Teach Jiu Jitsu before maths!
This is not a post about how martial arts can stop bullying. This goes deeper.
We know there are problems with our school system. We know there are increasing mental health problems in our students. We know there is something that has to be done. But what?
As an introduction read this scenario for a start of a school day:
Imagine your first class is to survive an arm attack and learn how to attack someone's arm. You finish your first class. You feel really good and ready for the day. A peace comes over you. You sit down for a maths lesson. You don’t mind not knowing the answer because you know at some point you will understand. You trust yourself. Your peers in the classroom are ready to help you. You are confident and ready.
Imagine if every child in the country had this kind of morning. Imagine your child having this kind of morning.
What is BJJ and where did it come from?
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) is a grappling-based martial art whose central theme is the skill of controlling a resisting opponent in ways that force him to submit. (1)
The history of BJJ is fascinating originating from Japan, brought over to teach the Brazilian military and then migrating to the US with the Gracie family and contributing to what is now known as the UFC. There are some brilliant books by Rickson Gracie (2) and others on the history of BJJ which I will not dive into here.
In a nutshell, BJJ is a way of inflicting pain onto someone to submit them and I believe that it should be taught in all schools.
How is BJJ used today?
BJJ today is taught in over 300 member clubs in the UK with many competitions held throughout the year. It has grown in popularity over the last 10 years for the competitor and the hobbyist.
Like all sports and organisations BJJ has its own politics. Discussion like whether it should be a self-defence discipline or a sport OR clubs stealing/recruiting its members OR the discussion on what competition rules to follow AND even the colour of the belts. (3, 4)
However, today, I want to stick to the purity and the beautiful aspects of this discipline and why I think BJJ should be introduced into the school curriculum.
I think we should teach BJJ before maths!
Here are 7 reasons why BJJ must be taught in school
Staying Humble
‘There’s always a bigger fish,’
Qui-Gon Jinn, Star Wars.
There is always someone better than you. Someone knows a little more, can move faster, or apply more pressure. Some days you will be on fire and everything will go your way and other days you will be at your worst.
Staying humble and realising that you are always learning is such a powerful thing. Think about how many fights and arguments people have had over the years because their ego has gotten the better of them. They hold their ideas so fixed that they are not flexible enough to realise that they could be wrong or change their perspective.
Staying humble in school
Children don’t usually go to school thinking that they know everything. They already know that they are there to learn and the teacher might know a little more than them. So how does staying humble apply in school?
Encouraging healthy debates. We need debates on gender equality, political ideologies and the power of sugar. Starting a debate having a fixed idea or belief is great, but understanding someone else's perspective and being humble to their ideas is very powerful.
You need a training partner
BJJ is not like Taekwondo or Kickboxing where there is an element of pad work. And yes, for sure you need someone to hold the pads for you. But BJJ is much more intimate. You need a training partner to practise a technique, drill or roll (spar) with. If you don’t have one, you are not getting better. So it is in your benefit to train with someone and do it well. That means be respectful towards them, stopping when they ask you to stop and matching the intensity that is required.
Anyone who has trained BJJ knows when they have found a good training partner or a range of training partners it levels up your game, as everyone brings something different to the mats.
A training partner in school
I think that this would eliminate bullying. Of course there will always be someone in the class who is better and stronger but they will not get any better if they take advantage of their peers as they will stop practising with them.
The intimacy for training BJJ creates a bond, a friendship or partnership. Friendship groups will become stronger. It sounds counter intuitive that beating someone up will make them closer friends.
To start and stop
In BJJ you start a roll with a high five and/or a fist pump. You stop when the buzzer sounds or your opponent taps your body to signify pain or discomfort. You reset and you go again.
Stopping and starting in school
How many times do things continue on/ A fight might start outside and then it comes into the classroom, there is no ‘letting go.’ The ego is holding on.
