grappling and kids.

[T Rose]

hey y'all,

I mentioned in another thread that I have incorporated grappling in the curriculum for Jr students (adults too but this thread concerns jrs only). I thought/hope that the experienced grapplers out there would lend some insight.

First off, Uechi is the core curriculum and the grappling is presented that way. We incorporated the grappling in slowly as part of our 'Virtue Over Violence' program. This gave us an oppurtunity to gauge the interest and reactions by students and parents. Overwhelming success...

Tacticaly/Practicaly the VOV/grappling gave us (the school) more tools to present to the kids for dealing with violence aka bullies etc... In Northborough, a small service based community (read no retail survives, but we have more donut shops, dry cleaners, hair salons and pizza places than towns 3 time the size) of some affluence. Violence is definitely frowned upon. In high school, an ordinary fist fight ended up with police arresting and charging both kids. School policy. In the middle school, any fighting is dealt with by suspension. Same for elementary school. A ZERO TOLERANCE environment. Karate is viewed (right or wrong) as 'violence' here. Wrestling isn't, it's taught in the schools. Maybe a student will still get in trouble for taking a 'dog mount' and holding a bully down but when he explains that he was taught to do that, to control a bully and only hit when absolutely neccessary..well I think you get the drift..

VOV/Grappling gives us a differentiator! We have a great technical program wrapped in a great philosophy.

The kids relate to VOV/Grappling more than they do to kata. We use this to encourage and promote kata! We'll take a move from the kata and show it as a takedown for example.. (sometimes we really have to stretch :-) ). The VOV/Grappling really gets the kids excited.. especially since we have incorporated the grappling into standard sparring class.

Well we experimented, intro'ed the techniques slowly.. Now we are having our first exclusive VOV/Grappling class. I envision demonstrating a flow drill. One that starts off with a punch flowing into a takedown, maybe a side mount, passing into a full mount, an umpa, followed by a passing of the guard. Not meant to be realistic but to get the kids used to doing a technique more live but still controlled...like kumites that they are used to. The class will take 10 minutes to review and practice the current move. Since this is the first class that move will be the last one, a guard pass. A few weeks from now it might be going from side mount to 'dog mount'. We will pause at every position to explore options, dangers etc.. the next 10 minutes to practice the actual kumite or flow drill to whatever point we are at. Finally 15 minutes at the end for randori. We generally start the randori off with kids taking a position and working from there. We take the more experienced kids and start them from their knees... others from standing in a collar tie. We give them a fixed amount of time (like 20 secs) to get something going. If they are being unsafe or just pulling/pushing on each other we move them down a position (from standing to their knees for example).
We will still have 10 minutes to 'flex time' as needed. All participants are required to wear headgear, mouthpiece and cup all in the right places...

any thoughts, suggestions, gotcha's ???

thanks

[Joe Sullivan]

Hey everybody, meet the future of Uechi-Ryu.
Sounds like a class I wouldn't mind taking. What do your sparring classes look like, especially the children's? I bet there are a lot of takedowns, and lots of grappling to follow.

Joe P.

[T Rose]

kids sparring class is straightforward.. full gear to start. we work on one technique.. then we spar. we start with warm up sparring which is slow speed sparring with a partner. Next we will do either point sparring or 'self defense' sparring...sometimes we break it up with tag team sparring..btw this works great with randori. We will generally have a take down of the day that the kids can use (limited to that take down). If there is a takedown, then we give them 30 secs to follow up with a dominant position (knee on stomach, mount etc..). With the equiptment it really limits technique to the positions. Next we take off the vest, hands, feet and finish with randori. We start them from a known clinch... if nothing happens after 15 secs. we move them to their knees, then to fixed position (side mount etc)..

later

[T Rose]

btw the kids love top down sparring w/ our teens instructors! they ask for tag team randori...

[JDeLuca]

T Rose

Sounds like a great program. I love the Name "Virture over Violence". Grappling skills will certainly round out a young personals self defense arsenal as well as help them develop physically. As you mentioned the kids will love and look forward to this type of interaction.

The flow drills sound excellent and their are endless combinations that can be worked in. Guard passes, moving from pinning positions to other pinning positions, guard sweeps to guard passes to sidemounts. They will have the oppotunity to get the needed high speed play that will be needed to overconme when Virtue meets Violence. I also like the fact that you have not mentioned choking and joint locking for this stage of development.
Hope to see you Sunday.

PS A little trick you can use for groups of youngsters with to much energy to listen to the lesson is to randori before the lesson of the day. After a few rounds they will be anxious for instruction.

------------------
J Deluca

[f.Channell]

Tracy,
I teach my kids takedowns and do mat work escapes and hold downs with them.
I don't get too involved in explaining things to them. I show them a move, and then they freestyle.
While they freestyle I give them instructions on ways to escape holds. I vary this by sparring one week and grappling the next week. If a kid is testing for a belt, depending one which week they fight every kid in the class on the mat or sparring (learned that from Joe P.).
It also gives my daughters good practice for Judo competition. I separate the sparring and grappling work just because it's so hard to grab with gloves on, and falling with a helmet doesn't teach them to keep their head up.
If you can make my Tournament bring some kids, if we get enough help they can mat train.
fred

[T Rose]

Thanks for all the replies..

Hey Jim.. excellent advice. we will do the randori first next time.. we do have a couple of 'rowdies'. Wish I could take credit for 'Virtue over Violence' but I can't. This excellent concept came from GEM and (with his permission) I have been using it as a cornerstone for our kids program. We don't do any submission work with the kids yet...not sure when or if we will work it in.

Sorry I missed last Sunday and unfortunately I will miss this sunday too (my parents are flying in and I am getting together with them and the kids). Job/dojo/family makes it tough to find personal time. Please keep a spot open for me though and I will be back the following week.

later