5. We did not sign up Liam for this because even though he qualifies in age, Liam just doesn't have the base concept down yet. However, he wanted his Gi on and wanted to be a part of this too.. so we let him sit with the rest of the kids.

Emilia's first match was the 2nd one on the mat. The first match were two kids from her dojo, Henry and Cohen. This is representative of what I expected from kids in the TODDLER division. Well.. okay.. maybe not as much spinning around...

Henry and Cohen's Match


Then Emilia was up. Her match was with an unknown kid, not from our dojo. I had watched the kid during pre-comp practice and was already nervous because the kid seemed more serious and aggressive than the kids Emilia is usually paired up with in class. I was hoping that it would be a good learning experience that would drive her to understand why she goes to practice and learns these skills.

E's Match


The match, actually most of it, turned out to be quite unexpected. Emilia impressed me as I can see her focused determination. Kudos for trying! However, at the end of this video, I stopped filming because I could her her little voice crying. It was just loud enough where I could hear how hurt she was.. combined with gasps of breath in between, I also knew she was trying so hard not to cry. What happened was the boy did an arm bar maneuver on her and the referee did not stop it in time. The arm went into full extension, and hyper-extended the elbow joint. Actually, even when the ref did stop the match, the boy didn't let go. The ref had to pry the kid's hands off of Emilia's arm. I have never had an arm bar done to me before, but from what I hear, it is pretty painful.

Luckily Ryan was there to help check on Emilia. That particular sound of Emilia's cry, one that she rarely ever makes, hits a deep mama instinct. In fact, the mama next to me put her arm around me. No parent wants to see their kid hurt.

At TODDLER bracket, I thought it was ridiculous that someone teaches a kid that's only learned bladder control for 1-2 years, how to do a highly skilled and potentially harmful move, and to use in competition. Emilia has not learned the arm bar move nor how to defend it or how to get out of it.

I was beyond mad and upset, not because she lost, but because she was hurt in such an unprepared and unfair way. I could hear the other kid's dad in the background yelling "Arm bar! Arm bar!" while my brain was processing "Wait... kids do arm bars at this age? Emilia doesn't know arm bar!".

However, Emilia amazed me. This is PROUD MAMA MOMENT... she obviously didn't win, in fact, she was utterly crushed...(had to forfeit her 2nd match). But after we iced her elbow, filled her with the best medicine - candy, and gave into her every request the rest of the day, I asked her what she thought of the day's event and how she felt. She said to me "My arm hurt a lot. I really tried my best, but I didn't know the arm bar. I'll need to learn more and maybe next time I can win a gold necklace. Can we go to the beach?" (Note: She wants the gold medal because it is a pretty necklace!)

That's it. She didn't blame me, nor her instructors, nor the boy, nor the unfair match-up, nor the boy's parents that kept yelling for the arm bar during the match (and again at the sandbagger's 2nd match!), nor the judge (who felt really bad), AND she didn't blame herself (unlike me with lots of guilt). She was happy with her effort, and the rest of the situation, she accepted it as "it just is" and moved on to enjoy a beautiful sunny beach day.

As for mama, I learned as well. I spent the next week researching the culture of jiujitsu, learning about the different dojos and their teaching philosophies. Many dojos, non-Gracie affiliated, are geared towards sport jiujitsu, which is winning competitions versus a more practical nature of self defense in a nurturing environment. The dojo we go to is more focused on character development, which is why Emilia has not learned arm bars and chokes yet. This puts the kids at a disadvantage for competitions. That should have been stressed and made aware to the parents! However, apparently the topic of teaching young kids technical and potentially dangerous moves of joint locks and choke holds are highly debated, even though it is common in sport jiujitsu.

My kid's journey and experiences will be her own, no matter how much I try to control the situation and protect her, life is life. It will be unfair and unexpected. Situations like this only help prepare her better to face the unknown future. Somewhere, somehow... my little girl already inherently has the right attitude and perspective. She takes a loss as an opportunity to learn. In fact, she was mimicking the arm bar move at home the other day, solely learned from watching and observing because again, she hasn't been taught. Her heart, her mentality, her attitude.. is pure gold. She doesn't need to win one. She knows how to approach life, at 6 years of age, more than most people. Way to go baby girl!

Promotion!

Today was a great day at BJJ. Emilia has been dedicated and worked hard to learn and grow in judo and jiujitsu.

She had her first belt promotion/ceremony today! Moving from a White Belt, earning stripes along the way, to now being a new fledgling Yellow-White belt.

I asked her how she felt getting her new belt, and her response was "shy." Happy and shy. =) I guess it is being in front of a lot of people, clapping and cheering for her. And then she needs to go down the line, respectfully bow and shake hands with all the black belt senseis.

