Utah instructors open mixed martial arts to kids

OGDEN — When the Karate Kid crane-kicked his opponent at the end of the 1984 movie, thousands of dojos sprang up across the country.

And, when the Ultimate Fighting Championships surpassed boxing in pay-per-view sales, martial arts gyms saw the potential.

"I just think that's where it's going," said Mark Johnson, a martial arts instructor.

"That is going to be the future of martial arts for a while."

For the past year, Johnson has offered a mixed martial arts class to children at his gym, West Side Jiu-Jitsu Academy in Ogden.

He was initially skeptical of adding MMA for children. But as he came home from work one day, he saw one child try to perform a guillotine choke on a playmate. The child performed the move incorrectly, but the attempt was there.

"You know, when we were kids we would slap box," Johnson says. "It wasn't WWE, it wasn't slap boxing, it was MMA."

The interest in mixed martial arts is there among children and, as the owner of a martial arts gym, Johnson said it is his duty to at least have the kids learn the moves correctly — as well as understand the dangers of performing them on their friends.

"Our goal is not to make cage fighters out of kids," Johnson says, "I have no interest in that whatsoever, but to teach them to do it properly."

Jeremy Horn, an internationally recognized mixed martial artist, offers MMA classes to children at his Elite Performance gym in West Jordan. He is glad to see interest in the sport among children.

"It's good for kids," Horn said. "It gives them an outlet for their energy. It gives them something to focus on so they are not just standing around playing video games."

Because of the newness of the sport, there is not a set template on how to teach mixed martial arts, even to adults.

Many learn to combine skills they learned from other disciplines, such as wrestling and boxing.

Most gyms take the curriculum from an adult class and tailor it to children.

Horn teaches fundamentals and basics. Johnson, a high school teacher by trade, has a curriculum devised to measure a child's progress. His students cannot spar until they have learned a variety of techniques.