I agree with you, papa, these parents have problems. They make no sense. These parents need to learn how to let kids be kids. Let kids deal with kids issues; let adults deal with adult issues.

I see this as just another example of how parents are trying to thrust their children into the limelight, and also trying to make their children some fantasy life the parent wished they had.

“There are basically two reasons for my objection to these teachings: physical and emotional.

On the physical level, kids are growing. As your dad might say, they don’t have the same physiology as adults. Their bones and joints are soft and pliable. You never know what kind of damage that training might cause for them. It could easily affect them later in life, and it most likely will in the case that you mentioned.

On the emotional level, kids just don’t understand the same concepts that adults do. They don’t understand death, they don’t understand paralysis, and they don’t yet have their own system of morals and ethics. As with their physiology, their emotional state is pliable.

Teenagers are a bit more similar to adults in that they have some experience with life and can make some decisions, but with little kids, we need to do more to protect them from ideas and actions that are harmful to their emotional and physical well being.”

Edited to add: My Facebook friend’s dad is a world famous martial arts instructor who doesn’t teach kids, not even at the junior high level.

What may work is if one of these champions were to say something about it. It may take a while, but some of these professional guys could be decent role models in the future, and they could say something about the proper way to train/learn/teach the martial arts.

I might write to Sen. McCain anyway. He might not be able to legislate against stupidity, but it won’t hurt to make sure people are aware of it.

How long before we see Pay Per View channels promoting events like “8-year olds in the Octagon!”

This story was bothering me all day. Seriously, it’s so irresponsible for these clowns to be teaching kids how to choke and armbar other kids. I know for a fact that they don’t do it in judo, and I’m pretty sure they don’t do it in Brazilian Jujitsu either. It’s totally against the spirit of martial arts.

John McCain was pretty tough on MMA when the UFC first emerged. Part of me wants to write John McCain to ask him to close these people down, while the other part of me is thinking that no amount of legislation will cure people of stupidity. Sigh.