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PLEASANTVILLE, N.Y. Guro Patrick Consing at Kapatid Martial Arts knows the importance of teaching children proper anti-bullying techniques.
Its important to take a stand against bullying, Consing said. A lot of kids are looking for help and protection and its important for them to find the power within themselves to protect themselves,
To do his part, Consing put on a free community anti-bully workshop at Kapatid in Pleasantville on Thursday in order to teach children the proper way to handle an attacking bully.
Theres a ton of publicity today on the issue of bullying and I just wanted to do my part to give back to the community, Consing said.
The workshop was broken up into two courses, one with children ages 5-7, and the other with children ages 8-12. Dozens of children from Pleasantville and the surrounding areas participated in the workshop and multiple instructors from Kapatid worked with the participants.
Bill Kipp, a fifth degree black belt martial artist and former kindergarten teacher, stressed the importance of putting the children in real-life scenarios in order for them to relate back in future situations.
We use playful scenarios to put the children into emotional modes so that if something like that happens to them it can trigger their brain and they can have a positive draw from there, Kipp said.
Some of the techniques that the instructors taught the children were how to stand and act in order to deter a bully, how to properly walk away from a situation, and what to do when approached by a bully.
Consing said that it was important to teach children these techniques at a young age.
With older children they have different social conditioning and they might want to look cool, Consing said. This is the age that children develop their fears and its never too early to start to develop a good base so they can have good habits to develop from.
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