I had a wonderful student years ago, and for our purposes here, we will call her Lisa, but that isn’t her real name.

Lisa was not a bad kid by any stretch of the imagination. She did have some trauma in her life before she became my student. She also had some odd choices in friends. She was raised in a poor neighborhood, and odds were high that she could fall through the cracks in society with a simple misstep.

As she started in the Kick Drugs out of America program, she showed early signs of tremendous potential. She was a quick learner, not afraid to sweat or work hard. I knew she could go far if she stayed the course.

In the start of her seventh grade year, she had developed quite an attitude. General rebellion against authority is common at that age. She was never disrespectful towards me, but she was clearly waiting for people to give up on her.

I don’t believe in surrender.

I got an email that Lisa was suspended. On my lunch break, I decided to go to the office to find out why. When I walked in, she was sitting in the chair waiting for her Mom to pick her up. She told me that she had been selling PMS meds to her friends, and with the zero tolerance policy, she was being suspended for selling drugs. Lisa was sure I was going to kick her out of my class.

The thought never entered my mind.

After her suspension, she approached Karate with a new seriousness. She came back to the demo team, she didn’t stumble anymore. Today, she is married, has a couple of children, owns her own home in the suburbs. She broke the cycle.

This is one story among thousands I could tell as a firsthand witness. Training in martial arts changes lives. Working with teens over the last two plus decades, I can say from experience that teens gain tremendous benefits from martial arts on physical, mental,  and emotional levels.

The Physical Benefits

Teens are not typically the most active critters. Anything that gets them off of their butt and moving around will help. But in martial arts, unlike many other exercise programs, there is always something new to learn. There is no martial arts class that doesn’t increase strength, improve flexibility, and enhance coordination and agility. Cardiovascular health improves as a side effect.

Additional physical benefits include the obvious self-protection skills. Regardless of style or system, there will be attention paid to self-protection. A punch is a punch and a kick is a kick, and I can’t find a martial arts school today that doesn’t have at least some training in ground fighting. Developing self-protection skills will happen.

The Mental Benefits

As health and skills improve, the student will gain confidence. With confidence comes assertiveness, sticking up for themselves. Many people say the martial arts improve discipline, but this is only part of the picture. Discipline is more than being able to sit still. True discipline is intentional action. It is intentionally pushing yourself even when your body is begging you to lay down. Willpower, focus, and self-control are all enhanced by training in the martial arts.

Teens today are stressed over everything. Martial arts training improves coping skills and reduces stress.

The Emotional Benefits

In the Kickstart Kids program, we promote honesty, loyalty, courage, discipline, respect, dedication, kindness, and responsibility. We are, and always have been a character education program that uses karate to recruit and retain students. But the karate is what develops the values. Any long-term martial artist can tell you that these values are trained and developed through training, whether or not they are even discussed.

And there are other benefits that are found within Kickstart Kids specifically. Our students have better attendance, better behavior, much lower disciplinary actions,better grades, and test scores. Our students graduate high school in greater numbers than the non Kickstart Kids students. 

And I haven’t even mentioned social skills and teamwork. I haven’t mentioned the incredible number of students who went from timid and shy to becoming leaders of the class. The building of friendships and development of a growth mindset.

I have been on the mats for Kickstart Kids for almost 23 years as of this writing. I have witnessed so many children’s lives improve by training in the martial arts that I can say with 100% confidence that there is no reason not to have children, especially teens, train.