Hi everyone,
My daughter is 11 and martial arts are basically her life. She’s testing for her brown belt. To do that, she has to win a competition. Here’s the question:
Due to external circumstance, she has the choice between fighting a boy and a girl. Given their ages, there’s no difference in strength or size between the girls and boys yet. But my daughter honed in on the major difference, and that’s that at the brown belt level groin kicks are totally legal, and given the art and level, cups/protection are forbidden.
She’s told me that she's accidentally hit boys there in sparring and they are immediately on the floor crying. That’s her plan. At first I wasn’t sure, but it makes sense after hearing her coach.
The woman coaching her said, “Choose the boy to fight and kick him in the balls as hard as you can as soon as you’re able to. The girl? You have to fight her. The boy you can have crying on the floor in one shot. Don’t feel bad. It’s not unfair. He has an off-switch between his legs. You don’t. You’re just built differently. Take advantage of it.”
It sounds harsh, but I agree with her. It’s in the rules that boys can be kicked there. He knows that and is agreeing to it. So does his mom.
All that said, does it make sense to encourage my daughter to go ahead and choose to fight the boy? Considering they’re roughly the same size, if she fights the girl, she could be in it for a long fight, but if she fights the boy, she can kick him there and end it immediately. Not to mention I want her to be able to know how to use that in self-defense anyway. She’s been working toward this for years. She’ll be crushed if she lost somehow.
