As fighters we get old but fighting never gets old! I participated in a Muay Thai event called King of the Ring and ended up going the distance against an opponent half my age. He was quicker of course and overall stronger but we both gave it our all. I tore my right bicep and you can tell that is when the punishment started (broken nose). in any event I hope this inspires others and at least shows my ids the importance f not quitting and following through on your dreams/goals. Here is some video from the fight (I am the fighter in black).
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10 Tips for Safely Teaching Your Kids Jiu Jitsu
There are a host of benefits associated with martial arts training for children, from increased athleticism to self-defense and a heightened sense of discipline. In fact, I have written about that on multiple occasions on this blog and on other martial arts sites. I am a HUGE fan of training our kids. When it comes to jiu jitsu though with submissions specifically you have to be careful about what you teach your kids and when it is taught to them. They need a healthy appreciation for the responsibility that goes along with understanding ways to manipulate the body that are core to jiu jitsu.
- Research Local Gyms – Before you sign your child up for the first gym to advertise youth jiu jitsu instruction, make sure you’re doing your homework. Not all gyms are created equal, and you’ll be able to sort the better quality options from others in your area by asking for referrals, looking at the facility and paying attention to unique ethos of each gym. Basically, how do they approach jiu jitsu for kids if it is no different than what they do for adults I would recommend finding a different gym.
- Choose Instructors Carefully – An instructor who only teaches youth classes because they drew the short straw may not be as well-suited to teaching kids as the instructor across town with a passion for teaching youth combat sports. Make sure you take the time to ask about instructors’ qualifications, as well as their curriculum. Teaching kids takes an incredible amount of patience as their attention span is well… short. Make sure the instructor is equipped to handle that with something other than just yelling or sitting them out.
- Ask About Instructor-to-Child Ratios – High-quality gyms will staff each class appropriately, but it’s always best to do your own research. One instructor heading up a class of thirty kids means not everyone is getting individual attention, and some kids may not be performing maneuvers as safely as they could be. In fact, this is a huge risk because kids may not realize the risks associated with improperly practicing an armbar for instance.
- Invest in Proper Gear – Minimizing the risk of injury means investing the appropriate gear to keep your child safe. You can’t send your youngster to class without head gear, mouth guards or groin protectors and expect them to be fully protected. Ask your child’s instructor about recommended safety gear, and invest appropriately. Realistically other than a gi and mouthguard not too much is normally required for jiu jitsu but knee and elbow pads may also be a good idea.
- Take Time to Learn the Rules – Most parents who enroll their children in martial arts classes have no training themselves. While you don’t have to sign up for adult beginner classes to keep your child safe, it’s always a good idea to learn the mechanics and underlying philosophy of jiu jitsu in order to help your child better understand what they’re doing and how to stay safe. Plus, it gives you something that you can share with your kids which likely will create memories that will last a lifetime.
- Listen to Your Child – No matter how badly you want your child to reap the benefits of instruction in jiu jitsu, you can’t make them feel the same interest. A child who doesn’t want to be in class and has no interest in learning proper technique may be reckless or inattentive, which can lead to injury in some cases. I’m not talking about a child that every once in a while doesn’t want to go to class because EVERY child will feel that way at some point (just take them anyway).
- Reinforce Jiu Jitsu Lessons and Values at Home – Kids who are excited about their new skills are going to want to try them out on everyone they meet, so it’s your job to keep not only your child but others safe from this boundless enthusiasm. Talk about the lessons they’ve learned and how they can practice at home without submitting the untrained kid next door. You may want to get a wrestling dummy or let your children practice on you.
- Understand the Implications of Contact Sports – It’s not abnormal to want your child to reap the benefits of jiu jitsu instruction while still feeling some trepidation about the risk for injury. The truth is, jiu jitsu is a contact sport. Just like football, soccer or baseball, there will be some risk for injury and there will be some bumps, bruises, and mat burns along the way. Keeping your expectations realistic is one of the best ways to mitigate some of the risk, and to understand the difference between a bruise and serious danger which generally should not be the case with jiu jitsu.
- Observe Classes – If you drop your child off at the door and never observe a class, how will you know the instructor is stressing proper safety measures? How will you know if the gym is clean and the facilities in good repair? Make a point of observing classes and remember that your jiu jitsu instructor is NOT a babysitter. Sometimes YOU will need to keep your child in check and focused.
- Keep Lines of Communication Open with Instructors – No parent wants to hear that their child isn’t doing well in an activity they like, but it’s important to listen to your child’s instructors when they’re training in jiu jitsu. Also recognize that the instructor knows best whether your child is ready for a belt promotion, stripe, etc. Especially with jiu jitsu (which takes several years to master and get a black belt) it’s not about how quickly they get their black belt it’s about learning some valuable life lessons.
