While football fields and baseball diamonds lie deserted during the chilly months of January and February, indoor arenas flourish as families seek ways to keep their kids active during the winter.
On a cool, damp morning the first weekend in January a group of children gathered on a gymnastics mat inside Evolution Mixed Martial Arts Academy in Wrightsville Beach, each child wearing a white robe tied with a colored belt. They bounced around the mat with jittery energy until instructor Neal Zumbro called them over to line up, bow and begin warm-ups.
The children with the most experience led the others through stretches and drills. After four years practicing Brazilian jiu-jitsu, 9-year-old Aliam Appler earned a yellow belt with a grey stripe and the right to be one of the class leaders. His mother, Cathy Appler, said she has recently noticed her son’s increased sense of leadership and self-control.
“The coaches will pair [the experienced kids] up with a new kid,” Appler said. “It’s neat to see this 9-year-old, crazy-around-the-house boy going easy with a 5-year-old and letting them win a fight. It’s a huge confidence boost for that kid who’s beginning, to give them a chance to learn to love the sport, too.”
Instructor Megan Moskow explained the practice focuses on self-confidence and self-discipline.
“It’s amazing how far a lot of them come, when they first start and then two months later it’s like a totally different kid,” she said.
Appler said when her son was training for a competition recently he grappled with students in the adult-beginner class for practice. That class included his father, a Wrightsville Beach police officer.
“It’s been great with my husband taking the class,” Appler said, “because [they] can go home and practice the moves.”
Ginger and Brian Quinn also saw the benefit of involving multiple members of the family in Brazilian jiu-jitsu — in this case their 8-year-old triplets Braden, Joshua and Eathan.
“They wrestle anyway, so they might as well learn to do it correctly,” Ginger Quinn said.
The instructors focus on teaching the children safe, controlled methods of tumbling and grappling. One warm-up exercise, for example, had the kids somersaulting onto their shoulder to avoid neck or back injury. Moskow said there has never been an injury in any of the children’s classes because the kids are generally more careful than the adults.
And while the adults learn moves like chokes and joint-locks, the children’s classes focus more on the general fundamentals of self-defense and self-control without ever teaching the children how to finish the moves. While the practice is competitive and physical, the technique is precise and restrained.
“It teaches them mental discipline and control,” Quinn said. “It’s a mind-body connection so it’s different than a team sport. … They learn to trust themselves and learn that being physical is not always about being violent.”
Brazilian jiu-jitsu also offers the siblings an outlet for their natural competitiveness. Quinn said car rides home from jiu-jitsu class are filled with tales of who beat whom that day.
“They’ll either praise or rip on each other on the way home,” she said.
And once they arrive home, the competition continues.
“We move the coffee table out of the way and they practice on the floor, and I’m sure they practice in the yard . . . and even with their hero figures and Legos and stuff, they make them do jiu-jitsu, too.”
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