ESPN Outside the Lines: MMA For Kids

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Frank Shamrock Debates the Subject with Some High School Basketball Coach

31 comments:

matt said...: I'm not a fan, aspecially at the age of 6-9.. It's just living the dream of the parents.
Kinda sick i think. Not jiu-jitsu but pure mma is just wrong.; July 23, 2008 12:49 PM
Anonymous said...: Sigh. This stuff is depressing. I personally don't agree with a lot of that MMA for kids stuff and it just hurts the sport. I'm all for teaching kids martial arts such as judo, boxing, etc together as MMA but actually letting them compete at that age, bad call imo. Kids shouldn't be allowed to go full contact that young, no way in hell.; July 23, 2008 1:14 PM
Anonymous said...: I can't wait for all of these old fucks to die off so MMA will finally be seen for what it is.; July 23, 2008 1:40 PM
Anonymous said...: wow they cant compare that to kids boxing. hell teenagers have head gear when they fight. they are sparring with regular gloves. They should just give them sparring guards.; July 23, 2008 2:19 PM
Sohrab said...: Kids MMA? I don't like it. Kids just dont have the level of maturity of adults to be practicing it. This is a terrible trend and bad for the sport.; July 23, 2008 2:53 PM
Anonymous said...: i'm a big mma-fan, but i think to teach kids that young is wrong. they should certainly not start with fullcontact at the age of 6.; July 23, 2008 3:05 PM
Anonymous said...: who in the right mind brings a lunatic like frank in a serious discussion like that?; July 23, 2008 3:16 PM
Anonymous said...: I too love the sport and practice BJJ and Muay thai. there is plenty of benefits for adults to practice levels of MMA. for Kids this young Howerver, I have to disagree. It is just teaching them to become to violant in an age that there isn't much parental supervision. Proper age should be in ther 15 or above I think...My son also does kick boxing and BJJ but not MMA full contact.
Thanks.
Walter/Torrance, CA.; July 23, 2008 4:20 PM
Anonymous said...: Dan Doyle should be shot in the face with the rest of those fucking dinosaur idiots living in the past. Why do people pretend to give a shit? oh yea, he's selling a book.; July 23, 2008 4:35 PM
Anonymous said...: kids are too young for the strikes esp w/ the mma gloves maybe w/ sparring gear on it would be alright. let them learn jiu jitsu or wrestling with emphasis on control and no heel hooks or cranks.; July 23, 2008 7:16 PM
Anonymous said...: that old guy kept inturupting frank, but when frank would try to do the same to hime, he would continue or say let me finish. whats up with that.; July 23, 2008 10:10 PM
bleve said...: MMA for kids can be just as destructive as little league or football. A lot of it has to do w/ moronic parents. I think any sport that levels too much pressure on a kid can be psychologically harmful... but its the parents and coaches that implement that pressure.

Although Frank has a cocky ring presence he does an excellent job here. I think he did a great job considering it was a weighted, formulaic piece of mainstream press garbage.; July 23, 2008 10:42 PM
Anonymous said...: everyone here saying that kids are too young to compete have not trained kids before. you have to give these kids more credit. they are smart enough to understand what it is they're doing and how that differs from a street fight. good instruction is crticial though.; July 23, 2008 10:49 PM
Anonymous said...: what was in frank's ear?; July 24, 2008 2:58 AM
Son of Rea said...: Frank unfortunately did a terrible job at making an intelligent defense of the sport. Instead of valid arguments, he resorted to the childish act of laughing at the other guy's arguments in a fruitless effort to invalidate them. Just made him come across as juvenile.

Valid arguments?

1) The mma instructor they interviewed was correct when he said that violence was a mindset. Anyone who has ever wrestled or boxed, or taken Karate, etc, knows that the do not wish to hurt their opponent as much as they want to beat him through skill and strategy, just like any game. Therefor these parents are not encouraging violence or hatred at all.

2) These kids are learning valuable tools for self defense. Unlike gay-kwon-do, it's finally some martial arts instruction that actually works in real life. Nobody ever mentions that. These days, parents can't do enough to protect their kids from harm.

3)Children are not strong enough to cause serious injury to the human body with their punches and kicks at a young age.

4) MMA in general has an excellent record overall in terms of fighter safety. Especially when you compare this to more popular sports.; July 24, 2008 4:38 AM
Anonymous said...: this was depressing...i would love my kid to learn martial arts and eventually go into mma but at a later age when his mind and body is much stronger...not at 6 years old; July 24, 2008 5:09 AM
Anonymous said...: I think some kids may be ready by age 6. Comparing it to wrestling, you have kids who have the maturity and the thought process to learn moves, work ethic, andthe right emotions to be very succesful on national levels, Not just to get pissed when they are losing. It is a small amount of kids though. I think some of these kids they are teaching are gettin thrown to wolves which is okay in wrestling but may actually do some damage mentally in MMA.; July 24, 2008 7:05 AM
Patrice said...: Because of retarded american who let their kids train for mma;
And let them hit each other in the face without any head protection; mma might be banned again some day.

What the hell is wrong with theses idiots?

Social services should takes theses kids away from their retarded parents without any other kind of investigation necessary.

Isn't there some kind of government body enforcing any kind of safety rules for the kids doing martial arts in the states?

Americans are stupid to a extend I cannot express fully with words!