Starting and stopping on the mats require both opponents to be ready. They both have chosen to be there. They both know the rules of engagement. Learning to stop and start for children is a hard lesson to learn. The boy that comes off the football pitch that has lost the game will not let it go.
The moment a roll stops is a beautiful moment. The child that has won must respect the child that has lost and they show this by stopping and releasing their partner. They high five and they start again.
Give up and start again
This is similar to being humble. There will be moments where your opponent has dominated you and there is no way out. You have a choice, get put to sleep or tap. Learning to give up and starting over is a skill that many find difficult.
Learning to give up and start again in school
Many children learn this when they start writing. They realise how they have started is rubbish and they want to start again.
Knowing that the answer will not come the first time you try something can be very frustrating. Some children will not even start because they know they won’t get the answer. They freeze, sometimes it looks like a ‘behavioural problem’ as they refuse to start.
Learning to persevere and giving up are two sides of the same coin.
Going into a darkspace
There are moments when you are rolling where you are suffering. You can barely breathe. The pain of an arm bar is just about to get the better of you. The pressure you can feel on your sternum is about to impale you. But somewhere you find silence. Somewhere you find a bit of peace. You find your breath. You find a gap. You move.
Going into a darkspace teaches you that you don’t have to give up. It teaches you perseverance, that somewhere in the discomfort there is a moment of learning about yourself. That you can do it. It is such a powerful lesson and one that repeats itself. This does not happen every session but once in a while the lesson surfaces.
Learning to go into a darkspace at school
This is a lesson that every child needs to have. It teaches you something about yourself. It teaches you not to panic. Wow! How do you teach that? I can teach the possessive apostrophes to a class of 30 but how can you teach a class on not to panic?
The answer through the discomfort.
In the moment. You are surviving!
There are no hiding places here. This is a form of controlled survival. The thoughts you had a moment ago whether they are good or bad have gone. The person in front of you is out to put you to sleep, or break something. You won’t let them.
Mental health, if I were to put it very simplistically, is just a voice/thoughts in your head. Where it can get negative is when you spend too much time up there and for some reason the negativity seems to outway the positivity. However, when you are faced with someone, all that goes away and you are fully present. You are alive in your body. Your body is speaking to you and you are listening.
In the moment- you are surviving in school
The amount of desk time children face in a school day is ridiculous. Students are constantly in their heads. Forest schools, PE lessons and break times get children out of their chairs and physically moving, but the power of being present is something very difficult to teach (in a maths lesson).
A stoic quote come to mind:
“If you are in a bad mood go for a walk. If you are still in a bad mood go for another walk.” (5)
Hippocrates
This quote simply implies that using your body gets you out of your mind. And we all need a bit of this from time to time.
We know there has been an increase in mental health over the last few years, why? Well we all have our own opinions. But maybe we just need to spend a little less time in our heads and start to DO more.
Problem solving
Imagine you’ve got someone on top of you. You are trying to remember a sweep that you learnt from today's class, but it’s just not going your way. What are you going to do? You will have to find a way to get this great big lump off you. The definition of problem solving.
Learning a skill/technique/method. Applying the skill in different conditions. Trial and error. Feedback from your partner. Feedback from your coach. Reset and repeat. If there is one thing that happens in every BJJ class I have ever gone to is this!
Learning problem solving in school
There are lots of academic problem solving in school but are there enough physical ones? I say, no and we need more.
Summary
Something needs to change in our education system. I walk into some schools and I feel they are like holding pens until 3:30pm.
Just imagine if all our primary and secondary children learnt BJJ what would it look like. How would the day be organised? What would the feeling of the school be? The relationships of the students.
The title suggests that we should learn BJJ before maths. This could be BJJ at 9am and maths at 10am. OR, students could learn BJJ for the first 3 years and maths the following years. Whatever your interpretation, I think we should introduce BJJ, wrestling, and kickboxing into our curriculum.
It seems counterintuitive but learning how to fight prevents the fight from happening AND you learn a whole lot of skills about yourself along the way.
