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Inside the Crystal Ball
"Parents and Martial Arts" Part 2 of 3
Many parents take their kids to their local martial arts school to take lessons. It teaches the kids self-confidence, discipline and respect. Yet many Parents still have a problem with NHB tournaments on TV. The argument I’ve heard is that it promotes violence.
To those parents, I say you are wrong.
Just as a parent takes a child to karate class, NHB (King of the Cage, Pride, UFC) is like a classroom for adults. As a practitioner, you get to the point where you ask yourself - Am I learning? Will what I have learned work?
To find out, they step into the world of professional martial arts and into the ring of NHB to test themselves. NHB is not glorified violence as parents would believe but an event where two skilled individuals play a game of chess. Who will be the first to make a mistake and can the other capitalize on it. And whether you win or lose, you are always victorious because in defeat, you learn to correct your mistakes.
Furthermore, I can think of no other sport where you can quit and no one makes fun of you or criticizes you. All the audience does is give you a round of applause for your effort.
Parents, isn't that a worthy lesson?
Remember Roberto Duran vs. Sugar Ray Leonard II. Duran quit because he said he had stomach cramps. No one believed him and no one cared.
He quit. Unacceptable.
All anyone remembers about Duran now is that is that he quit. Not about the great boxing career he had otherwise.
Moreover, I can remember tennis players being booed on TV because they couldn’t continue due to injury. Quitting just isn’t acceptable in sports... except in martial arts.
It’s expected.
Students are always humbled at the beginning because they have to train with advanced students. They learn the old martial arts adage "there is always someone better."
Martial Arts is about skill, not size or strength or violence.
Parents fail to see this.
This is the core of NHB - Skill.
They also fail to see the friendships between the fighters before and after the fights. They don’t see them sharing techniques or discussing what mistakes they made in the bout. They don’t see how they let negative comments thrown their way by spectators just glance off them. They don’t see the respect they give to their fans.
Would violent people in a violent sport do this?
The fact is that, as mentioned in Part 1, most of the main stream sports (Football, Baseball, Hockey, etc...) have a greater degree of injury than that of NHB/Martial Arts.
Now before you ask me for statistics, I don’t have any. I have seen some on paper and heard of some on television. And not once did I ever see or hear NHB/Martial Arts on the list. I believe skiing had the most incidents of injury but no one wants to stop kids from doing it.
The bottom line is that I solely base this argument on my own experience and the hundreds of people I have asked as to their worst sports injury and how they got it. So far, no one has ever responded NHB/Martial Arts.
The worst injury I ever had occurred in a softball game sliding into home plate.
Go figure.
Parents, wouldn't you think that the most violent sport would incur the most injuries?
If you look at professional martial arts the way I have mentioned, you will quickly learn that NHB matches are not about violence but a test of skill by martial artists who need to gauge themselves as to their progression in the arts.
After all, as kids start sports, isn’t that what the progression from pony leagues to high school to college to professional sports is?
Next... NHB SN
(7/24/02) |
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