Don't kids get hurt with all the kicking and punching?

Studies have shown that the martial arts are safer than nearly any other physical activity your child is likely to be involved in, including team sports such as soccer. "Kids are always showing up for class with injuries they've gotten in another sport," says Chris Goedecke, author of Smart Moves: A Kid's Guide to Self-Defense and a karate black belt who runs the Wind School in New Jersey. "I tell them, 'you ought to stick to something safe - like karate."

This isn't so far-fetched; as one instructor pointed out, martial arts are designed to disable, so instructors have spent a thousand years figuring out safe ways to teach them. Indeed, the most dangerous students in any martial arts school are not the black belts but the white belts - novices who haven't yet learned to control their bodies. Still, you should make sure that kids wear padding and are closely supervised while sparring.