Sparring in Kids Class

Thursdays is our sparring class for kids. What’s that mean? It means we put on the gloves and the shin guards and we play. We don’t go hard – and that’s not just because it’s kids class. We don’t go hard in adult class either. We keep our sparring light.
What’s “light” mean? Light to us means touching the head. Light to the body means a hit that can be felt but doesn’t push the body out of alignment. Light to the legs means the same kind of thing – you feel it but it doesn’t hurt.
We believe that in order to learn functional martial arts, there needs to be contact. We also believe that hard contact, especially to the head, and especially in children, is counter productive.
It’s definitely true that the body and legs can adapt to contact – meaning if you train over time, you can get used to harder contact – but that’s only something we do in adult classes and even there we take our time, never cross anyone’s limits, and never go hard to the head.
Interested in our kids martial arts classes? Check out the schedule here.