John Valenty and the Valenty family has been practicing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu which is also known as the "gentle martial art." However, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is only considered gentle because an individual skilled in Jiu Jitsu can learn to protect themselves and even control a much larger and/or more aggressive person without really hurting them using what is known as "submissions." That being said, if a situation called for self defense, a 125 pound female skilled in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu can typically protect herself and even submit much larger and stronger man. 

The only thing that makes Brazilian Jiu Jitsu "gentle" is the will of the practitioner. Jiu Jitsu teaches the use of leverage which if not held back can easily break limbs of much larger attackers.

John Valenty's daughters Sophia Valenty and Fiona Valenty have been training since they were about 10 years old. Now that they are both 105 pound teens, they are quite confident and formidable individuals, beautiful and straight A (4.0) students too. Don't mess with them, you won't even see it coming :-)

Bottom line is that Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is the right base to learn before any other martial art or fighting skill to become more confident and for kids, they just cannot be bullied with these skills. I highly recommend it for children from about age eight and up.

Here's a video of Sophia Valenty and Fiona Valenty training together with just a few months of experience at 10-11 years old. They are only 15 months apart.

Here is a video of Sophia Valenty's first year training at 12 years old and her first competition. Her opponent was more skilled in Jiu Jitsu and about a foot taller and 25 pounds heavier than my baby Sophia. She's the short one on the right. She lost the match, but check out the fight the little girl has in her.

If you want to raise the most cool and confident children imaginable, look for an official Gracie Jiu Jitsu studio near you and start those kids up. You'll be thanking me later.

John Valenty

No I mean literally... I'm trying something new here with the short ones. The kids are running their own budgets and paying for their own stuff out of an allowance they are expected to manage under budget or too bad for them.

Not spending all their money before the end of the month isn't the only challenge, they've also got to account for what they spent during the month in a detailed categorized log. We're using a shared Google doc for this purpose. We shall see how this works.