Jiu jitsu is growing rapidly in popularity and there are many opportunities for competition as well that your kids may love (but be warned that every kid won’t necessarily get a trophy in this sport). Just like any other sport though there are rewards that cannot be overvalued by teaching them jiu jitsu. It’s not about protecting themselves (although that is a definite benefit), it’s about giving them something that if they want they can literally do for the rest of their lives.
9 Ways to Help Your Child Excel at a Sport at a Young Age
The world of youth sports has become more competitive than ever, with parents looking for every opportunity to give their children an edge over the other players. Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all recipe for success, especially for very young players. There are, however, ways you can help to encourage and support your little athlete’s development. Here are nine ways you can provide your child with the foundation he or she needs to be a youth sports star.
- Keep It Fun – For young children, sports is about having fun while learning fundamentals. When the game stops being fun and starts feeling like a chore, or a source of stress, burnout will soon follow. While you should absolutely work to instill good sportsmanship qualities and skill honing in early childhood, making practice feel like facing down a dragon every day isn’t usually a recipe for success. In your drive to help your child succeed, try not to fall into the trap of exerting so much pressure you take the fun of playing away.
- Be Supportive, Not Smothering – You want to support your child’s interest and natural abilities, not force them into an uncomfortable mold with overbearing attitudes. This can be an especially difficult balance for parents with unrealized dreams of athletic excellence, who often see their child as a vehicle for wish fulfillment through whose success they can live vicariously.
- Think Twice About Early Specialization – At first blush, it would seem that focusing all of your child’s energy in a single direction is the best recipe for success. This especially holds true as youth leagues and traveling teams become more popular, demanding more and more of the year. Realistically, though, a relatively small percentage of athletes even on the professional level were single-sport athletes throughout childhood. Most play at least two separate sports, often specializing at the junior varsity level. Participating in a number of sports hones general athleticism, which lends itself later to excellence in specialization. Early restriction to one sport may actually restrict her growth as an all-around athlete, diminishing her potential.
- Be Realistic About Time Commitments – Burnout doesn’t just happen when parents exert too much pressure. It also happens when a child is unprepared for the time commitment of sports participation, and begins to feel smothered. Making sure your child has a realistic understanding of the time commitments for sports participation before joining a league or making the team can stave off some of this shock.
- Maintain Age-Appropriate Intensity – From traveling teams to summer camps and intensive clinics, it’s easy to elevate your child’s training intensity to professional levels. Unfortunately, this is also a very effective way to increase the chance of sidelining injuries and burnout that ends a career before it begins. Keep training intensity to an age-appropriate level, and let your child have some control over her schedule.
- Address Weaker Areas Constructively – Even a star can feel like a failure if areas of weakness are constantly pointed out and criticized, with no constructive plan for improvement. If your softball player’s pitching needs a bit of work, look into ways of improving this specific skill, rather than just pointing out it’s an area of weakness. Stripping away your athlete’s confidence is not a recipe for success, long-term or otherwise.
- Seek Out High-Quality Programs – While you may want to think twice about signing your child up for highly competitive programs whose demands outstrip those of her education, it’s still a good idea to research all of your program options. Something a bit more accelerated than the neighborhood youth league or a community center training plan may be in order, especially for young prodigies who need more advanced training.
- Make Room for Downtime – Laser focus is the hallmark of athletes beyond the varsity level, but it may be counterproductive for very young children. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends at least two to three months of downtime out of the year for young athletes. Not only does this allow your child time to explore other areas of interest, but can also be integral to their physical health. One serious injury can end a promising career, even at a very young age.
- Keep it All In Perspective – While the desire to see your children excel in any area is a strong one, it’s important for sports parents to keep their expectations in proper perspective. Even among the greatest athletes, only a select few will go on to perform at the collegiate level. Of that small percentage, even fewer will play professionally. Putting all of your child’s future eggs into a professional sports basket may make them great, but will not ensure a career and can leave them ill-prepared for adulthood if they have no other plan. Strive for balance and a well-rounded life, and your child will be more likely to succeed.
Though it may seem counterproductive to take a more relaxed tack to encouraging success, you can do more for your child’s continued success as an athlete by supporting long-term growth. A prodigy at seven may be burned out by thirteen, rendering all of your effort moot.
