On parenting, Jiu Jitsu and life

The inimitable Rickson Gracie, in his book, “Breathe”, recounts his earliest days of Jiu Jitsu. He mentions that his father, Grandmaster Helio Gracie, never pressured him to compete or win. As a matter of fact, Rickson reminisces about how his earliest Jiu Jitsu memories with his father were playful and fun. I can imagine the immense pressure Helio must have felt in preserving the legacy of the Gracie clan, and building an army of Jiu Jitsu warriors. How could he forge these weapons without shattering them with too much heat? Just as a blacksmith tempers a sword through repeated dousing in cold water from the forge, Helio also forged Rickson and his brothers and cousins through tempering. By all accounts, Helio was a stern, but loving father. In the book, Rickson states that Jiu Jitsu was simply a way of life for them from birth. They would simply train daily. When it came to early competitions, Helio would reward them if they won a competition match, but the reward was double if they lost a match. In that way, Grandmaster Helio Gracie tempered his sons and nephews to become a warrior clan that is still remembered and respected throughout the world. 

For approximately the last 20 years, Jiu Jitsu has seen a resurgence in popularity globally. The ranks of practitioners and academies has grown exponentially. As a student of martial arts and history, I am reminded of the same type of growth with Kung Fu in the 1960s or Karate in the 1980s. Jiu Jitsu has permeated our popular culture and consciousness with numerous celebrities counted among its ranks. Parents are enrolling their children in droves into Jiu Jitsu academies, and martial arts schools that have historically taught other arts are now offering Jiu Jitsu classes to ensure a diversity of instruction. Because of a lower barrier to entry for women, and the relative support for the women’s participation and competition, the sport is accessible to a broader participant pool. Along with the growth of practitioners and academies, we are also seeing an immense growth in the number of fight promotion organizations, apparel manufacturers and every other business orbiting Jiu Jitsu (including this blog site)! With the democratization of social media, the barrier to entry into becoming a Jiu Jitsu personality is incredibly low. Whereas with Kung Fu and Karate in previous generations, you could be a fairly local champion, and nobody would know who you were. Now with a few clicks on a cellular phone, your local Jiu Jitsu tournament highlights could be shared with thousands of people globally. 

Is it a wonder that the parents that see all the social media attention as well as the permeation in pop culture of Jiu Jitsu want to have their own children benefit from it? Of course, like with any sport, it takes effort, practice and dedication to excel at Jiu Jitsu. However, access to world class Jiu Jitsu practitioners and instructors is readily available. It is not uncommon for a parent to walk into any number of Jiu Jitsu academies and see an instructor whom they have seen on television in the UFC octagon, or another fight promotion. As a parent myself, this is immensely appealing as my child has direct instructional access to world class teachers. Here is where things start to get a bit fuzzy. We take our children to their first Jiu Jitsu class. We will try it out for a month. The early days are difficult as the child either takes to the art, or absolutely hates it because their body hasn’t adapted to the movements required for Jiu Jitsu. As parents, we try to teach our children that consistency will pay off, and pretty soon, we start seeing improvements in our child’s Jiu Jitsu. After a few months, the child’s initial reluctance is gone, and they start making friends at the academy and actually enjoy going to Jiu Jitsu classes. 

One day, perhaps due to peer pressure, or curiosity, the child mentions that there’s a tournament coming up locally and they’d like to participate. You speak with their instructor to see if your child is ready, and get the go ahead. Their first tournament will more than likely be a shock to the child, and they will probably run crying to your arms after losing to a much more experienced competitor at their beginner level. This is the second point of evolution in your child’s Jiu Jitsu journey. The child will either love to train and compete, or they will stop competing and only train casually. If your child is in the former group, you will start seeing some changes in yourself as a parent as well. In my experience, some parents have also started training in Jiu Jitsu after their children have started training. Some parents have become overly supportive and competitive and want to enter their child into every tournament coming up. This is also when a lot of parents start maintaining their child’s social media accounts, building their online personality and trying to achieve some notoriety in the local area. With the increased competitive schedule, Jiu Jitsu takes up most of the child’s time as the parent insists that they train for the next tournament. 

While we want the best for our children, and we insist that they do this healthy activity and train, we have to be careful that we aren’t projecting our own wishes of success onto our children. As my own Jiu Jitsu professor, Kola Ajose, says, “Competition is only a very small part of Jiu Jitsu”. It is very easy to lose sight of the reason that we had our child enroll in the Jiu Jitsu academy in the first place. I personally wanted my daughter to be able to defend herself if I and when I am not around to protect her. I also wanted her to walk through the world in complete confidence. I have never pushed her to compete, and still don’t. She always has the option to approach me and ask me to register her for a tournament, which she has done of her own volition numerous times. I have also repeatedly told her that what she puts into Jiu Jitsu is what she will get out of it. This put the agency of her own success and failure in her hands. My only expectation of her is that she continues to train throughout her life and makes it a part of her lifestyle. This is an incredibly difficult thing to do for many parents who truly want their children to succeed, but I feel that this approach leads to the child fostering a healthy and beneficial relationship with the art, instead of building resentment and negative associations with it.

Our children have to be taught that Jiu Jitsu is something you do, and not who you are. They have to understand that it is a tool for growth and development that will serve them through their entire life. They may or may not choose to pursue a competitive career in Jiu Jitsu, and that’s ok. If we as parents want to support and encourage our children, a healthy way to do so is to also get on the mats and train. We can show them through our own personal experiences that it is ok to compete, or not. We can show them that Jiu Jitsu is meant to be fun. We can show them that it is ok to win or lose as long as we continue the journey. We can show them how to stay true to our character and values through victory and defeat, honoring and respecting the art and our partners and opponents. If we choose to apply the pressures of our own wishes and anxieties onto our children as they train and compete, we will be irreparably shattering that blade that we are trying to forge. At the end of the day, our children have to be influenced by us, and if our own obsession with Jiu Jitsu is reflected on them, then they will become just as ill adjusted and disharmonious as we are. Oss!