13 April 2011

Boxing for kids - a new ACT export?

| Gungahlin Al
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Channel Ten News has had a story of a 10 year old girl participating in a boxing competition.

They report that New South Wales sets a minimum age of 14 for people of any sex to go boxing, so this kid (and presumably her parents) just trucked across into the ACT, where the minimum age is just 10, for her first competition bout.

So we’ve discovered a new export industry have we?

I’m pretty sure the medical fraternity would be queuing up to explain why boxing at such a young age is setting the kid up for lasting brain damage.

So Minister Corbell, why does the ACT warrant so much more lenient laws?

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I have been involved (many years ago) with a fair few ‘fight nights’ as we called them I never liked the junior fights, the kids were carefully controlled and never hurt, but every time, one or both of them would end up crying and their coach would encourage them to continue.

IMHO, I don’t think the young kids are emotionally equiped to to deal with the one on one fight aspect. They were never forced to compete but there was I suppose a sort of peer pressure to do it from the exticement/hype of the event .

shadow boxer9:14 am 08 Jul 11

My goodness there is some crap in this thread

exhibit a you need to get knocked out twice to get brain damage
exhibit b orthapedic surgeons are stupid
exhibit c parents pay to watch kids getting hurt because they get pleasure from it
exhibit d you get more hits to the head from AFL than boxing

I love UFC and boxing but seriously it shouldn’t be allowed until the age of 16 when kids can decide for themselves.

vg said :

“You only have to look at some of the current boxers try and string a sentence together to find out the ‘real’ effects of boxing”

My orthopaedic surgeon was a former national amateur boxing champion and then a professional fighter for a number of years….but you see that isn’t newsworthy

TBF orthopaedic surgeons are generally considered to be quite stupid by other doctors.

p1 said :

Do people run Tae Kwon Do, Karate or Judo competitions where you get points for punching the other kid in the head repeatedly?

There are several different styles of Karate, one of the popular ones, Kyokushin, does not allow punches to the head in bouts but head kicks are OK.

Tae Kwon Do allows punches to the head but they don’t score points so it’s pretty much all kicks. Pretty ineffective kicks too if that ref who got kicked in the head at the Olympics by some pissed off Cuban TKD “fighter” is anything to go by.

Judo doesn’t allow any strikes at all.

Kids don’t hit very hard anyway and they’ve got gloves and headgear in boxing so what’s the problem?

A Noisy Noise Annoys An Oyster5:16 pm 07 Jul 11

The ACT allows boxing for ten year olds because we are more suffisticated than other places. Hopefuuly it will stay that way.

Of course kid trafficking is an organised venture by the PCYC organisation in NSW. It is sick how the Dept of Sport and Rec turns a blind eye when the cops use the PCYC to traffic kids to evade NSW laws that they are supposed to enforce. Many ACT tournament also include MMA fights (banned for under 18’s in NSW) We can expect the PCYC’s in NSW to traffic kids for ACT cage fights as well..

We can expect more brutal kid cage fights because Dana White President of UFC ( the biggest MMA organisation) endorses that form of child abuse. Two of his UFC ‘champions’ Bas Rutten and Randy Couture organised a kid fight in the USA with punches to the the head of a grounded opponent the kids were aged 12 and 13 and were not allowed to use any head protection. All this is on YouTube. White, Couture and Rutten are proud of it. UFC is now entrenched in NSW.

By the way it is a fact that many adults who are willing to pay to watch kids getting hurt do so because they get pleasure from the experience. Nice to know who the PCYC is pandering to.

“You only have to look at some of the current boxers try and string a sentence together to find out the ‘real’ effects of boxing”

My orthopaedic surgeon was a former national amateur boxing champion and then a professional fighter for a number of years….but you see that isn’t newsworthy

Disinformation said :

Davo111 said :

You only have to look at some of the current boxers try and string a sentence together to find out the ‘real’ effects of boxing.

Ah, but you’d have to assess if the lack of linguistic dexterity was caused by boxing, or caused boxing. It could just as easily cause football, mullyism or One Nation voting.

That’s the sort of comment that keeps me coming back to RiotAct. Wicked funny 🙂

I heard Anthony Mundine talking about his next fight on the radio this morning, after seeing him pressing foreheads and then punching his opponent at the weighin last night. Now there is a man lacking in verbal dexterity who obviously and groundlessly thinks the sun shines out of his fundamental orifice.

What are these people thinking?

housebound said :

That our nanny state would mandate bike helmets, ban smoking, fireworks, circuses (and anything else that’s fun), but allow children to give each other brain damage (and call it a sport) is beyond belief.

