BJJ Petition Against Child Competition

So, someone started a petition at change.org to lobby for legislation that will prevent children under age 12 from participating in BJJ competitions. Seems ridiculous to me, but wanted to see what others here thought about it.

 

What is their complaint? Is it someone who does Bjj?

 

Well, it's actually less of a ban on competition in general; I apologize for overstating that aspect.

It's a request to ban submission holds from competitions for them.

There was one comment on there that eluded to the person that started the petition as being a martial arts instructor.

Here's the petition text:

"A large national industry has emerged that charges money for children to engage in MMA or submission grappling style matches that allow children under the age of 12 to apply chokeholds to other young children.

If the referee is poor, this can result in permanent harm to the child. Even if the referee stops the match quickly, children's brains are still developing, and deliberately cutting off the blood supply to a child's brain is a dangerous and ridiculously negligent practice.

These same tournaments often allow children to apply joints locks to the wrists, elbows, shoulders, knees, ankles, or neck until the child "submits" from the pain of the lock. If these locks are applied with too much force or for too long, lasting damage to the child's joints can occur.

Other grappling sports such as Folkstyle Wrestling have long ago labeled these moves as "Potentially Dangerous" and not suitable to be applied to children.

Judo similarly has long ago made chokes and armlocks illegal to apply in competition for kids under the age of 12.

These children are not old enough to drive, do not have the judgement necessary to apply these holds with due care or recognize when holding out too long before tapping could cause them permanent harm.

Young children are entered into these tournaments to please their parents and win trophies for their coaches, and do not have the capacity to "opt out".

They are sometimes encouraged by their parents or coaches not to "tap early".

These tournaments and all the fundamental skills they have to teach could still fulfill their function if chokeholds and submission holds were made illegal for children under the age of 12, and the matches were decided by the points scored from takedowns, positional controls, and transitions (almost all of these tournaments already have such point systems in place that allow a match to be won even in the absence of a submission hold).

Most disturbingly, as children become trained to apply these holds routinely, they are more likely to apply these holds in situations where there is no parent, no coach, and no referee present when they are fooling around with their friends.

Coaches should be training children not to apply these holds and stressing their potential danger, not training children that they are go to moves during grappling matches or altercations with other children.

Applying chokeholds or submission locks to children under the age of 12 during competitive sporting events should be illegal for all of these reasons as they provide no societal good, put a vulnerable population at risk of harm, and could lead to an increase of children choking other children when adults are not present to provide a stoppage to such holds, if they are drilled as "go to" moves during their regular practice."

 

I agree with the petition.

 

Lol absolutely ridiculous. When kids fight in matches I've seen it gets stopped once the ref sees the position. Arm bar for instance gets stopped once it is on. They get DQ'd if they crank it.

Sounds like butt hurt TKD instructors.

 

For exactly the same reasons, I propose that in children's TKD competitions they be banned from kicking each other.

 

Because that is exactly what Jiu Jitsu needs, more point based competition.

 

Are there any stats on injuries in BJJ competitions for the under-12s?

Call me fussy, but I like a side of data with my hysteria.

 

data would be nice. but doesn't seem really that out of band to have some semblance of rules for kids. while i don't remember exactly, i'm pretty sure there were some things we could not do as children wrestlers. i'll have to look up my states rules, but i seem to remember there were some changes depending on age.

what does the ijf do? i haven't been able to find any rules specific to that age category.

 

In Judo, no subs for under 14s normally.

But without data, such bans are ridiculous. If there is evidence that allowing submissions for under 12s puts them at an unreasonable risk of injury, then of course they should be banned, but if such evidence doesn't exist, then a ban makes no sense.

 

ok so here's my question, and i'm not trying to argue or place devil's advocate or be obtuse or anything else...lol...

but how do you generate data on kids getting hurt? is it by kids getting hurt? should we just in general be more careful when kids are participating in sports, just to be more careful because of their developing bodies?

i really don't know. i've got three boys myself, so that's why i'm asking.

cheers.

 

IBBJF would be have a statistic I would imagine.

 

hmmm, interesting. I wonder when Judo stopped allowing locks and armbars? When I trained as a kid we were not allowed to use chokes in competition but locks were ok....that would have been in the dark ages somewhere around the early 80s.

 

I say make entry into the adult absolute mandatory for the under 12s and allow leg locks.

 

Some good points mixed in with a lot of rhetoric...be interesting to see if any data is available that backs up any of his points

 

They're banned from kicking to the head and wear body armour to protect the body.

Much safer.

 

That sounds really boring.

 

In kids BJJ they're not allowed to crank or complete submissions and the ref stops the match as soon as the they get the position. What about when your dangerous TKD kids think it's OK to kick other children in the playground and inevitably blast them into a fine dust with the terrifying power of their techniques?

 

i really don't understand why it's so offensive to be somewhat cognizant of safety when it comes to kids' sports.