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Martial Arts and Bullying

Sadly millions of our children are bullied each year in the United States.  Children are committing suicide from repeated bullying from their peers.  In today’s society children are being harassed in and out of the classroom.  Social media has become the new venue for bullying as children are subjected to harmful videos, text messages and Facebook posts.  These harmful incidents have long lasting effects on children who are the victims of bullying. 

As parents, we can help protect our children from bullying by enrolling them in a Martial Arts program.  A Martial Arts program is unlike other sports as it teaches children to respect others through kindness and empathy.  The philosophy of Martial Arts builds character from the inside out.  Martial Arts students develop the mental strength to be leaders in their community.  The moral compass that is developed by Martial Arts training not only protects children from being bullied but gives them the super-hero strength to stop bullying when others fall victim to such cruelty.  Martial Arts students develop an assertive attitude that builds their self-esteem.  Children in Martial Arts training manifest the philosophy of the Martial Arts-courtesy, respect, focus, concentration, self-discipline, self-control-and apply them to their community and the world.  Children in Martial Arts training learn to overcome their fears by persevering and facing challenging obstacles. The Martial Arts is not about kicking, punching and throwing. It is about building a more peaceful world. This philosophical training builds the skills that parents want to see in their children.  Martial Arts is the best training for a child that goes far beyond self-defense; it protects our children by developing skills to stop bullying.

Imitation Is the Highest Form Of Flattery!

I watch a lot of videos and read even more blogs on the subject of martial arts training.  I am always picking up new and old training methods and adapting them to my classes at Epic Martial Arts.  I have always found that most of the techniques can be broken down for the beginner student yet still be challenging for the more advanced student.  This video demonstrates basic and realistic self defense techniques.  These are techniques that I teach on a regular basis, but I never put them together in this sequence until I watched two black belts working this drill on thenewwaynetwork.com  One of the black belts was a 6th degree and the other was in training for his 4th degree graduation test!  These guys have some serious martial arts experience between the two of them.  

In this video our beginner students are working a straight palm strike followed by a rear leg push kick and finishing it off with a round kick to the leg.  I started them on the heavy bag, then moved them on to striking pads and eventually added some movement.  I am looking forward to taking this same drill and working it with my younger students. Seems like I will be making another video soon of this same drill with our kids karate students at Epic Martial Arts in Sag Harbor NY.