Bullying and Martial Arts

Bullying is, unfortunately, a situation that many kids feel vulnerable in because they do not know how to handle it. There are many kinds of behavior that kids of any age can experience. There is verbal assault, where unkind words and insults are constantly hurled their way. There is also physical assault that involves the manipulation of one’s body.

If there is one thing that bullies prey upon, it is fear and implied weakness. Usually, bullies will not seek trouble from someone who looks to be bigger and tougher. However, an easy target is someone smaller and weaker. However, there are ways that your child can defend themselves from these situations. One of these ways includes martial arts.

What Are Martial Arts?

Martial arts are systems of combat that are practiced for a variety of reasons. The most common uses include law enforcement application, military training and what your child may need it for most, self-defense. Some of the most popular kinds include kung fu, jujitsu, karate, and tae kwon do. Therefore, you can see that this is more of an umbrella term used to describe the proper techniques of self-defense that is commonly practiced in Asian countries.

While many focus on the specific strikes that can do damage, there is much more to learning this art. If your child is properly trained, they will be able to learn discipline and confidence.

Learning Confidence and Discipline

The biggest lesson that children can learn through training is increased self-discipline. This is done by gradually teaching how to resist temptation and how to remove influences that make us weak. Constant studies have shown that self-control and discipline can be accentuated with consistent habits such as a healthy diet. In training, your child can be taught how to change their routine and take themselves out of certain comfort zones.

While comfort zones can be seen as a convenience, it can also be seen as a hindrance to unlocking one’s true potential. Comfort zones lead to complacency and complacency leads to poor results in the long-term. It also teaches your child that things will not always go according to plan. The entire point is to help build habits over time that will help achieve a specific goal.

Your child will not achieve any goals set for them by a couple of big actions that they do in their life. It is the small, consistent things that they do on a daily basis that will determine if they will be successful or not. Self-discipline is about correcting destructive behavior and adapting to certain circumstances.

Control

Control is another huge part of the training that will help your child develop in a positive manner. While combat is a part of what your child will learn, the focus isn’t to overpower or gain control of the opponent. The goal is to use one’s skill and strength in a controlled manner. The idea is that you should want your child to never have to engage in combat and avoid conflict whenever possible. However, if the situation dictates that their safety is in jeopardy, they can use what they have been taught to protect themselves from harm.

It is a meticulous process that will require your child to understand the controlled movements that the training will entail. There is a lot of thought before action and a conscious act of responding with situational awareness has. Professional instructors will be sure to instill these basic fundamentals early because it is easy for children who get bullied to think about what they can do to get back at those who bully them.

Increased Self-Confidence

Unfortunately, one of the long-term detrimental effects of bullying is that it decreases your child’s confidence. A bully preys upon certain people because they may see a vulnerability or weakness in them. That perceived weakness can make your child insecure in their own abilities and cause them to lose confidence in themselves. They may also believe that something is wrong with them, which is why they are a target for bullying.

However, actively participating in martial art training can help them nullify these confidence issues. Confidence results from beliefs that are held within us. If we are negative about ourselves, it will be manifested in our behavior. Practicing will help your child to believe in themselves and to attain any goal that they set for themselves. Mastering a martial art is a great way to not only understand competence but to achieve a goal. The more goals that your child achieves, the more that their self-confidence will increase.

Building confidence is something that cannot be fixed within one night. It is a long-term process that will require consistency and a belief that anything can be achieved. However, if your child eventually trains to the point where they become a master, they may feel like no goal will be out of their grasp. In addition, if a bully approaches them again, not only can they learn how to effectively defend themselves, but they also learn manners to divert conflict, to begin with.

Martial art training not only teaches your child the fundamentals of how to defend themselves, but it also teaches them important life lessons. It will teach them to be confident in their own abilities and how to stay disciplined on a specific task.

While it is true that there may be certain concepts that can be difficult to learn at first, your child will be more disciplined, more confident and more focused by the end of the martial art training. Consider all of these benefits if a bully happens to be bothering your child.

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