How to Offer Parental Support for Youth BJJ Competitors Part 2: During the Competition
Continued from part one, located here.
In our last post, we discussed some ways to support your kid in the months leading up to their Brazilian jiu jitsu competition. Equally critical for your child is having your support on competition day. Many youth students experience competition nerves. Knowing that their parents are there for them no matter what the outcome of their matches will help ensure that your kid has a positive and productive BJJ tournament experience.
During the competition:
Don’t coach your child while they’re competing. The coaches at OGA have many years of experience training jiu jitsu, coaching BJJ competitors, and competing at a high level themselves, and will attend the event to coach your kid. Receiving different directions from both coaches and parents adds confusion to an environment already rife with distractions. Unfortunately, we’ve also heard many parents give faulty coaching advice at competitions. Unless you have extensive training experience yourself, the coaches and your kid will know much more about jiu jitsu than you do. While you can leave jiu jitsu technique and strategy advice to us, don’t hesitate to cheer or offer words of encouragement to your child while they’re out on the mats.
Be supportive of your child regardless of the outcome of their matches. While we want all of our OGA competitors to perform well in competition and we do everything we can to help them achieve this, every jiu jitsu competitor will experience losses. It is critical that parental support for youth students is not tied to competition performance. Parents should never express that they are disappointed in their child for losing. Failing to be supportive regardless of the tournament outcome puts undue pressure on youth students, negatively impacts student performance and self-esteem, demotivates youth students to compete or even continue training in the future, and deprives youth students of a valuable opportunity to work through adversity and learn to process failure in a productive way. If your child doesn’t get the results they wanted, you can ensure that the experience remains an opportunity for development by expressing that you’re proud of them for challenging themself through competition, highlighting the positives from their matches, and emphasizing that they can work on fixing any holes in their game before the next competition.
Don’t argue with the referee. Sometimes the referee will make a call that you don't understand or agree with, or that seemingly contradicts the tournament rules. Allow the OGA coaches to address these situations with the tournament officials. Screaming at the referee is not good sportsmanship. We have been attending youth jiu jitsu tournaments for many years, know the various jiu jitsu rulesets well, and have a better base of knowledge and experience to communicate with the officials if needed. A common situation that frustrates parents is early stoppage for a submission. In kids’ BJJ competitions, referees stop the match as soon as a submission is put in place, even if the youth competitor doesn’t tap. Parents should not argue about early stoppage or encourage their child to lean on this as an excuse for losing. Instead, encourage your child to work on defending or avoiding that particular submission in the future. It may help to keep in mind that the referee’s main priority in youth jiu jitsu tournaments is to ensure that all competitors stay safe.
Practice good sportsmanship at the tournament. Good sportsmanship on our parents’ end includes treating referees and other parents, coaches, and competitors with respect at all times; limiting your support to cheering and positive motivational phrases during your kids’ matches; and refraining from making excuses for your kid’s performance. Unfortunately, we have seen many instances of parents at kids’ jiu jitsu competitions yelling phrases such as “Break it!” when their child is applying a submission. We’ve also seen parents putting down their children or being inappropriately hard on them when they lose, or openly blaming the referee or making other excuses for their child’s performance. These types of behaviors lie in sharp contrast to the values we try to promote at OGA. We know that watching your kid compete in BJJ can be an intense and overwhelming experience, but try to remember that you are representing OGA as well as setting an example for your child.
Be sure to arrive on time and bring water, snacks, and warm clothing. Your kid is likely going to be nervous on competition day, especially if it’s their first BJJ tournament. Arrive early to give them time to get their bearings and do a thorough warm-up before they weigh in. If your kid is competing in both gi and nogi, you may be at the tournament venue for eight plus hours. Be sure to bring plenty of water, food, and warm clothing for your child to wear in between matches.
-Hannah
Oregon Grappling Arts offers kids’ jiu jitsu classes six days a week in Portland, OR. All classes are led by black belt head instructors Hannah Sharp and Eddie Jamrog. If you are interested in having your child try out Brazilian jiu jitsu, feel free to reach out to us. All prospective students receive a three-day free trial.
You can read more about our youth jiu jitsu classes here.
You can learn more about coach Hannah Sharp here and coach Eddie Jamrog here.
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