Bullying is getting worse by the moment. In the month of October the media has been covering it like never before. “People” magazine October 18, 2010 front cover reads “Teen Suicide Tragedies, Deadly Bullying” with photos of three teens that committed suicide in the past month due to bullying. On the week of October 14, CNN had a special on bullying. As I am writing this article we have been featured in five TV shows this year. Three of the five shows were on the effects of bullying and how our martial arts center is training kids to defend mentally, verbally and physically against the school yard bully. On March 22, we were live on Univision’s “Despierta America,” On August 30, we were also live on America TeVe’s “El Show de Fernando Hidalgo” and on October 6, we filmed a segment for Telemundo’s “Caso Cerrado.” We’ve been hearing a lot about bullying in the last few months.
Yet, there is nothing new under the sun, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released some disturbing information regarding teens in fear of violence at school in 2004. The report states that fear of violence is up and the number of teens skipping school for fear of getting hurt has sky rocket over the past decade.
One out of 20 high school students skip school because they fear an attack from the school yard bully. One of three students has been in a fight in the past year. One in 11 teens surveyed in 2003 said that they had been threaten with a weapon in the preceding year. Statistics on victims of violent crime show that juveniles between the ages of 12 and 17 are more likely to encounter violence than any other age group except young adults age 18-24.
As a retired prison guard and martial arts instructor, certified in Hung Gar Kung Fu, Haganah , Muay Thai Kickboxing and as Martial Arts for Peace Bully Busters instructor I believe that we must instill confidence in children through the martial arts at a young age. We teach our students as young as three years old to be respectful, humble, obedient to parents and authorities, peaceful yet confident and to walk alert and proud.
We teach the characteristics of a bully and how to handle them first peacefully and as a last resort physically. A confident trained teenager is less likely to fight or be a bully since they are confident that they will end an attack victorious within seconds. Their mind set is that they do not want to hit another person unless they are force to, not out of fear of them but rather because if they strike them they will harm them. This is the mindset of a Martial Arts Peaceful Warrior.
A bully who is really weak inside and most of the time a coward looks for who he thinks are weaker than him. After a bully assess his next victim to violently attack him/her he will overwhelm him with verbal violence design to shock or establish dominance over the victim. This could be a very scary and terrorizing situation for the average teenager. It saddens me to know that numerous kids from middle school to high school are walking in fear.
We will teach your teen or pre-teen child to be aware of their surroundings, how to react to an overwhelming verbal attack in a positive and assertive manner and if it escalates to a physical attack to be able to shift into a combative mode and survive the violent encounter. Our goal is to empower kids to walk in peace and be the last one standing when reality strikes.
If your child is being bullied you can contact us at 305 599-3649 or via the internet at www.antakungfu.com or at fitdef@aol.com
