This Is How You Teach Kids To Be Fearless

There are no bad kids, just kids with bad habits. Kids develop survival skills in the worst home environments, and even in the best home environments, they are mimicking the behavior they see in their parents. Whether I’m coaching kids or raising my own, I look for moments when they show interest in something. When […]

How to Make Your Biggest Failure Your Greatest Lesson

By Head Coach Travis Davison At IBJJF Kids Pan Ams this year I was with my friend Rory Singer from SBG in Athens, Georgia, when his son Xander lost a match. Xander put fantastic effort into his match, but he still lost. He came off the mat crying and nursing an injured arm. When it […]

How A Single Mom Became A Leader in Missoula Martial Arts

When I first started Brazilian Jiu Jitsu it wasn’t something I took seriously. Five years later I’m running a martial arts gym in Missoula. What I found at SBG was something more than self defense skills, a great workout, or learning a new skill. I pushed myself farther than I could have imagined. More importantly […]

Growing Gorillas: More Than Martial Arts for Kids

What made you want to sign your child enrolled in our Growing Gorillas kids martial arts program? Was it to learn discipline and respect? To learn confidence? Or to simply have an energy outlet while taking part in a healthy activity? Growing Gorillas gives your kids all of those things! But there’s so much more […]

The Do (Not Don’t) Of Effective Parenting

When we teach kids in our Growing Gorillas program how to coach, we teach them that it’s best to coach your athlete on what to DO instead of what NOT to do. Do’s not Don’ts. Better to tell an athlete in the heat of a battle to “Change levels and shoot” or “Get your grips”. […]

Messy Emotions & Raising Resilient Children

At least once a day, a kid cries in one of our classes. Every day it’s a different child, and every day it’s for a different reason. Maybe they got hit in the face with a dodge ball. Maybe they got fed up because backrolls are a struggle. Maybe they’re hungry, tired, or had a […]

Raising Children to Prevent Violence

While discussing social and domestic violence is so very important, many of us shy away from it because it’s an uncomfortable topic, but we cannot hope to see change without confronting the matter at hand. More often than not, the focus of the discussion is on the social and domestic violence that we see first-hand […]

How Martial Arts Helped My Son With ASD

By Coach Bekah Bell Growing up as a coach’s daughter, I played numerous sports most of my life and gained many friendships through the different teams I was a part of along the way. When I became a parent I couldn’t wait to put my son in organized sports so that he could have the […]