How to Create a Great Kid’s BJJ Program - Part 1

The Brazilian jiu-jitsu community is growing faster than it ever has. Between greater numbers of BJJ academies in nearly every major city in the world, and increased visibility of the martial art via the UFC, podcasts, and celebrity practitioners, fewer and fewer people can claim to have never heard of jiu-jitsu. In fact, many people now have a close family member, a friend, or a friend of a friend who trains.

Nowhere is it growing faster than among the youth. Kid’s jiu-jitsu classes around the world are jam-packed with students. For many academies, the children’s memberships alone cover their rent and basic expenses, and then some. A kid’s program is the bread-and-butter of any good academy… if done right.

A good kid’s BJJ program depends on two things: the structure of the program, and the quality of its instructors. In this three-part series, I provide some insight into how to craft a good kid’s program, and what it takes to be a good – and eventually great – kid’s BJJ instructor.

Part 1: Kid’s BJJ Class Structure

The structure of the kid’s BJJ program is like the foundation of a house. If the foundation is faulty, your house won’t last long. If the foundation is solid, your house will stand strong through the ages, rain or shine.

Here are four key considerations for the structure of your kid’s program:

Format

The format of each class should be as consistent as possible, regardless of the day of the week, what’s being taught, and who’s teaching.

Children thrive on consistency and routine. This is especially so for children from lower income families, economically-depressed areas, or divorced families, because their at-home life is often wrought with upheaval of various kinds. What consistency and routine allows is predictability in the child’s experience during class. With predictability, the child is more comfortable, less anxious, and better able to pay attention to what’s being taught, and retain it.

If you begin and end the class by lining up, do so every day. If you allow the kids to pick their partners, do so consistently (within reason, of course… there are some little hooligans that you’ll have to separate). If you do warm-ups, keep it simple and repeatable. Of course, having a single dedicated head kid’s instructor should naturally lead to consistency in the class format. But if for some reason you have to incorporate multiple lead instructors on the various days of the week, ensure they are all on the same page as to class format.

Curriculum

Just as the curriculum in a school setting typically builds upon itself – enabling incremental learning in the topic areas – a kid’s jiu-jitsu class should also have a structured curriculum. This is not to say that it should be planned down to every detail. It can be a general week-by-week guide outlining the positions or techniques that the instructor(s) should be teaching.

What’s most important in a curriculum is flow and repetition. The classes should have a logical flow, to enable the students to easily make the connections between the positions or techniques.

For example, if you teach takedowns one week, and then back takes another, you’re creating a huge learning gap for all the in-between actions that take place between one and the other. If there’s a takedown, there’s often a guard pass that leads into some action by the opponent that opens the door for a back take. That’s not to say that your young students won’t make the connections themselves – it is absolutely mind-boggling how fast kids tend to “get it” – but when you make it explicit, it allows for faster and more efficient learning.

In regard to repetition, there should be some small amount of review between the classes or between the weeks. A reminder of “what we learned last time” that helps solidify some of that knowledge, allowing for deeper retention of the subject matter.

Instructor-to-Student Ratio

The instructor-to-student ratio is an often over-looked but very import aspect of a successful kids jiu-jitsu program. Just as in a school classroom, you want to have small class sizes because this will allow the teacher to dedicate more time to each student, you want a healthy instructor-to-student ratio on the mat.

I would argue that it’s even more critical on the mat versus in the classroom, simply because these kids are engaging in not just a physical activity, but a martial art. More instructors on the mat will allow for one instructor to manage conflicts, unintentional (or intentional) injuries, and/or emotional children, while the other instructor or instructors can keep the class running. Not only does this allow for the other students to continue learning, but it also helps mitigate any possible escalation for the affected student(s), because they won’t be the center of attention while they’re in a vulnerable or emotional state.

I’ve found a good instructor-to-student ratio is about one instructor per every 10-16 students, with an absolute minimum of two instructors, regardless of the size. That translates to each instructor assisting 5-8 pairs of kids (envision going around and helping them drill the techniques, and how much time you’d have to dedicate to each pair).

Games

Always keep in mind that you’re teaching kids. No matter how competitive they are in tournaments, how serious and dedicated they are to learning jiu-jitsu, or how much their parents envision them as future world champions. They are kids, and they need to have opportunities for play. They need to have fun in class. If they're not having fun, they won't want to come to class as often, and you'll eventually lose them. 

As such, it’s vitally important that games are incorporated into the curriculum. These can be games that have no other connection to jiu-jitsu besides developing the child’s motor skills, or specific jiu-jitsu themed games. There are a ton out there that clever kids instructors have developed, or you can conceive of your own.

However, that being said, games should not be overused. They should not be every day. They should be consistent enough to allow for consistency in the curriculum, but not too consistent that they no longer have any utility as a reward for good behavior. 

This completes part one of “How to Create a Great Kid’s BJJ Program.” Part two will dive into how instructors themselves can contribute to creating an amazing program.