Should a child compete in Martial Arts?

If I have an adult ask me “Do you think I should compete?” they probably should not.

Those who should are those who feel as if they have no choice.

Just as water has no choice but to be wet.


Should they not be that person, they are competing for some perceived secondary incentives.

They have decided competing is good for them.

That it may grow their confidence.

Build their self-image

Or that the validation they desire exists on the podium.

And who knows, it could be the case.

These are not bad things, nor is anyone bad for wanting them.

It is just that such people are not competing for the purity of the fight itself.

And the intention to gain something will be very thing preventing them from accessing the complete extent of their talents when they compete.

Pressure and anxiety build leading up to the event.

All competitors feel it.

But those who believe there is something to gain or lose… feel it much more.

They may attempt to build themselves up by trying to imbibe someone else’s words and affirmations.

Glue which cannot hold someone up for long.

Then, before or during the competition, when they feel stress and/or consider the possibility of defeat, they do not perform at their best.

They will reach a limit and want it to be over.

You see this even at Black Belt World Championships.

A great athlete will reach a point in the bracket where even if they lose, they will still receive 3rd or 2nd place, be satisfied with having medaled, and fizzle out.

And so those who win competitions are not always the most technical or skillful ones in the division.

Competition is a showcase not of skill or talent, but of who can perform the best while carrying a hundred pounds on their backs.


It is also what can make it interesting to observe.

Unless someone feels as if they have no choice but to compete, they are not missing out on anything by not competing, for what is gained is always temporary.

Not much is different with children.

A lot of people believe that children are missing out by not competing.

That they are missing out on the opportunity to be on stage, receive attention, and have everyone observe and recognize just how special they really are.

There are much better avenues to experience such things, for competition is conditioning and limitation.

A child who follows an effective approach to learning, then loses, is conditioned away from it.

A child who follows an ineffective approach and wins will have it affirmed.

It is often the case that, as a child wins event after event, they continue following the exact formula to win, and their technical evolution slows to a crawl.

They chase the feeling of winning and become averse to anything that could result in failure or a mistake—which is how most of us learn and evolve.

As competitions lump kids together with varying degrees of experience, kids learn not to strategize, but to attack spastically

Not to see the value of the experience, but to be concerned with time, points, brackets, winning, and losing

Not to be more skillful, but more aggressive.

Those responsible for these students believe competition builds a child up— that it is “good for them”.

But the truth is nobody knows what is good for a child.

One type of stimulus has a hundred different possibilities for how it will be internalized.

What could be considered as gains are just as temporary as the medal that was once proudly displayed but now sits in a box in the closet.


In understanding this, should a student wish to compete, that is great.

But it is not something I have advocated for in some time.

Children are free birds dancing along the sky.

Those of us senior to them are the ones trapped on the ground looking up at them.

Competition will not allow for 99.9% of them to soar any higher.

It does however have the potential to clip their wings so they may join us on the rugged terrain.

It may be the right thing for the right child, but not for most.