This is a lesson I had to learn on some things.

A few years back, we didn’t break boards. We are primarily jiu-jitsu, and kickboxing as a secondary program.

So board breaking was never really part of what we did, and I kinda pushed against it.

I was in a mastermind and it came up as a great way to give a kid a big confidence building moment at the end of a class. But… as Jiu-jitsu, I was pushing back on it being for us and not really fitting with what we do and “jiu-jitsu culture”.

Chris Casamassa (aka Scorpion) set me straight on that.

Our culture is about building confidence, getting kids to do things they didn’t think they could. And for kids breaking boards is really cool and does just that. They don’t know coming in that board breaking is only karate and TKD, they don’t care. They just get to do something really cool that wows them, wows their parents, boasts their confidence, gets the whole room cheering for them and they tell their friends about the next day.

We’ve since upped that to burning all of our boards with our logo and “Welcome”.

But sometimes, the best thing in a kids class is just to embrace the “cool” side of martial arts that kids love, especially if it helps reach the bigger goal.