The Martial Arts Advantage: Why Every Kid (and Adult) Needs to Train

The other night I was watching the kids’ class at Meraki, and something happened that perfectly encapsulates why I believe every child—and every adult—needs martial arts training in their life.

Maria, our phenomenal kids’ coach, was wrapping up the session. I love watching her teach because she has this incredible ability to simultaneously nurture and challenge these young warriors.

Honestly, a lot of these kids can kick my ass—I’m not exaggerating.

Their technique, conditioning, and fearlessness often humbles me.

As class was ending, Maria had everyone line up on one side of the mat.

She began calling pairs of students to “roll” in front of the entire class—a moment that tests not just their technical skills, but their ability to perform under pressure while their peers watch.

One particular match stood out and has stuck with me ever since.

Maria called out one of the “big” boys—probably around 140 pounds—and paired him with one of the girls in class who he outweighed by a good 30 pounds.

Now, this wasn’t the first time I’d witnessed this young lady control and beat this boy. I’d seen it before during regular class rolling when no one was being “singled out” for demonstration.

But watching it happen in front of the entire class revealed something profound about what martial arts training actually provides—lessons that extend far beyond the mats and into every aspect of life.

The Badass Family Legacy

To be fair, this young lady is a real badass.

She’s part of a remarkable family of four who all train together.

Her dad and mom train with me in the adult classes and regularly beat me up during rolling sessions.

Her younger sister also trains and is developing into quite the formidable grappler herself.

But here’s what made this moment so significant: this girl’s success wasn’t just about natural talent or family genetics.

What I witnessed was the compound effect of consistent martial arts training—the systematic development of skills, confidence, and character that can only come from dedicated practice over time.

As I watched her control a physically larger, stronger opponent with technique, timing, mobility and mental composure, I realized I was seeing a master class in why martial arts training is so crucial for young people developing in our modern world.

The Moment That Reveals Everything

After the match ended with the boy tapping to an armbar, he walked back to the line quietly crying.

Standing to the side of the group, his disappointment was palpable. One of the adults reached out to fist-bump him, but it did little to shore up the young man’s feelings.

Personally, I left him alone, and so did the coach.

We didn’t make it any more or less than what every student has to face each and every day on the mat.

This moment—not the technique or the victory—is why everybody needs to train in martial arts.

The Adult Parallel

To highlight this point, just one day earlier I was in the locker room when one of our purple belts was lamenting getting worked by one of our purple belt ladies.

To make it worse, it happened right in front of where the professor was standing to observe the class.

I told him, “If it’s any comfort, you’re not the first guy in the locker room commenting about getting worked by this young lady. She really is that badass.”

The parallel was perfect: whether you’re a teenage boy or a grown man with years of training, the mats don’t care about your ego, your gender, or your expectations.

They reveal truth.

The Generational Challenge

I thought about these incidents when I saw a recent YouTube short of Shawn Ryan asking his Navy SEAL guest about Gen Z and their ability to carry the burden of military service compared to earlier generations.

The retired SEAL member’s response was telling: Gen Z has difficulty with “failure.”

To be fair, we all do.

Whether or not this challenge is more prevalent in today's generation isn’t for me to say.

But what I will say is that martial arts training is the best solution to this issue I’ve ever encountered.

The mats provide a controlled environment where failure is not only acceptable—it’s essential for growth.

The Modern Resilience Crisis

Today’s children are growing up in a world that simultaneously coddles and terrorizes them.

They’re protected from minor disappointments and failures while being exposed to unprecedented levels of anxiety through social media, academic pressure, and global uncertainty.

The result is a generation that often lacks the resilience, confidence, and problem-solving skills they’ll need to navigate real-world challenges.

Traditional education focuses primarily on cognitive development—memorizing facts, passing tests, following instructions.

