Teaching Young Martial Artists The Value of Using Kneeing Techniques

Yesterday I wrote about the use of knees in the art of Muay Thai Kickboxing. That post was more or less speaking to the adult crowd. Oh and thanks to everyone who hit me up with good feedback.

The other day me and my ran a kids birthday party here at my academy and I got to thinking…

Kids, knees and the use of Muay Thai for self defense. Will it work? 100% yes it does.

I’ve seen what these kids can do with knees. It’s legit.

Teach a kid the right way to clinch and use knees and you’ve got yourself a dangerous little kid on your hands.

Here at Ivey League, we teach the kids real Thai Boxing here, which includes knees. I’ve seen first hand what these knees, even coming from a little kid, can do to a person.

I’ve got a good bullying story to back this up. One of my kids got tackled by a bully in school last week. The kid was much bigger then my student.

My student got back to his feet, grabbed the bully in the clinch and kneed him right in the face…broke the bullies nose, fight over.

Don’t act like just because it’s a kid they can’t hurt you with knees. One of our instructors had his face caved in by a 10 year old via a clinch knee. Lesson learned 🙂

The biggest challenge when teaching the kids is having them understand how knees work and why/when to use them.

We do a lot of the same drills with the kids that we’d do with the adults. Walking knees down the mat in a line, bag drills and partner clinching drills. All good stuff.

Safety is the main thing you’ve got to look out for when working on knees. The knees don’t know how strong they can be and could hurt another kid if you’re not careful.

Overall, if you really want realistic self defense for your child, they should be learning how to use knees, it’s that simple.

Below I included some great youtube videos to check out. Study up.