Martial arts is not as good as unstructured play for executive function/focus. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-love-wisdom/201508/unstructured-play

Martial arts is not as good as unstructured play for executive function/focus. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-love-wisdom/201508/unstructured-play-and-childrens-development https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-love-wisdom/2015... > Our findings offer support for a relationship between the time children spend in less-structured and structured activities and the development of self-directed executive function. When considering our entire participant sample, children who spent more time in less-structured activities displayed better self-directed control, even after controlling for age, verbal ability, and household income. By contrast, children who spent more time in structured activities exhibited poorer self-directed EF, controlling for the same factors. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200301/the-overbooked-child https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200301/the-overb... > "Middle-class children in America are so overscheduled that they have almost no 'nothing time.' They have no time to call on their own resources and be creative. Creativity is making something out of nothing, and it takes time for that to happen," says Diane Ehrensaft, Ph.D., a developmental and clinical psychologist and professor at The Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. "In our efforts to produce Renaissance children who are competitive in all areas, we squelch creativity." > Early-childhood-education specialist Peggy Patten, M.A., agrees and notes that children today have many wonderful opportunities, but they need time to explore things in depth. When they are involved in too many different things, they sacrifice breadth for depth.