Seven ways that Martial Arts Training Strengthens the Family
Sparks Common Interest
Generational gaps have existed for thousands of years. Each generation has different priorities and focusing on these priorities can create degrees of isolation. Just like working out in the gym can be a lonesome experience, working out with others, who participate in martial arts classes with a spouse and/or their kids find the activities far more engaging. Interest is sparked as adults learn martial arts disciplines alongside their children such as Tang Soo Do or traditional weapons training.
The shared excitement hardly stops in the martial arts classes. Rather, the thrill is amplified for the whole family when they participate in annual tournaments, and competitions. Families can be in different classes as they work toward competition but experience the same exhilaration of learning the martial arts.
Strengthens The Family Unit
The emotional bonds between family members are strengthened when they train in the martial arts together. Comparisons can be made to eating dinner as a family at home. Martial arts classes are just as effective in helping to forge healthy relationships between family members. Having a common activity that can be discussed without the family unit hierarchy.
Families absorb the same material during martial arts classes where parents kick and throw punches with their kids. Bonding through joint activities is far more meaningful and impressive than when parents discuss video games or ask random questions about their children’s schoolwork.
Unbreakable bonds develop while the entire family participates in martial arts classes, lifelong memories for each family member are also simultaneously created. Once the children reach adulthood, they will have fond memories to look back upon about the shared time spent with their parents.
These unshakable memories are forged as Mom or Dad helps a son or daughter develop his or her full potential while fulfilling the rigorous yet gratifying demands of studying the martial arts. Parents focus on training for blackbelts alongside their children, which is an unforgettable, positive experience.
Improve Performance Across the Board
An undeniable advantage of family time while training in the martial arts is that the wholesome benefits extend beyond the classes. Young children perform better at school because of discovering the importance of learning. They also become skilled in team-oriented projects.
Just as kids learn about teamwork and improve their confidence through martial arts classes, parents acquire positive interpersonal skills. Practicing healthy interactions with the family is essential to applying them to relationships outside of the family unit. Teamwork is built in martial arts classes.
Additional performance-related achievements that result from participating in martial arts classes include improved focus and concentration in both adults and children. Young students also learn to respect authority figures, like their parents, which is among the many beneficial outcomes of martial arts training.
Martial arts classes significantly enhance physical fitness for both kids and their parents. Obesity rates are high. Participating in physical activities through the martial arts helps reduce the chances of adults and their children succumbing to physical or mental health challenges.
A unique feature of the martial arts is that students train any day of the year. Unlike some activities, martial arts training is a year-round activity. When families learn the martial arts together, they continue all year long and for several years, while enjoying the physical and mental benefits.
Stress Relief
It is not surprising that adults experience stresses that result from work-related situations. But children, too, feel fear and frustration, such as at school. Learning a Self Defense Based Martial Art after work and after school is a major stress buster for both parents and their children.
By pursuing vigorous exercises in martial arts classes, parents and their kids learn to appropriately handle their work- or school-related frustrations and stresses together. Emotions are practiced and dealt with in the safe environment of martial arts training centers. Students grow mentally.
As a result of practicing emotions, like anger, fear and anxiety, in the constructive space of a martial arts school, students are less likely to have behavioral problems. As martial arts students stretch their limbs, they also stretch their mental capacities—leading to a more richly rewarding life.
SMART Goal Setting
When families train together in the martial arts, the situation becomes automatically supportive. Just as parents motivate their children, the reverse occurs just as often. Goals, like advancing to the next rank, are set. The whole family motivates each other to reach their desired goals.
Practicing martial arts also occurs at home when classes are not in session. At home, Mom or Dad have ample opportunity to encourage their kids to excel and vice versa. The shared classes help each family member understand the challenges involved and take the steps necessary to overcome them.
Parents can demonstrate through their own training goals how setting Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time Sensitive (SMART) goals are important to completing tasks as well as understanding how to adjust goals when needed.
Training Builds Overall Awareness of Self and Others
This can be a challenging world and taking the team approach to awareness is a must. How many times have to been to the grocery store and witnessed a child in “full meltdown” mode and the parent or caregiver is at wits end regarding the child. The caregiver is distracted by the child and possibly could be targeted for an attack of sorts. It may only be a purse snatching, but it is still a robbery.
Learning scenario-based self-defense you learn vital awareness tactics that not only help the individual, but the family as well. You learn how to best assess situations as a team, while at the same time using that experience to see improvements individually.
Awareness is a critical aspect of self-defense. Learning self-defense skills as a family opens up the opportunity to have a more extensive conversation between parents and children about the appropriate use of force. Keeping in mind that in most instances targets are alone when they are attacked and since every situation is different, children need to know where the lines of appropriate response are drawn.
Opens Lines of Communication
Probably one of the biggest benefits of training together as a family is the long term affects training has on open lines of communication. The shared experience, especially if the family trains and advances together, creates a level of mutual respect and compassion that might not otherwise occur in the traditional family unit, where Mom and Dad are the authority figures. That fact never really goes away when training as a family but peer based communication is greatly enhanced. This communication actually sets the stage for communications later in life should children end up becoming caregivers for parents.
I can speak from personal experience that training with my daughters brought us much closer from a communication standpoint. I find that communications are much more open and less judgmental.
Join Us
When you or your child are ready to experience the many advantages of learning and practicing the martial arts, look no further than Ponte Vedra Martial Arts Academy and Master Bill’s team of certified Master Instructors for group classes and personal training. Our students develop mental and physical strength and learn invaluable self-defense techniques.
Ponte Vedra Martial Arts Academy offers a range of martial arts for kids, martial arts for teens, and martial arts for adults, as well as scenario based self-defense training and traditional weapons training. We also offer a popular martial arts based after-school program to meet the preferences and interests of students.