Claremont, CA

    (909) 399-0707

self defense

Bullying and Martial Arts

January 24, 2020 | 0 Comment(s)

A child beating up on each other has always been a problem since the school system first started. Many children in school today just don’t have the physical capability to deal with a larger student who picks on them. This leads to that student not wanting to attend school each day. The student knows the other classmate will bully them. They want to avoid the situation. That student’s school grades can suffer because of anxiety from being bullied by a larger student.

This must change for the student to attend school to learn. Until the parents take action, the student who is bullied will remain afraid. Enrolling your child into a martial arts system is the first positive step you can do for the child.

How Self-Defense Can Help Your Child

Learning how to defend yourself can change the way you approach problems dealing with all issues of life. Enrolling your child into a Tae Kwon Do academy can influence major changes to health, mind and physical ability. The training they will receive will build their confidence ability.

Several months into training in a class can boost your child’s mental and emotional health. As they progress with the skill, they will become able to defend themselves against anyone. The effort your child puts into class participation and training is the key goal of learning the skills of martial arts.

Children can enroll in most of the fighting arts to gain the confidence and skills needed to defend against bullies. They get to work with other participants in the class in a controlled atmosphere. It helps them build socialization skills to stop avoiding others. A child enrolled in the class can develop lifelong relationships with others that have dealt with similar problems in the past.

Your child will be more confident after several months of training in self-defense. As they progress through training, they will receive a higher belt level for the skills that they achieve. The philosophy instilled for students participating in self-defense will take them to levels far above those that never studied. The fighting arts are more than just learning a combative skill because it teaches a way of life in each field of study.

How Parents Can Help Their Children

You have a voice to help your children that are dealing with school bullying. Go to the school to discuss the situation with the faculty on how they can help solve the problem. If that doesn’t help, enroll them into a self-defense class for the child’s protection.

Talk to your children about school activities when you feel they are anxious or have anxiety issues about attending school. Children will seldom tell their parents that someone is picking on them in the school system. This is something within most children that they won’t inform a parent about because it could be embarrassing.

A child might be ashamed of being bullied. They may be afraid their parents will inform the school to make it more difficult to attend classes. Explain to your child why you feel that they need to inform the school about what is happening to them.

Your child could be picked on from disabilities. Size and weight can influence how other students view your children in school. One bully can choose several victims in school to toy with. Race can play a role in school bullying. These are things to consider when discussing problems your children are having attending school.

Parental Self-defense Strategies to Help Children Cope

Attending martial art classes can help your children in so many ways above learning how to defend their physical bodies. You can be a voice in helping your child succeed during those difficult times of attending school. You may have to attend some self-defense classes to learn how to help your children. You are their role model.

Teach your children to be aware of all surroundings. This is an important life-skill that many adults are unaware of. Awareness of what is happening around you at all times is the key to staying safer in an unsafe world.

Talk to your child about courage. Teach them that it takes more discipline to walk away from a situation. Any fighting art is all about how those who take it can find ways to avoid a bad situation. Self-defense classes will teach your children this but you play an important role in addressing it to them.

Talk to your children about how they feel. Things associated with school and daily life should be addressed in this conversation. Ask them about how martial arts class is going after they have studied for several months. Attitudes should improve as they move on in classes. Motivational skills will improve. Confidence will become better as they continue training. Physical ability with knowledge will ultimately help them avoid bully situations in time.

Be The Motivation Your Children Need

Your children can learn how to be a fighting force by attending self-defense classes. You must realize that learning a fighting art is about self-protection from harm. Never tell your child to punch someone in the mouth. Avoid any conversation that lets your child know it will be fine to hit another student. Your role as a parent is to help your children cope with the nasty problems they may deal with daily.

School bullying is more than a physical issue. They can bully by words and simple actions. A threatening nature by a school bully can intimidate your children. The fighting arts can develop your children with the ability to protect and defend others. Your job as a parent is to be their role model as a Mom or Dad.

What your child does in and out of the schooldays all goes back to how you have taught them during their young lives, check out cool gadgets site. You must be their leader and motivator throughout their younger ages as children. Taking a self-defense course along with your children can help give you the skills needed for them to succeed. You can learn the same teachings that the classes will instill in your child forever.

Martial art training can take your children a long way in life. They could grow from a young age into adults to teach classes on their own. The training could lead to them wanting to go into the military. So many things that they could make a career out of are positive results from the martial art training they receive.

Sometimes, a child needs the supervision of a parent shown as an example. You can take those steps by starting to be their ultimate role model. Show them how much you care by enrolling with them at a martial art school during the near future.

The post Bullying and Martial Arts appeared first on Better Kids Institute.

Discipline and Martial Arts

January 11, 2019 | 0 Comment(s)

Martial arts is a great way for parents to impart a variety of values upon their children. While the benefits of physical exercise are the most obvious, there are a variety of mental and social aspects to martial arts that will carry a child far in life. This article intends to cover each of these three aspects: the physical, the mental and the social; in some level of detail with a focus on the benefits for youth practitioners. 

The Physical.

Anyone who regularly undergoes training drills and exhibitions is bound to shape up, losing weight and, depending on the particular martial art, gaining muscle in the process. According to the Center for Disease Control, out of out every five children between the ages of 6 and 19 is obese, a percentage that has tripled since the ’70s. In instances where a child is being bullied due to an underdeveloped stature, regularly adhering to training sessions may be just the thing to stop that torment. 