A special thing the kids witnessed too, was Sensei Paulo getting his promotion. Sensei has been a black belt for the past 28 years, and today he was promoted to what he calls, the last belt he will ever receive, the red-white belt.

Sensei also had a great talk about how the stripes are just regular tape that you can buy from Home Depot. A belt is just a belt you can order online. But to those that practice and put in their hard work, their effort.. each achievement is about the cumulation of their hard work, effort, wins and loses, and skills and experience that the belt/stripes are symbolic of. That's something that one cannot simply buy, so be proud of where you are at, with each and every achievement.

Sensei, of course, was emotional, as this is his life's work and passion. Not sure the kids really understand all that much at this age, but I think it is great for them to see their Sensei getting promoted and re-iterate his dedication towards the sport and development for future generations.

After the ceremony, E with her new belt.

And her official promotion certificate.

The BJJ familia, group photo.

Super proud of E and celebrating the moment today, but back to consistent hard work and dedication. Yellow-white belts will definitely now be more challenging for Emilia to spar with, but open up more opportunities to learn and hone her skills more. At the same time, I'm hoping that Liam will get that spark of understanding that will help him grow. Emilia knows what this is all about.. you can see her observing and processing during practice. Liam.. it is still fun and games. He has improved since the early days though, there is definitely less lying on the mats now.

What is Liam thinking?

"My head is so heavy, maybe my shoulder can hold it up..."

"What am I learning? Nevermind! The MMA class is sparring over there!"

"Front row seats to the sparring fight."

"I'm showing respect to the dojo by bowing. Really I am."

"Zzzzzzzz"

"If I sit really still maybe sensei won't call on me and instead tend to the other kid that's not paying attention"

"Okay, getting called all isn't so bad if I get to flip the sensei."

Young Grasshoppers Have Much To Learn

It's been a week of judo classes! This weekend I observed Liam trying to instigate fights with Emilia by grabbing her arm/shirt and tugging or pushing her. I have also seen Emilia call Liam over for some judo/bjj play, then do a take down with a shirt/arm grab and a leg sweep. Emilia seems to like doing the take downs. Liam seems to like the grappling aspect more.. aka sit on Emilia.

Emilia's attention span in class is decent. She has above average grip strength for a newbie 5-yr-old and can follow instruction well. Liam.. oh my Liam, is just the opposite. He has been called out by the sensei numerous times, has been picked up by the belt and put back into line, put in front of the class for something only to start making faces, sticking out his tongue, rolling his eyes, and having the whole class laugh.

Can you spot the kiddos? (The little kid running back to the L-line just finished doing a demo with the instructor.) Most of the kids are paying attention.. most.

While sensei is teaching/demonstrating, Liam can be found laying down and rolling on the mat, or poking the kid next to him in the head, or turned 180 degrees in the opposite direction of sensei, watching the MMA boxers. Another kid even tried to get Liam to pay attention only to cause a disruption in the class. Luckily the senseis at this dojo are VERY good with kids, but also somewhat strict. The senseis will usually call out the kid, but they will also discipline the kids, put them on time out, have their belts or stripes taken away from them if necessary.

These young grasshoppers have much to learn!

Little Judokas - Day 1

"Though she be little, she be fierce!" - William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream



This was first day of Judo/BJJ class and the kiddos practiced how to throw and how to sweep (not shown). Emilia took to the class pretty well and seems pretty natural at knowing how to shift her body weight in the throw. Liam took a while to warm up. He sat on the side with Ryan to watch the class the first 20 minutes, but after that, he willing joined the class on his own.



Kiddos, esp Liam, do have short attention span. By the time class was almost over, he started getting out of line and wandering around. hehe. I'm looking forward to tracking their progression and see how they do in a few months time.

Blood, Sweat, and Tears

In this corner, we have Kamikaze Jr.

In the other corner, we have Ze Professor.

Introducing the newest members to the Brazillian Jiujitsu and Judo family!
(Note: Ignore the improper belt tying. I haven't learned the proper method yet!)

This post is sort of a continuation about some of my anxieties about E starting a new school. I realize the kiddos are away from us for more time than we are with them now they are in full time school. Granted, we're trusting in the institutions they are at to take care of them, but at the same time, we are counting that we have given my kids enough guidance and tools for them to take care of themselves to a certain degree. They'll have situations for sure, it's part of growing up.

So, One of the new tools, is what they can learn from the discipline of martial arts in the form of jiujitsu and judo. There is the obvious, self defense, but there's also the respect of the tradition/culture of the art form, confidence, empowerment, respect for dojo/sensei and opponents they'll face. I fully expect sticking to a discipline of martial arts is not easy. There will be blood, sweat, and tears that will build character. Not only that, it will be a test of patience and time management for Ryan and I now that we're juggling different schedules of all four of us!