There has been studies done that (which I read personally at the AIS library) show amateur boxing to not cause brain damage providing safety rules are followed – it has been shown to increase hand eye coordination. Brain damage comes when a person is knocked out receiving concussion and then knocked out a second time while still recovering from the first KO. Amateur boxing is more about the skill and points than knocking a person unconscious. The same study showed significant brain damage in Professional boxers however, because they are not really about safety – the goal is to knock someone out cold, and they get KO’d, get up and get KO’d again. I hear the money is good in pro boxing though!

I child would receive more brain damage from AFL than amateur boxing.

walking by quietly4:58 pm 13 Apr 11

p1 said :

walking by quietly said :

If this was Tae Kwon Do, Karate or Judo, would this be such an issue?
If you’ve spent anytime with kids at the standard suburban dance school, boxing starts to look a lot more civilised.

Do people run Tae Kwon Do, Karate or Judo competitions where you get points for punching the other kid in the head repeatedly?

The answer would be yes. Check the scoring system for Tae Kwon Do.

Pommy bastard said :

I’d rather my kids learned self defense skills in a controlled arena, than in the school yard, I have no desire to “helicopter parent” them..

Self defense isn’t the same as boxing. Boxing is a combat sport, with the goal to knock the opponent out. Self defense is a countermeasure to protect yourself against physical harm.

slightly off-topic: Self defense training for kids really isn’t required. I was able to avoid school yard fights without any training or hiding in the library. From what i saw people who did have “professional training” usually bragged about it and got in more fights as a result.

Pommy bastard2:53 pm 13 Apr 11

I’d rather my kids learned self defense skills in a controlled arena, than in the school yard, I have no desire to “helicopter parent” them.

Boxing is good for the mind and body, the protective headgear they wear at that level is reasonably effective, and the bouts are very controlled.

Disinformation2:33 pm 13 Apr 11

Davo111 said :

You only have to look at some of the current boxers try and string a sentence together to find out the ‘real’ effects of boxing.

Ah, but you’d have to assess if the lack of linguistic dexterity was caused by boxing, or caused boxing. It could just as easily cause football, mullyism or One Nation voting.

To be honest i’d say professional fights between people under 16 shouldn’t be allowed, training and sparring only. You only have to look at some of the current boxers try and string a sentence together to find out the ‘real’ effects of boxing.

walking by quietly said :

If this was Tae Kwon Do, Karate or Judo, would this be such an issue?
If you’ve spent anytime with kids at the standard suburban dance school, boxing starts to look a lot more civilised.

Do people run Tae Kwon Do, Karate or Judo competitions where you get points for punching the other kid in the head repeatedly?

georgesgenitals1:14 pm 13 Apr 11

BimboGeek said :

If she wanted to learn karate it would be cute. How can we legislate that some martial arts are good and others are bad? My instinct is to assess whether the point is attack or defence, number and severity of injuries and if available long term health projections. But. It’s easier to say “boxing is bad” so the issue gets confused.

You don’t see too many kids doing full contact martial arts. The whole point is the learning.

walking by quietly1:03 pm 13 Apr 11

If this was Tae Kwon Do, Karate or Judo, would this be such an issue?
If you’ve spent anytime with kids at the standard suburban dance school, boxing starts to look a lot more civilised.

If she wanted to learn karate it would be cute. How can we legislate that some martial arts are good and others are bad? My instinct is to assess whether the point is attack or defence, number and severity of injuries and if available long term health projections. But. It’s easier to say “boxing is bad” so the issue gets confused.

She’s got some nice form. Kids aged 5 and 6 play rugby.

yeah, bring back fireworks!!!

housebound said :

That our nanny state would mandate bike helmets, ban smoking, fireworks, circuses (and anything else that’s fun), but allow children to give each other brain damage (and call it a sport) is beyond belief.

I agree. I’d be more then happy to ban boxing if it means I can have fireworks back.

That our nanny state would mandate bike helmets, ban smoking, fireworks, circuses (and anything else that’s fun), but allow children to give each other brain damage (and call it a sport) is beyond belief.

It does raise interesting questions about the blurry lines between sport and violence. There are many things which can happen on the field or in the ring, between kids, which would clearly be child abuse in any other setting (even with limited protective equipment). Is it bad parenting to let your kid beat/be beaten by another and actively encourage it?

Although, the issue with boxing isn’t the individual hits to the head, but rather many thousand hits to the head over a long period of time.

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