u/0riginal_usernamme

Hi all, long story short, I have been teaching kick-boxing for 10 yrs in Uk where we did full contact sparring (light contact but still with head punches and kicks) with all ages older than 7. We never had any issues, the occasional tears but we were always able to pick the back up and get them back into it. Built resilience and grit.

I’m now teaching in Australia and I’ve been told by many people, no head contact at all for kids under 16, this blows my mind but I want to know the actual laws/competition rules.

Also with regards to leg kicks, catching kicks, sweeps, all of the things that could be considered “illegal” in competition. Can anyone who has taken kids to tournaments shed some light here?

Ok, so backstory…..

I’ve been teaching kick-boxing for 15 years now, I’ve taught at multiple academies and ages from 3-6, 7-10, 11-15 and 16+.

Every single location I’ve taught at I’ve been informed I’m a favourite instructor, kids like me, adults love my classes and other coaches/instructors enjoy teaching with me.

I started teaching at a new place last year, when I first came on I was an assistant coach and when the head coach quit I was asked to step into his position, no problem with that.

I changed the curriculum a little to reflect my style (before it was more boxing focussed) so now they’re learning all the kicks and punches of the discipline.

Now in the background (behind my back) the boss of the company spoke to other coaches (one of which was a 17 yr old kid) and asked if they thought I was “good enough” to teach the adult classes and they said no. To which the boss asked another guy (24 yr old Muay Thai practitioner who struggles with English and can’t differentiate between beginner and advanced techniques) to take over the adult classes, framing it as “You have a lot to deal with on the kids side of things so this is one less thing for you to worry about” basically making it out like it was a favour to me.

Anyway, I’ve let it go and I teach adult classes elsewhere now, after the kids classes finish. I’m happy.

About 6 months ago, one of the adult members (21 yr old Female) asked if she could help with the kids classes, showing a lot of enthusiasm, some great organisation skills and gentle approach with the kids. She was hired and became my 2nd in command doing a fantastic job.

Over the last 2 months she has gotten arrogant and cocky, criticising the way I teach strikes and telling me it’s more important to make sure they can do the advanced version if techniques (sacrificing the basics)

Everytime I ask her to do something or mention that there could be a better approach I get attitude from her, arguing with me and refusing to acknowledge that she could be doing something wrong.

Example, the other day we had 24 kids in the room aged 11-14. We spilt them up with 11-12 on one side and 13-14 on the other, I took half for basic kicks, she took half for basic punches with the agreement that we will swap after 10 mins. When the time came to swap, she wasn’t ready, so I carried on with some more techniques, she still wasn’t ready after 5 more minutes and now there is only 10 minutes left of the class (the last 10 minutes is always reserved for sparring) I stopped everyone and got them all sparring.

I GENTLY explained to her later that she spent too long doing punches and it meant they didn’t get any kicks and my half didn’t get any punches, her response “well it’s essential for me to work 1-1 with every single student in the room to make sure they can punch properly” I told her we don’t have the resources for that, with 30+ kids in the room that can’t work she just argues and says well it should work, it’s necessary, they need it etc.

We’ve recently had a coach quit (unrelated, family issues) meaning it’s me and her until we hire someone new, I need to be gentle with her as she will quit if I’m too firm.

Any advice?