Martial Arts or Team Sports: What is Best For Your Kid?

Martial arts and team sports are two of the best ways to instill and develop many qualities in a person, particularly in children. You can get many benefits by exercising them, such as discipline, confidence, and dealing with difficult situations. But choosing one of them is always a very difficult choice. This creates confusion for the parents who want to choose the best for their child. Being a parent, you should know what is better for your child. Both can have their pros and cons, but which one has less cons and more pros? That is the real question or confusion, and let’s try to solve the confusion. The article will make it clear for you to understand which one is best, so that you can know what to choose for your child: martial arts or team sports.

• Martial arts include the traditions and codified systems of combat, which are practiced by individuals from children to the elderly for different reasons. These can include, but are not limited to, the learning of street fighting, instilling confidence and discipline, and taking it as an international career.

• It can include boxing, wrestling, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and many other arts that are practiced worldwide. In almost every nationality, people practice their own martial arts that have been passed down for a long time. So there are hundreds of martial arts in the world, but only some of them have become so famous that they have made themselves on the world level, and people from all over the world take part in competitions held annually or biannually.

Team sports are a type of sport in which a specific number of people play or work together in groups. These groups are known as the teams, and they all have one specific goal and put their efforts in that direction to achieve the goal. It can be any sport in which more than two people work or play together.

Martial arts are very beneficial for kids in a lot of ways. Some of the benefits are given as follows:

Children or any person who trains in martial arts have to follow the structured routine or format. This develops certain qualities in them, one of which is discipline. This translates to real life as well, and we all know how important it is for us to be successful in our careers or anything that we want to achieve.

Another thing parents should teach their children is to show respect to everyone. The respect culture is one of the most prominent in the martial arts. Your child will learn the techniques from the trainers or coaches, seniors, and other colleagues. This will develop respect, and ultimately, they will start giving respect to every person they meet.

All adults have one thing in common, and that is taking responsibility for their families or any work they are doing. They have to do it all alone with little to no support from others. So being responsible is the key quality everyone should have. This can be learnt at a small age by training in the martial arts. In the training, children are learning at their own pace. They can do it slowly, intermediate, or at a fast pace. It all depends on themselves. They are in full charge of their learning process. So this teaches them a sense of responsibility, and this helps a lot in their later life.

Martial arts are also beneficial for the kids in making them work toward a goal and keeping them motivated. This develops a sense of making a goal and trying to reach it at such a small age. They have a goal to get promoted to the next belt, and for this, they keep on trying and learn the techniques. With every technique learnt, they get motivated. They are getting the real time results of their efforts. If the results are not satisfactory, they will try to improve their efforts, and if they are up to the mark, they get motivated, and this keeps them going.

All martial arts have a unique ranking system that classifies the trainees or practitioners according to their skill levels. So, from the start, the child tries to move ahead and improve their skill level. For this, they need to work very hard in learning the techniques, moves, and strategies. So this continuously improves them and also develops the habit of doing hard work.

• Many children face difficulty focusing on anything they are doing, particularly their studies. While they are studying or doing something important, their mind gets distracted and they are thinking or planning about other things. This is very common in children, and this is the major reason they get behind others in studies or any other thing you want them to do. But you have a very good solution to deal with this problem, and that is the martial arts.

• Martial arts pass a child through a programmed or structured routine or format, which develops the habit of focusing on an act or work they are doing. Martial arts demand focus, and if you cannot focus, you cannot learn anything at all. You will be wasting time without focus. So children have no option other than focusing on the technique or move they are learning. So this teaches them how to keep their focus for a long time.

• Martial arts also play a very important role in the emotional balance of practitioners. Although this might not be a very good effect for children, it is very beneficial for the adults who suffer from emotional instability. This is common in adults as they often remain stressed due to work overload or friends and family problems. Among the children, the common emotional problem is that they often get panicked in tough situations, such as during school exams. So there is a need for them to learn to keep their emotions in balance. This can be done by training in martial arts. The reason behind this is that they go through different types of environments, such as tough and challenging, calm and panic situations.

• They are experiencing a number of unique environments, which are very useful in helping them adapt to a different set of situations, ranging from easy to difficult. This helps a child to learn to respond positively to difficult situations and keep themselves calm and relaxed to better deal with the situation. It also enables and teaches them how they can think clearly, strategically, and positively under any pressure and tough situations. In martial arts, you are not always winning. Sometimes you lose, while at other times you make a tie, but in all these matches, you are learning continuously. The child also learn to control their emotions after losing against their opponent. This replicates in their real life as well, and they control themselves after any defeat in their daily life.

Now you know about many ways in which martial arts are beneficial for kids. But there are also a lot of benefits that kids can get by getting themselves into team sports. Some of the ways in which team sports can be beneficial for your kids are as follows:

• The first and probably the most important thing that team sports can develop in your child is collaboration, i.e., teamwork. You are not always doing all of the work by yourself. In many cases, such as in your office routine, you are doing work with other people. All of you are working on one single task. So you need to do teamwork.

• If you cannot do teamwork, then you will not be able to complete the given task. Team sports teach this very effectively. Take the example of soccer. All players try at the same time towards achieving only one target, and that is to score a goal. Can a single person do that alone against a complete team? Certainly not! Teamwork is very crucial in scoring the goal. So in many cases, teamwork is very necessary, and you can learn that from team sports.

• Effective communication is a very important quality that we all should know how to do. Effective here means that we are communicating clearly, and the other person can clearly understand our message. It can be through verbal or non-verbal means. Nonverbal cues can include signals using our hands and faces. So whether we are communicating verbally or non-verbally, the main thing is that our message must be clear and understandable. Your child needs to develop this quality, and they can easily learn this with the help of playing team-based sports such as cricket and football.

• In these sports, players are very far from each other, and most of the time, they use nonverbal communication. They signal to convey their message to the other person,i.e., their teammates. They have to do this in a very short span of time, for example, signaling someone to catch the ball, and the other person needs to understand the signal very fast and clearly. So you are learning two things at the same time, which involve communicating effectively and understanding the other person clearly.

There are many instances in our lives in which we have to trust another person, even though we don’t want to do it. We have to share some tasks and responsibilities with the people, particularly in the office culture. This can also be learnt by playing in team sports. You do some work and then you divert it towards your teammate to do the remaining part of the work, and so this continues the chain of doing the work partly and shifting it towards the teammates by trusting them. So the team sport teaches us to trust others and share our responsibilities with them for the effective accomplishment of the task. These things that children learn are applied to their daily lives as well, such as their school projects.

Team sports are very effective in developing friendships and a sense of belonging to others. People who are social and love to interact with others enjoy this game a lot. On the other hand, introverted people who do not like hanging out with others and being social can also experience the joy and excitement in getting social with others. So, overall, team sport is a very social and enjoyable concept, and you can make many friends.

Let’s compare team sports and martial arts and decide which one is the best:

Now you know about the benefits of martial arts and team sports for your child. There are some benefits that your child can get when they are playing team sports. But there are a lot of things that you can do through martial arts training. Martial arts are more like a balance. It provides you with many benefits that are unique, but also those that you can get from team sports. So ideally, you should choose the martial arts for your children.