Pros and Cons of Martial Arts Practice for Children

Martial arts, which was originated from Japan, Korea, and China as forms of self-defense, attack, competition, health and fitness, entertainment as well as spiritual and mental development. Today's children exposed to an increasing number of stress and expectations. While research on improving student education is conventional, there may not be enough emphasis in some non-academic sources of their development, such as the related constructs of self-concept and self-esteem while research shows these characteristics to be necessary to childhood development and academic performance. Therefore, both teachers and counselors may benefit children who are suffering from low self-concept. In recent years method to improve people in some areas of development was due to practicing of martial arts (Prince, 1996). While there is some research regarding martial arts and self-concept, there is little controlled experimental data regarding children specifically. This study will attempt to measure the benefits of martial arts training, specifically self-concept and physical fitness. Martial arts can be an effective means of behavioral therapy in treating physical and psychological disorders.

Practicing martial arts early in childhood helps to physical development. The improvement of motor skills leaning towards the individuality of the sportive area is one of the central aspects of the future development of the athlete performance capacity (Pricop, 2018). Initiating sports at an early age increases the possibility of results from physical improvement and talent recognition in corporal development (Ma, 2019). From Pricop perspective the training components to improve fitness for children, in order to obtain elevated indices of personal and group preparation in competitive activity, has some intrinsic characteristics that promote a perspective of achieving an elevated performance level. According to Pricop, “physical training promotes an important role in the multifaceted composition of the sports training, influencing the method of training throughout all process. It must balance consistently for each of the abilities that martial arts practice at performance level requires”.

Starting martial arts at infancy helps mental development. Athletes psychological ability preparation establishes as a vital part of triumph in combats. Other factors as physical, strategic, and technical increase the success of the mind in order to achievement in the competition (Blumentein and Orbach, 2012). In the early stage, the body and mental structure are still in expansion and practice sport at this phase promotes a better cognitive development. For example, in judo, the essential psychological skills are assurance, expectation, attention, self-concept, and self-discipline. As judo, for the psychological skills for taekwondo are self-control, focus, self-assurance, expectancy, and competitiveness (Blumentein and Orbach, 2012). During the combat is expected that athlete can respond quickly with elevated levels of consistency. According to Blumenstein and Orbach “in taekwondo, there are several pauses between rounds, and in judo, there is pauses only between the matches. During these pauses, it orients the athlete to focus on some self-adjusts action in order to 'psych up' after the pause” (2012, p.13). During martial practices the change from one stable state to another goes around 5-10 scenes, turning 10-30 sec in both stages. The order of each scene may be of importance, depending, among other things, on the athlete's preferences in order to achieve good results. Combat sports usually function under energetic situations which require diverse uses of cognitive processes, such as anticipating actions made by the adversary and responding quickly to their actions.

Martial arts practice can cause diversified levels of injuries to children. During the training or competition, children movements can be executed in an imprecise way, causing injury themselves or the adversary, and it can be prejudicial for their body. According to Demorest (2016) “every martial fighter executes body movements, which are individualized continuous practice of actions, using startling blocking techniques, and probable use of weapons with no contact with items or other performers” (p.02). Most of those techniques developed during the combat require a concentration of movement, even using equipment to prevent injury as softy equipment to the body cannot be useful as protection. In general, martial arts injuries are not abrasions damage they can cause contusion as sprains and strains, but fractures in neck injuries and concussions do occur (Demorest, 2016). Some martial sports can cause more injury if compared with other sports with the same modality. Judo is traditional martial sports that focus strategy on taking the opponent down by using their weight against themselves. The younger players confusions are more common related in judo than karate that because judo techniques are more prevalent to cause loss of consciousness (Demorest, 2016). Practicing sports that involve physical contact can increase the chances to be injured during the game. From Demorest (2016) idea “injury percentage tends to be superior in beginners competitors if compared with professionals at the same modality”.

Martial arts have a great support system to money-minting business for the masters and athletes in the game. This money-making mindset has developed in the field of Street-fights to earn money by betting the game(Burke, 2017). Another disadvantage is that children get a false idea of security, and this means that their confidence level rises to aggression simply because they think they know how to throw a punch or a kick professionally If not taken well care, a child may become aggressive even for a small incident (Burke, 2017). That would be incredibly wrong. For example, children with these skills tend to bully others because they know they can fight. Therefore, as much as martial arts is an excellent program for children if not well monitored, it can get into disaster in society. Because at their age, they usually cannot think wisely and commit mistakes because of their unstable emotions. However, commercialization of martial arts opened the door to all kind of scams and money traps. It became a difficult situation where it is difficult to identify the instructors from money-hungry ones from others. In this 21st century, many self-proclaimed masters create their style, which is dangerous and fraudulent. 

Finally, as there are pros and cons for every aspect in life, trained in martial arts pros outweighs its cons because self-defense is a skill which is always overlooked skill in the society. The ability to protect oneself is required to keep ourselves defend from bullying and physical attacks. In the age of the bullying epidemic, one should have skills to be physical and mentally healthy. Essential values and principles, such as self-concept and confidence, will be learned while practicing martial arts. Today’s children face many phases in life, so it necessary to teach them fundamental principles of martial arts which help them to grow positively in life. At last martial arts inculcate discipline and responsibility in children who sense more than all adverse effects. Mostly aggression and other things come to the human mind when they are stress out and overthink to a problem so martial arts can help people to overcome those problems as well.

References

1. Blumenstein, B., and Orbach, I. (2012). Mental practice in sport: twenty case studies New York Nova Science Publishers.
2. Burke, J. P., Ellison, G. C. & Hunt, J. P.. (2017). Measuring Academic Self-Concept in Children: Comparison of Two Scales. Psychology in the Schools, 22, July, 260-264.
3. Demorest, R. A., Koutures, C. (2016). Youth Participation and Injury Risk in Martial Arts pediatrics, 138(6), 1-11. Doi:10.1542/peds.2016-3022.
4. Drid, P. (2016). Science and Medicine in Combat Sports. New York, NY: Hauppauge.
5. Light, R. (2016). Children, Young People, and Sport: Studies on Experience and Meaning. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
6. Ma, P. T. (2019). The Way and Environment of Physical Training of Canadian Athletes and Inspiration. The Way and Environment of Physical Training of Canadian Athletes and Inspiration., 4249–4256.
7. Pricop, G. (2018). The importance of Physical Sports Preparation for Children Practitioners of Martial Arts. Annals of the “Ştefan Cel Mare” University: Physical Education and Sport Section - The Science and Art of Movement,56-63. Retrieved August 22, 2019, from https://doaj.org/article/247983aa0bad457c955e8dbb4ce55638.
8. Prince, D. S. (1996). Self-concept in Martial Arts Students, Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering, 57(2- B), 1451.