"It's not who's good, it's who's left"- Chris Hauter

I've been doing a new series of videos on the Kyuzo instagram page on Kids coaching. It is, after all, that time of year where parents' start to think about September and what activities their kids are going to do for the coming academic year. The most recent of them was talking about "Talented kids".

Most kids, even those who are serious about the sport of Jiu Jitsu (or any other sport), will train a few times a week, enjoy it, and then not think about it much the rest of the week. They'll play football, go to dancing lessons, go to their guitar lessons, or, if they're like my kids, occasionally sit on their consoles and shout at the TV.

Their parents treat Jiu Jitsu as it should be treated- a great sport that teaches a lot of great things as a part of a balanced lifestyle.

But when you then go to tournaments, or even perhaps scroll through your instagram, there are kids whose parents take the sport very seriously. You might have seen them. They'll have the best gear, perhaps with a personalised Kimono and rashguard, they dominate the division, and increasingly, they have a parent run (how could it be other?) online profile with pictures, training footage, inspirational quotes- the lot.

(There's an ethical question to be answered about the online stuff in terms of privacy and data, but we'll leave that for another time.)

Are these kids "Talented?"

At first glance, they seem to be. After all, they're winning the divisions, often easily and impressively. Surely that's the signifier of talent? Success? Winning?

But a glimpse beneath the bonnet (I refuse to say "under the hood") will normally show you a child training an high amount for a young kid- perhaps 5 or 6 times per week. A glance at their opponent's routines will give you some contrast- the usual training schedule for a Jiu Jitsu club for under 12s is twice per week.

So if we were an imaginary talent scout, looking for the next big thing, watching a local tournament wouldn't be the best use of our time. We could be just witnessing a kid winning by virtue of more time spent on the mat than the others. Parents often invest not just in memberships and competition registrations, but on private lessons from instructors too. That's not "talent", at least not in the way most people mean it.

It begs the question- To what end? Is the goal to win the local Jiu Jitsu tournament at under 12s? Or to win an IBJJF European or World event at under 10s? Or is it to create a professional Jiu Jitsu fighter at age 18? There's dissapointment ahead if so, with most purses for even prestigious international professional bouts running at the hundreds plus a small percentage ticket deal, and even only the top 10 or so "professionals" earning most of their money travelling and teaching seminars for a very short window at the peak of their fame.

So, to what end?

After we come home from a Kid's international event, I usually have a debrief with some parents to get their veiews. It's the same 4 or 5 kids, so I know them pretty well at this stage. While we put kids in as competitively as we can, I tell them that we won't be training kids that way, and while we'll adapt and try to do better, we won't chnage our fundamental philosophy. School comes first, if they play another sport they need to keep that up. We'll do as much as we can within the space they have without exhausting them or making them miserable. Thankfully, they all (so far) agree. I personally think it's a race to the bottom- sacrificing your culture on the altar of underage medals. And the problem with a race to the bottom is- you might win.

All of this also assumes that these kids will remain on the top of the tree throughout adolescence and into adulthood, but the inverse seems to be true. My own instinct has always been that we'll keep more kids if it's less stress, less pressure, and more fun. I've designed my whole academy around this principle. This means losing a lot of matches when they're younger. But if you make an errorless environment where winning isn't as important as things like honesty of effort, great sports(wo)manship, smiling before and after, and enjoying yourself, then they stay in the game for longer. Now you've got a kid who loves Jiu Jitsu, hasn't quit due to it being high pressure, and you've had him for 10 years.

One mantra I repeat to parents- Don't judge us now, judge us when they're 16.

Do you know anyone who has been practicing anything twice a week for 10 years and isn't good at it? No, me neither. And whatsmore, the science is now in, and the data from multiple studies agree with my instincts. Kids who play multiple sports and don't specialise too young are less likely to quit sports, and even more likely to become elite level athletes.

Essentially, what happens to what we'll call Project Kids is that they are placed on an accelerated learning curve. This propels them to the top of a pile that is populated mainly by what we'll term Casual Kids. They are, literally, ahead of their peers. But the Casuals are on the curve too, just climbing less rapidly, and all steep learning curves taper off to a flatter pitch. Eventually, given enough time, both sets of kids hit the same level. But only one set will have run the intendent risks of early specialisation which include overuse injuries and burnout.

There are only a few sports in the world where an Elite athlete will have had to hit certain markers by certain ages, and fewer still where those markers are at a pre-pubescent age. Increasingly in skill sports, there's a growing understanding that single sport "academy" style systems have a very poor rate of return. Jiu Jitsu is not a sport that requires certain physical markers to be hit at any age. It's not gymnastics, for example, a sport in which not mastering certain skills by puberty may effect performance.

I've been in Jiu Jitsu in Ireland since it started as a sport, I ran some of the first kids competitions, and in that time I've seen prodigious talent come and, mostly, go. Those who remain are just involved rather than fulfilling some manifest destiny forseen in childhood. Very good at Jiu Jitsu, but no better and no worse than anyone else who has spent a long time in the game. But the Project Kid is new. The intensity is new, more akin to children's Beauty Pageants than a martial art. I don't believe it to be in keeping with what Kano saw for Judo- a system that was good for the individual and for society- tempering young people socially, educationally, and spiritually.

We won't stop this phenomenon. It's global, societal, modern, and not limited to Jiu Jitsu. You can find it in every corner of every children's activity. Ultimately the only thing we can do as parents and as coaches is not join in. This might mean sacrificing competitive performance. (That said, I don't believe performance is even a word in Youth Development)

And maybe I'm wrong. I've been wrong before (once, I think, and even then it was marginal). Maybe we're doing it wrong and the other way is right. I'm open to that idea. Someone said to me "No Tiger Woods without Earl Woods pushing him", to which I replied "Does Tiger seem well-adjusted to you?" Now that might be a bit unfair. But a more fair way (pun intended) of putting it might be to ask how many Tigers are there versus how many fathers pushing their kids into golf? Maybe you can understand it- Golf makes you a millionaire almost the moment you get your tour card.

But yeah, maybe I'm wrong.

But I know which way I enjoy more!

See you on the mat,

Barry