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Author: Anonymous
Title: No support from the family in my training (venting)
What’s on their mind:
Hello. I’m 17 and have been training in MMA for 2 years now and from day one my family has hated it. They have no respect for the sport or the martial arts in general. It’s become a major problem lately as they have decided to not let me train anymore. Which upsets me greatly, I can say that I wouldn’t be the person I was today without it. This is my life and it’s what I love to do. I don’t know what I could say to help change their mind. They’ve come up without almost every reason why they think it’s wrong. Is there any advice you could give to help me ease them over into letting me train again.
Try and speak to your family in a calm manner. Point out to them the benefits you have received from training. Self-confidence, discipline, gives you an outlet to relieve stress, and prevents you “running the streets” I found that once my family understood the rules of mma they were a little more accepting of it. Try getting them to watch a mma match or come see you train. More likely than not your family is concerned you will be seriously injured. Once they see your passion or see you in action they may change their mind.
Rasta gives good advice. Logic always trumps emotion. Project to them the benefits you derive from training and the passion you have for it in a cool, collected manner. Let them air their views on why they don’t want you to train and LISTEN to their concerns as well. Once both sides (you and your parents) respect each other, maybe you’ll reach a compromise where they will let you train on a trial basis or under controlled conditions until the sport wins them over. And if they still don’t hear you, try to get them to agree to let you train via incentives like good grades, etc. to prove to them just how much this means to you.
Good luck.
good advice given by both guys, you should do what they said. i think this is one of the biggest problems in america, parents arent raising their sons to be men. the ability to defend oneself and ones family lies at the core of what it is to be a man.
“Our Country won’t go on forever, if we stay soft as we are now. There won’t
be any AMERICA because some foreign soldiery will invade us and take our
women and breed a hardier race!”
-Lt. Gen. Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller, USMC
Yeah, its kind of difficult to get them to understand, I’ve grown up with the same problem for the most part. I’d say when I was younger the part that helped the most was showing my parents the classes, more specifically the beginner class. Showing them that you aren’t just walking in and getting shots taken at your face could help. They need to know that they don’t just let you fight without showing you how to defend yourself and how to control yourself. OF course every sport has its dangers, but parents seem to think that in martial arts of any kind that they aren’t ones you can prepare yourself for.
Also show them its something you really are passionate about. If they think that they can’t stop you after you are on your own, they might as well help you now so you can be better prepared.
I completely agree with 4oz, we are being raised to be wimps these days; way too much coddling going on.
I wont repeat what was said before, if they absolutely wont let you could you get into wrestling at school? Maybe your parents would be more open to a school based activity and youd still be developing usable skills
excellent point lance! I too suffer from a similar situation. I however am old enough to where my dad no longer has any say in the matter. However I would like to say that where there is a will there is a way. That is NOT to say that I would condone sneaking around your parents back. However if you have enough passion for this you will take the above advice and applying it diplomatically, intelligently, and in an adult like manner your parents will be more likely to compromise. I have actually done a meeting with my dad where I brought in studies to show him the sport was not as dangerous as he thinks it is.
i’d say show them clips of james toney and randy couture SPEAKING. you can clearly see the effect that a sport like boxing has on somebody as opposed to mma and wrestling. we participate in a far less dangerous sport. here in huntsville, which is a big prison town, we teach alot of prison guards ju-jitsu because this is what will save their lives in an attack from inmates.
I would say to just take it slowly. You have plenty of time to be a champion one day. Start off with the grappling and wrestling where it’s not punches to the face, and then eventually move on to other forms of martial arts. That’s actually what i had to do because i had the exact same problem with my parents. I also showed them highlights of the X-Games and bullriding and WWE wrestling, and stuff like that to show them that those sports are more dangerous. I think what freaks parents out is the word “fighting”. Fighting is not a positive word at all. That could also be a problem. I always used words like competing, rolling, match, stuff like that. I had a lot of matches in grappling instead of fights. You see what i’m saying? well good luck with this, I hope everything goes well for you.
Buda
agreed dont call it fighting and that will help. just say “competing” that sounds best in my opinion. i hate when people call grappling “fighting” anyhow just sounds so poser and far from the truth.
Try and speak to your family in a calm manner. Point out to them the benefits you have received from training. Self-confidence, discipline, gives you an outlet to relieve stress, and prevents you “running the streets” I found that once my family understood the rules of mma they were a little more accepting of it. Try getting them to watch a mma match or come see you train. More likely than not your family is concerned you will be seriously injured. Once they see your passion or see you in action they may change their mind.