Why You Should Never Hire a Nanny Without Running a Background Check
If you’re hiring a nanny, you’re probably dealing with a lot of moving parts: multiple applications, callbacks, interviews, follow-up interviews, agency recommendations, and so on. It can take a lot of time, research, and luck to find the right childcare provider for you, so it can be tempting to cut corners. Some parents do this at the background check stage, figuring that a few standard phone calls or emails to the nanny’s references will do the trick. But that’s a mistake. You should never hire a nanny without running a background check. Here’s why:
It’s Dangerous
To be frank, there’s no real way to know what a potential nanny might be bringing into your home. This isn’t just a typical employee, after all. This is someone who’s going to be spending hours on end with your child, and they’ll be there for months or even years. A thorough background check is a crucial part of the decision-making process and a reliable way to know if the nanny you’re thinking of hiring has ever had documented run-ins with the law. Employee background checks, which gather information from consumer reporting agencies and are overseen by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, query a variety of criminal databases to see if your possible hire has any black marks. Those databases include the FBI Identification Record and the Interstate Identification Index System, and they include, sex offender registries, criminal records, and more. Depending on the type of check you run a background check may include checking county court records or other types of records such as a candidate’s motor vehicle driving record.
You shouldn’t hire someone to bring into your home — especially if you’re looking for a live-in nanny — without conducting a background check. It’s just too dangerous to overlook.
On a related note, you open yourself up to potential liability if you don’t get a background check. In addition to sex offender registries, background checks also round up a variety of criminal behavior, usually if the applicant was convicted in the previous seven years. If your nanny has, say, been involved with theft, you could be leaving yourself open to serious risks if you skip the check.
It’s Simple to Request One
A background check can’t just be performed on the sly. You must request the consent of your nanny applicant to investigate their background. But this is such a simple thing, and it can save you so much hassle and worry, that it’s foolish not to request one.
Think of the background check as an important checkpoint in the application process, and as a kind of gatekeeper for your home. You can request one at any point, but to save costs, it might be best to only conduct background checks on applicants that you’re considering at least somewhat seriously. The background checking company you are working with should provide you with a consent form for the candidate to complete as well as a summary of the candidate’s rights for you to provide to her. Once you have the green light from your applicant, you can get the background check rolling. That’s all you have to do. If something that important is also that easy why not do it?
You’re Part of a Childcare Community
Nannies talk to each other, and so do employers. Hiring a childcare professional means being involved in a larger community of parents, families, and nannies who rely on each other for work and references. Performing a background check on your nanny doesn’t just help you; it helps inform the broader members of the community of the importance of them.
When parents in a community commit to properly screening their nannies they set the standards for nannies in the community. When nannies come to expect backgrounds screenings as a pre-employment measure, those with a checkered past may be less likely to apply for nanny positions.
Ultimately, you are responsible for the safety and happiness of your own family. Living up to that responsibility means doing everything you can to bring the right help into your home, and a background check — simple, effective, and fast — is a vital part of the process. While a background check isn’t the only tool you should use to screen your nanny it is a tool that will provide you with information that you may not have otherwise been able to gather.
7 Things You Didn’t Know About How the UFC Began
The largest mixed martial arts promotion company in the world and one of the fastest growing sports organizations across the globe, the UFC is also a relatively new entry into the world of professional sports. For all but the most die-hard fans, the UFC seems to have sprung up out of nowhere and become a worldwide phenomenon. What many casual fans don’t know is just how the UFC began, and how the organization reached the pinnacle of professional mixed martial arts promotion.
- The Gracies Really Are UFC’s First Family – While most MMA fans consider the Gracies to be the sport’s closest thing to a royal family, many don’t know that the UFC itself owes much of its existence to them. The very first UFC competition was the result of Rorion Gracie and an advertising professional named Arthur Davie. Gracie wanted to showcase the superiority of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu on a large scale, and helped conceptualize the first UFC event.
- One Style to Reign Supreme – Today, the UFC is as much about a fighter’s personal brand and style as anything else, but the initial purpose behind the Ultimate Fighting Championship was to crown one style of martial arts supreme, not one fighter. The idea was that experts in various styles would compete to determine which style was most effective, rather than to decide which fighter was most skilled.
- Early UFC Fights Had No Time Limit – The only way to end an early UFC fight was to secure a submission, knock out an opponent or make the other fighter’s corner throw in the towel. There were no rounds, no time limits and no wins by decision when the UFC first emerged.
- Weight Classes Came Later – Just as there were no time limits for an early match, there were also no weight classes. A small fighter might easily find themselves against a massive opponent before the spectacle became a regulated sport, and weight classes were instituted later to avoid legal ramifications.
- Avoiding the Athletic Commissions – Any UFC fan today knows how big a role the Nevada State Athletic Commission plays in the sport, but this was far from always the case. In fact, early events took place in smaller markets, specifically in states with no athletic commission in order to avoid regulation and retain the “no holds barred” free-for-all nature of the fights.