Because different martial schools emphasize different maneuvers, one martial art will not necessarily improve the same parts of the body as another.

  • Karate is an upper-body-centric discipline.
  • Tae Kwon Do’s heavy emphasis on kicks means that the lower body gets most of the workout.
  • Judo’s heavy emphasis on reacting to an opponent and redirecting the aggressor’s power upon himself means that many judokas, the plural term for practicioners of judo, have excellent flexibility and agility. The same benefits could also be said to apply to Greco-Roman wrestling.
  • Kung Fu has a wide variety of punches, kicks, and acrobatics, meaning it will do wonders for a student’s cardiovascular health. Boxing conveys similar benefits; footwork and mobility are just as important as knowing how to throw a punch. The same could also be said of Muay Thai kickboxing; a style similar to normal kickboxing but with the additional focus on strikes delivered with the knees and elbows.

Regardless of the martial school that a child begins to study, the call for holding various stances in most styles means that there will be a positive effect on children whose posture is deemed to be lacking. 

The Mental.

One of the best benefits from adhering to the training involved in a martial art is that it is a swift means of installing discipline. It is not uncommon for a student’s instructor to want to learn of his grades and conduct outside of the dojo, including within the school classroom. This is commonly done to further mold students who report unbecoming behavior when not actively engaged in learning their martial art. 

Any young martial artist will eventually absorb the discipline imparted by his teachers and convert it into self-discipline. Yes, a martial art is more than capable of improving a person’s ability to inflict harm upon another, but this same resource also teaches restraint. Furthermore, the child develops the judgment for when that restraint should be maintained and when to respond to an acknowledged threat. 

Confidence is another huge benefit to anyone who takes up a martial art. Gaining a better understanding of one’s own body, acknowledging the ability to stop a threat, and even the various belts, medals and even trophies earned along the path of training; all of these contribute to a person’s self-value. The boon to confident that a martial art can give someone means that studying a martial art may be just the thing to help pull a depressed child out of his funk. 

Stress relief is one of the more basic mental rewards of pursuing a martial art. Martial arts serve as a positive way of physically releasing a great deal of stress without the risk of self-harm. This can be especially useful when dealing with a child who prefers to say little about his school day; giving him a sandbag to strike or a studied parent to coach may be just the thing to improve the child’s mood afterward. 

One last, notable mental benefit of martial artistry is that it has been shown to improve focus and attention. An experiment performed by Bangor University revealed that children who regularly practiced a martial art were less likely to be distracted with things like apps on a smartphone than a child of similar make-up who did not pursue a martial art. Focus and precision are especially relevant to styles that incorporate weapons, like fencing and kendo. 

The Social.

There is also a social element to martial artistry that the parents of “loner” children may appreciate. For starters, the dojo gives a child an entirely new area to make friends with while giving structure. Knowing a martial art also means that the child has at least one additional hobby or interesting fact about his character that other children may be interested in. There is also the notion that one of the child’s close friends may have started karate or judo and the child might want to check it out on his own. 

While progress within any martial art is full of the sweat and exercise of training and exhibitions, it also has its fair share of ceremony. Events like belt awards and trophy-awarding competitions can serve as concrete metrics of a child’s accomplishments, giving them a taste of success that will likely only further their dedication to excellence. Receiving exemplary awards can also do a world of good for a child’s confidence social life as more people hear of his successes.

In Conclusion.

When looking into a new hobby for a child, it is certainly worth taking the long-term positives it might bestow a child in the long-term. When taking this information into account, it makes sense why pursuing a martial art is such a frequent example of an after-school and weekend activity for children. Any child who takes up karate, kenpo or any other school is an individual with some level of physical fitness, self-confidence and has probably gained a few friends since their time as a novice of the school.

The Basics of Self Defense

June 18, 2012 | 0 Comment(s)
So, you’ve decided that your child is ready to learn something about self defense. Where should you start? What kind of skills and behaviors does your child need to know for adequate self defense and safety and where can they get them?
As a parent you may already be personally skilled in the art of self defense and understand the principles of personal safety. If this is true for you then you have probably already shared your knowledge and skills with your child and may be participating in a formal martial arts or self defense program yourself.
If not, here are a few tips for helping your child to learn and develop these skills for themselves:
  • Develop a plan with your child. Rehearse commonly unsafe conditions with them and help them to learn how to use appropriate responses like running away and telling a trusted adult, yelling loudly or fighting back.
  • Ensure that your child has several trusted contacts and safe places to call or run to in the event of an emergency situation or unsafe condition. Help them to memorize phone numbers and addresses.
  • Identify and teach your child several basic physical self defense moves to use if they are being attacked like kicking or punching.
  • Sign them up for a martial arts training program in your area. Most martial arts schools incorporate safety awareness, stranger awareness and simple physical tactics for dealing with an attack as a part of their program.
The basics of self defense and personal safety really begin at home so, as a parent, you are your child’s first, best teacher and role model. You might consider enrolling your entire family in a good martial arts program to ensure a consistent and supportive environment in which you can all learn to practice good habits for safety and self defense.