-p; July 24, 2008 9:28 AM
Anonymous said...: If you don't like kids mma then don't put your kids in kids mma. But if you want to outlaw kids mma then you have to let me make some rules on how to raise your kid. I broke my leg in high school football. Should we outlaw football for kids b/c they might get hurt. Don't tell someone how to raise their kid unless you want them to tell you how to raise your kid.; July 24, 2008 10:38 AM
Anonymous said...: they should really choose a proper spokesperson for mma; July 24, 2008 11:43 AM
Antonio said...: I'm a big mma fan, and have been doing bjj for many years now. but I cannot agree with that. teaching kids to fight like this is just wrong, and potentially harmfull.

what's wrong with you americans? here in brasil, only balck belts are allowed to use heel hooks or knee locks in official jiu-jitsu fights. and, by personal experience, i can tell you that only skilled athletes that are willing to compete are allowed in mma classes. no young boys wanting to learn how to hurt someone in the streets can attend a mma class regularly.

for the future of the sport, someone should put and end to kids mma.

regards; July 24, 2008 12:43 PM
Anonymous said...: Sparring in their second lesson?
That one MMA 'instructor' is way out of line, their not even using boxing gloves, just open handed ones and swinging at each other.

Protective headgear, boxing gloves and shinguards should be worn for standup sparring for at least everyone under the age of 16.

You should just train the transitions from standup to wrestling in practice, because ALOT of repetition is needed in drills/games before you should bother in mma type sparring where the other person can punch or kick you in the process.

Big slams in wrestling are also unecessary, Although I think in America they teach wrestling very well to young persons compared to here in the UK. Though then again you could argue some judo throws can be dangerous. They should only be going 75% to avoid injury.

And the BJJ is pretty much fine although teaching a child to respect the opponent when they tap, and barring leg submissions, neck cranks etc until they are either old enough or at a high enough level to practice them safely.

In my opinion not even amateur MMA fights should happen before the age of 16, if not 18. Mainly due to the smaller gloves and lack of good refereeing. Everyone under that age should compete in either standup, wrestling or bjj seperately where the necessary precautions are taken.; July 24, 2008 4:45 PM
Anonymous said...: I think teaching kids this young MMA is totally wrong. someone here said that they are too weak to do any real damage. What about when they grow up? The instructor was right that violence is a mindset and teaching them MMA at this age instills that mindset. They are better off learning a traditional martial art with a solid and developed philosophy behind it or an standard competitive sport if mindset training is what you are after. Frank is a great fighter but in a debate he is definitely out of his element.; July 24, 2008 10:22 PM
kristin said...: parents thrive from seeing their kids compete doesn't matter if its baseball or football or cheerleading, and mma no different. if a child shows interest in the sport than thats a child choice but if a parent enrolls a kid at age 3 then thats wrong. personally i have no problem with kids doing mma as long as they know that it has a time and a place which is not school or the playground but the gym. as for sparing goes the right protective gear should be worn gloves headgear mouth pieces , shin gards ext. and it should have an age limit. other than a few rule changes i'd say go for it.; July 25, 2008 11:50 AM
Anonymous said...: 4 ounce gloves for full-force sparring? That trainer is a moron.; July 25, 2008 12:06 PM
Novan said...: Train them in MMA. Fine. But don't send kids into full contact fights thats frieken moronic. Thats going to ruin it for all mma fans everywhere as soon as politicians have their set eye on it. Not only that, everybody knows kids are fragile and frieken insane when it comes to things like that. You saw what happened, they go in guns ablaze and swinging - no technique (ofcourse), theyd damage eachother more than two adults going at it eachother would.

That trainer is a moron.; July 25, 2008 7:54 PM
MMAcademics said...: i posted a formal response to this here:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/40871-kids-and-mma-review-and-commentary-on-espns-outside-the-lines-piece; July 25, 2008 11:06 PM
Anonymous said...: There really should be some restrictions as far as letting kids do full contact at a certain age. In amateur boxing I think it is 8 or 9 before a kid can actually fight and that is still too young imo.
To me, a good set of rules would be no contact striking until 14-15 and no head shots until 18. Grappling tournaments are fine for children, many of them have no submissions(positional point scoring) for the kids under 10 which is a great idea.
As far as emotional scars, well it depends on the kid and the parent. Each are different. Some kids can be mature enough to accept defeat and learn from a loss the right way, at age 5 or 6, some kids don't have that kind of maturity even in high school so it's purely an individual thing. I remember playing little league baseball at age 6 and one of the coaches would give the whole team tongue lashings for losing a game, but you don't see anyone trying to ban baseball for that reason. Basically it boils down to a cooperation between the instructors and the parents to keep their child as safe as possible while letting them have fun and be kids.; July 26, 2008 2:24 PM
Anonymous said...: Shamrock may be an 'intelligent fighter' but that doesn't mean he's an intelligent guy. I wish they brought in someone more articulate..

anyway, yeah, they both agreed there's nothing wrong with training in martial arts. But MMA isn't just fighting.. it's mixed martial arts. The reason why people can enter the ring and not get killed is because they've training in fighting and self-defense for years... it's hard to make a case that kids are prepared for that kind of contact sport at that age.; July 26, 2008 10:25 PM
Anonymous said...: Kids MMA is fine as long as it is done in a controlled, safe environment and managed by people who know what they are doing. Injuries are extremely rare in this sport. If kids MMA is "child abuse" than anyone who lets their child participate in sports where perminent injury, paralyzation and death are common (such as gymnastics, cheerleading and football)... should be taken out and shot.; February 14, 2009 1:36 PM
Anonymous said...: Gee ,,, I think kids should smoke crack amd weed, join gangs and play video games ,,, it's way better than them doing this horrible sport; February 14, 2009 1:38 PM