While these skills matter, they don’t address some of the most critical capabilities young people need:

• How to remain calm under pressure
• How to overcome fear and self-doubt
• How to persist through difficulty and discomfort
• How to problem-solve in real-time when stakes are high
• How to compete respectfully while giving maximum effort
• How to accept failure as feedback rather than identity
• How to develop genuine confidence based on proven capability

Martial arts training develops all of these abilities simultaneously.

The Physical Foundation of Mental Strength

When that young lady was rolling with her larger opponent, she demonstrated something that can’t be taught in a classroom or learned from a book: how to remain relaxed and strategic when someone bigger and stronger is trying to impose their will on you.

This isn’t just a useful metaphor for life—it’s direct preparation for it.

Physical confidence creates mental confidence. When children learn that they can handle physical pressure, discomfort, and challenge, they develop a deep-seated belief in their ability to handle other forms of pressure and challenge.

The young warrior I watched had clearly internalized several crucial lessons:

Size and strength don’t determine outcomes. Through countless hours of rolling with partners of different sizes and skill levels, she’d learned that technique, timing, and strategy often trump pure physical advantages.

Pressure is information, not punishment. Instead of panicking when her opponent used his weight and strength, she treated it as data to inform her next move.

Composure is a skill. Her ability to remain calm and think clearly while being physically challenged wasn’t natural talent—it was a trained response developed through repetition.

Effort and outcome are different things. She could give maximum effort without attachment to a specific result, allowing her to stay present and adapt rather than forcing techniques that weren’t available.

The Controlled Chaos of the Dojo

Martial arts, in particular, provides something unique that most other activities can’t: a safe environment to experience and overcome genuine adversity.

When children roll with training partners, they’re learning to navigate what I call “controlled chaos”—situations where they must think clearly, problem-solve quickly, and execute under pressure while someone is actively working against them.

This is preparation for life in the most direct way possible.

In the business world, they’ll need to negotiate with people who have different interests, think strategically when others are working against their goals, and maintain composure when facing setbacks.

In relationships, they’ll need to navigate conflict constructively, stand firm on important boundaries while remaining kind, and work through problems with people they care about even when emotions are high.

In personal challenges, they’ll need to persist through difficulty when every instinct tells them to quit, break complex problems into manageable pieces, and maintain faith in their ability to overcome obstacles.

Martial arts training provides direct experience with all of these dynamics in a compressed, accelerated format.

The Failure Laboratory

Perhaps most importantly, martial arts provides children (and adults) with a healthy relationship to failure and setback.

In our participation-trophy culture, many children reach adolescence without having experienced genuine failure or learned to bounce back from disappointment.

This creates a fragility that cripples them when they inevitably encounter real challenges.

On the mats, children fail constantly—and that’s the point.

They get submitted by training partners.

They lose competitions.

They struggle with techniques that seem easy for others.

They have days when nothing works and they question whether they’re cut out for this.

But they also learn that failure is temporary, informative, and ultimately strengthening.

Every time a child gets tapped out and immediately fist-bumps their training partner before starting another round, they’re practicing resilience.

They’re learning that setbacks don’t define them, that losing doesn’t make them losers, and that the path to mastery is paved with countless small failures that each provide valuable feedback.

This is a lesson that will serve them infinitely better than perfect test scores or carefully curated social media profiles.

The Character Development Engine

Martial arts training systematically develops character traits that serve practitioners throughout their lives:

Humility comes from being regularly submitted by people you thought you could beat.

Respect develops when you realize that everyone on the mats has something to teach you.

Perseverance grows through pushing past the point where you want to quit.

Courage expands as you face increasingly difficult challenges.

Self-control strengthens as you learn to manage emotions under pressure.

Integrity deepens as you commit to showing up and doing the work even when you don’t feel like it.

These aren’t abstract concepts discussed in theory—they’re practical skills developed through daily practice under pressure.

The Adult Imperative: It’s Never Too Late

While I’ve focused on children, the benefits of martial arts training are equally profound for adults—perhaps even more so, because we often need to unlearn harmful patterns we’ve developed over decades.