- Senator John McCain Almost Killed the UFC – While many people were enthralled with the spectacle of extreme violence displayed at UFC events when the organization first began, viewership was relatively small. This vocal minority was not able to drown out the disdain of government officials, largely led by Senator John McCain. The man who would one day be a Republican nominee for President of the United States called the UFC “human cockfighting,” and took up a one-man crusade to end the sport once and for all. Fortunately for MMA fans, his efforts were ultimately unsuccessful.
- The Zuffa Era: Increasing Legitimacy – While the regulation which allowed UFC to survive public scrutiny took place under earlier ownership, the purchase of the UFC name by the Fertitta brothers and Dana White, who would form the parent entity Zuffa, LLC to govern the organization. Thanks to Lorenzo Fertitta’s pull with the Nevada State Athletic Commission, Zuffa was able to secure sanctioning and begin the work of making UFC a household name in 2001, close to a decade after the first-ever UFC event.
Under the careful management of Zuffa, the UFC has grown from a tiny organization struggling to even be allowed to air their events to a multinational entity. The next time you tune in for a Fight Night, remember just how close the UFC came to dissolving under political pressure before growing into a sports entertainment juggernaut.
10 Common Illegal Things Honest People Do
When you think of the word “criminal,” the image that comes to mind is probably that of a grizzled convict with a penchant for violence. In reality, a criminal is anyone who breaks the law, even if it’s a relatively minor one. Many honest, upstanding people commit crimes on a daily basis, essentially making criminals of themselves. These are ten of the most common illegal activities; how many of them are you guilty of?
- Breaking the Speed Limit – No matter how much of a hurry you’re in, zipping down the highway well above the speed limit is illegal. For many drivers, the speed limit is something they consider an arbitrary number until they see those flashing blue lights in the rear-view mirror. Regardless of how dangerous and reckless speeding may be, it’s definitely one of the most disregarded legal edicts.
- Copyright Infringement – To those that grew up before the Internet took over, copyright infringement probably refers to the wholesale stealing and sharing of music, movies and books that rightfully belong to the studios that produced them or the artists that created them. Copyright law is actually so complex that it’s an accepted specialty for attorneys, and you’re breaking it every time you sing “Happy Birthday” to someone.
- Grocery Store Grazing – Popping a grape in your mouth as you make your way through the produce section of your favorite grocery store not only opens you up to the possibility of exposure to dangerous pesticides because the fruit hasn’t been properly washed, it’s also illegal! Charges of theft for plucking a single grape may be unheard of, but it doesn’t make the action any more legal.
- Jaywalking – Walking across the street in the middle of the block, skipping the crosswalk and disregarding traffic signals is obnoxious pedestrian behavior, and can be quite dangerous. It’s also extremely common, and completely against the law.
- Leeching Off of Unsecured WiFi Networks – When you pick up a mobile device and see that you’re in range of an unsecured private network, you probably don’t think twice about connecting. Under the very vaguely worded Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, you could be charged with unauthorized access to a computer or website. WiFi squatting doesn’t typically lead to prison time, but it could in theory. Under the CFAA, connecting to an unsecured WiFi network is technically a federal crime.
- Littering – In today’s “go green” society, throwing your garbage on the ground is likely to be regarded with absolute scorn and social shunning by those around you. If you do manage to escape the angry eyes of the masses, however, you could still find yourself on the wrong side of the law. Littering ordinances don’t just apply to the side of the highway, even though that’s where you see the most signs warning you against it.
- Forgoing a Bicycle Helmet – Rising fuel prices, a burgeoning hipster culture and efforts to reduce individual carbon footprints have all contributed to the rise in popularity of the bicycle as acceptable adult transportation. Helmets might ruin your hairstyle and make you look silly, but it’s illegal in many places to ride without one (you might want to check that out).
- Paying or Getting Paid Under the Table – There are a variety of industries in which this behavior seems to be particularly prevalent, but none so much as the domestic worker industry. Nannies, housekeepers and household managers are so often paid under the table that the IRS estimates less than half of domestic workers employed in the United States are tax compliant. Just because it’s common doesn’t make it penalty-free, though. If caught, an employer faces back taxes, penalties and accrued interest on the debt.
- Unauthorized Parking in Handicapped Spots – Maybe you’re just running inside the store for a second, or maybe you’re waiting for someone you’ve dropped off to make a quick purchase. No matter how you justify it to yourself, parking in a handicapped spot is illegal.
- Utilizing the “Rolling Stop” – Approaching a four-way stop with no visibility constraints and no other traffic seems like reasonable grounds for the “rolling stop,” but failure to come to a complete stop is illegal and can net you a citation.
Whether you’re essentially honest and consider yourself a law-abiding citizen or not, there’s a good chance that you’ve broken at least one of these laws in your lifetime. Some, you may bend to the breaking point on a regular basis. Keep in mind that this behavior may seem harmless, but it’s still against the law and could lead to a hassle if you’re caught in the act.