Youth Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in the car– skill visualization.

One amazing thing I have found about teaching children is that moment when a child is learning a new skill and applying it for the first time, that they just “get it”.  It’s like that switch has flipped from “Am I doing this right?” to “This is definitely how I am supposed to do this!  I got it!” in their mind.  I feel so excited for them when this happens!  Not only because it means that perhaps my teaching was effective, but because one of my favor things to do in life is to learn…I know and relish that feeling of accomplishment!  When it comes to martial arts, this search of trying to find ways to relive that feeling over and over has lead me to develop my own ways to learn more efficiently.  Notice I did not say faster!  Efficient learning methods are so crucial, especially when trying to learn new physical skills.  One way sports psychologists and athletes themselves  have used to enhance physical skill learning during non-training times is visualization.

Visualization is a mental training tool, rather than a physical practice, meant to help the brain’s ability to learn new physical skills that involve coordinated movement patterns.  This mental technique can be applied to a wide variety of sports and skills, but it almost seems like it was tailor-made for JiuJitsu!  Further, when it comes to your child learning the way that is best for them, visualization leads for the exploration of imagination; not every child learns the same way.  By reinforcing visualization techniques and methods, anyone can take a new skill and break it down the way THEY need to in order for them to master the skill sufficiently to be able to put it into practice.  Another advantage of this type of supplemental skill training is that it can be done anywhere, anytime, at any pace.  So how do you implement this type of training into your kid’s pursuit in this sometimes complex martial art of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu?  It starts on the ride home.

After class has ended, most kids are still quite energetic and filled with energy and why shouldn’t they be?  They just spent almost an hour or more having fun, competing in engaging activities, while working up a sweat—a recipe for massive spike in energy and enjoyment!  This is prime-time for your child to really soak up the info he or she learned in class and store it to long term memory…so let’s use this time to its fullest potential and do some visualization.

Once you get them into the car and en route to home or their next activity for the day, the simplest way to get your child to practice visualization (most times without them even knowing it) is to ask them one position they worked on the most that day.  Get them to put their mind to that position.  If they had a particularly good class and “won” during live training, ask them to talk about what they did to “win”.  With older children, you can even have them verbally break-down the steps into getting from one position or the other that the instructor taught them during the class that day.  If you happened to observe class that day, ask a question about a technique or a particular situation that maybe confused you, and have them attempt to explain it to you.  Any thing that gets them to think about what they just learned critically is a form of visualization.  This method of learning is a powerful tool, and all it takes is for you to get the ball rolling with simple questions or comments.  A child’s imagination is extraordinary and getting them to focus it in any structured way will lead them to retain new information much more efficiently, as opposed to only thinking about the skill during instruction.  I know for me personally this has helped my JiuJitsu and martial arts training immensely.