Adults who begin martial arts training frequently discover capabilities they never knew they possessed.

I’ve watched accountants learn that they’re surprisingly athletic.

I’ve seen lawyers discover they’re more resilient than they thought.

I’ve witnessed parents find that they can remain calm under pressure in ways that improve their entire family dynamic.

The physical benefits are obvious—improved fitness, strength, flexibility, and coordination.

But the mental and emotional benefits often surprise people:

Stress becomes more manageable when you’ve practiced staying relaxed while someone is trying to choke you.

Confidence becomes authentic when it’s based on proven ability rather than wishful thinking.

Problem-solving improves when you’ve trained to think clearly under pressure.

Emotional regulation strengthens when you’ve learned to manage fear, frustration, and ego in high-stakes situations.

Perspective shifts when you realize that most daily stressors pale in comparison to the controlled adversity you’ve learned to handle on the mats.

The Community Component

One aspect of martial arts training that often gets overlooked is the community element.

Unlike many individual sports or fitness activities, martial arts inherently requires training partners and creates natural bonds between practitioners.

Children learn to compete intensely while maintaining friendship and respect.

They discover that they can try their hardest to defeat someone in training and still care about that person’s wellbeing and success.

Adults find a community based on shared challenge rather than shared complaints.

Instead of bonding over what’s wrong with the world, martial artists bond over their mutual commitment to growth, improvement, and facing difficulty head-on.

This creates relationships that are inherently supportive of positive development rather than enabling stagnation or negativity.

The Long-Term Compound Effect

The benefits of martial arts training compound over time in ways that create lifelong advantages.

Children who train develop capabilities that serve them through adolescence, college, career building, and parenting.

They learn to embrace challenge rather than avoid it, to view obstacles as puzzles to solve rather than threats to fear, and to derive satisfaction from improvement rather than external validation.

Adults who train often find that their increased confidence and stress tolerance improve their professional performance, their relationships, and their overall life satisfaction.

Families who train together create shared experiences of growth and challenge that strengthen their bonds while modeling healthy approaches to difficulty and improvement.

The Return to Class

As I write this, I’m waiting to see if that young man will return to class after his emotional moment.

I’m sure he will, and he will be better for it.

That moment of tears wasn’t a sign that martial arts training failed him—it was a sign that it was working exactly as it should.

He experienced genuine disappointment and challenge in a safe environment where he could process those emotions and learn to move forward.

The mats don’t judge. They don’t coddle. They don’t lie. They simply reveal truth and provide endless opportunities to grow stronger.

The Bottom Line

That night at Meraki, watching a teenage girl systematically control a larger opponent while maintaining perfect composure and respect, I was reminded why I believe martial arts training is one of the most valuable investments any person can make in their development.

In a world that often feels chaotic and unpredictable, martial arts provides a controlled environment to develop the skills, confidence, and character that serve people throughout their lives.

• Children learn to face challenge with courage and intelligence.
• Adults discover capabilities they never knew they possessed.
• Families create shared experiences of growth and mutual support.

The physical techniques are just the beginning.

The real value lies in the systematic development of resilience, confidence, respect, and the ability to remain calm and strategic when facing any form of pressure or challenge.

Every child deserves the opportunity to discover they’re stronger and more capable than they thought.

Every adult deserves the chance to develop authentic confidence based on proven ability rather than wishful thinking.

Martial arts training provides both, along with a community of people committed to mutual growth and improvement.

The young badass I watched that night didn’t become formidable overnight.

She developed her skills through consistent practice, countless small failures that became learning opportunities, and the systematic building of capability over time.

That process is available to anyone willing to step onto the mats and begin.

The question isn’t whether you’re cut out for martial arts training.

The question is whether you’re ready to discover what you’re actually capable of when you commit to systematic growth in an environment designed to bring out your best.

Your local martial arts school is waiting.

The community is welcoming.

The journey begins with a single step onto the mats.

What are you waiting for?