Some People’s Children – The Sequel

I honestly don’t even know how to start this post. A “back in my day…” story? A simple explanation of the event that led to these thoughts? A parable of sorts to explain what happened in lay terms? I’m honestly just at a loss of words. Let my try the positive sandwich approach.

I think having kids in martial arts, specifically Jiu-Jitsu is great. I can’t imagine anything else that I could do as a parent that has as much impact as training with my kids in Jiu-Jitsu. But watching them come up in the program, you can see at a certain age, usually that pre-teen, tween, yearly teenage years, they need to move to a different level. They need to experience being essentially at the bottom of the food chain once again. Right there in that 12-14 year age range. So I don’t disagree with having these tweenaged kids move up to adult class.

But now that I think about it, this story has nothing to do with those kids. These kids signed up too late to go through the kids program, and may be why the issue came about. If they had grown up in the kids program, maybe this situation would have been avoided.

So this story goes, while coach was demonstrating one of the variations of our move of the day, we happened to be off centered on the mat, closer to one side than the other. The details of the moves were focused around the top half of the coach and uke, it was a move from closed guard, so most of the students were located somewhere between the coach’s 10 and 2 o’clock with maybe a few of the more experienced in the group closer to the 3 or 9 o’clock to give up the better real-estate for those who needed to see more of the details.

All the way across the mat, at the coach’s 6 o’clock, there sat two teens against the wall, having a conversation. Clearly in no position to observe the move, and clearly uninterested by what was happening over yonder. Coach noticed and addressed them, pretty much telling them to stop talking and to move to a position they could actually see the move being done.

Both of these teens were relatively new, one newer than the other and just so happened to be members of the opposite genders. But regardless of whether or not their intention was flirtatious or otherwise, the question begs to be answered, who would do that? I don’t know too much about theses kids, but here’s what I do know based on my keen observation skills:

One of them has a background in a traditional martial arts. Their reason for trying out our gym was that the traditional dojo claimed to have an MMA program, but like many traditional gyms that include MMA or grappling, the program was clearly a McDojo dollar menu item. That’s how this person landed in our gym. The other is a high school wrestler, or at least the t-shirt choices would lead you to believe it.

Here’s what else I know, traditional martial arts are very… traditional. Strict. Disciplined. I know, because in another life, I trained in a traditional, very strict, very disciplined martial art. Thinking back, I can’t imagine the hell that would have rained down on us if we were caught leisurely sitting against the back wall, shootin’ the breeze while the sensei was instructing on something. I’d say the same for public school, but we all know what a crap show the majority of those have become, so I honestly wouldn’t be surprised that the other kid’s lack of discipline was learned at public school. All that to say, at least one of these kids should have known better, but I guess hormones got the best of them.

The kicker. After we drilled that move, coach called us back in to add or fix details. The coach was relatively in the same position, and so were the tweens. You’d think being corrected by the coach once would be enough to pull your head out of your ass and do the right thing. But I suppose I am expecting too much from that generation.

… I said I was going to use the positive sandwich… something positive… something positive… I mean, I guess they listened that one time…

Also, in my first episode of “Some People’s Children,” (I didn’t know it was to become a series), I haven’t seen those people’s children come back. I guess that’s a positive too.

Thanks for reading.