Tips to trend healty family fitness

For family fitness to work it has to be something every family member enjoys. It has to be a shared experience where you all grow together alongside each other. Something that leaves you all buzzing with excitement. Something you can all rave about over dinner.

Here’s something you need to understand. Train in martial arts as a family and you are all students side by side. For 90 minutes you are not Mum or Dad or Child or Sibling. You are a fellow student sweating it out with everyone else.

But for this to work…

Parents have to be prepared to swallow their pride. You have to leave your ego and pre-conceived ideas outside the door. And step in with an open mind, happy to be the fool and get it wrong as you learn.

For us we love letting go and not being the teacher. And for Leah she loves to see her parents struggling alongside her. I know she respects us enormously every time we get on the mat. Just as we respect her.

And although martial arts is a shared experience. It’s also an individual thing for each family member. It’s about what you can do with the body and mind you have. It’s not a competition. It’s a personal journey.

So if you’re an inflexible Dad, good kicks at a low height are good enough. Or if you’re a Mum who is that not physically strong, push-ups on your knees are fine. And if you’re one of those kids who takes a while to remember sequences of moves, don’t worry. A good teacher will understand.

We find we can help each other out with the bits we find easier. Neil is good at self-defense, I remember patterns and Leah has brilliant technique. We coach each other and we encourage each other. This mutual coaching is good for us and good for Leah. We find it strengthens our family bonds.

Another element of being a martial arts family we love is the social side. We’ve trained with some fantastic people over the years. We are mixing with healthy, fit people with a balanced outlook on life. Leah trains with great kids at the club, and of course this is fun for her, much more fun than being paired up with her Mum and Dad.

And when the going gets tough. When we lose at sparring or forget a pattern in competition, or can’t break a board. We are there for each other. Picking up the pieces and offering encouragement.