Specialized styles or all encompassing system?

[ChenPengFi]

This just came across my "desk" re early sports specialization.

[plasma]

Personally, I always prefer the concept of Specialists over Generalists. I think people that try to have an all encompassing style tend to be mediocre or bad at all aspects of fighting. However, if you stick with a combat sport to give you the depth of knowledge in 1 aspect may it be striking or grappling, then once you have a solid base to take up a second specialty in another art that focuses on that. It's the same reason I never took up MMA or any RBSD system. I wanted to learn weapons fighting (Kenjutsu/Nihon Jujutsu), so I did, after 3 years of that, I added Stand-up Grappling (Judo) then after 7 more years of weapons fighting and stand-up grappling, I started doing exclusively ground work (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu). That was 5 years ago. In another 2-3 years I'll probably add some pure striking training (either Boxing or Muay Thai). Now my timeline are elongated because I have only train 2-3 hours a day , 3-4 days a week on average as I hold a full time job and have family obligations. Someone training to fight full time could to that a lot faster.

[BKR]

This just came across my "desk" re early sports specialization.

The entire Canadian "Sports for Life" system does the same. Specialization for kids from u7 up to u13 or so is not a good idea. I encourage my judo students to do other sports when not doing Judo, or in some cases the seasons overlap like soccer, basketball, and figure skating.

I don't see USA Judo on that list...