Bullying.

People often ask me why I preach about bullying so much when I teach the kids classes. My answer to them is simple,I have been bullied off and on since grade 6. I know what it feels like to by threatened, pushed around, the subject of rumours, publicly ridiculed and cyber bullied. I don't believe that I would have the confidence that I still have today if it weren't for my Kung Fu. Kung Fu teaches you two very important things besides self defence... Discipline, and respect.

I cannot tell you enough how hard it is to walk away and ignore someone that is publicly humiliating you when you're standing
four feet away from them, and not to mention keep calm. But, Kung Fu taught me the strength and the courage to do exactly that.

Now, I'm not saying that every person that is enrolled in Kung Fu has been bullied. Neither am I telling you that that is the reason that I was enrolled in Kung Fu. There is certainly a good chance that most of us have been bullied at some point, whether it be as a kid, or as an adult. The question, "well sifu, I've never been bullied, or a bully, so why do I have to learn about what to do when you're being bullied?" Comes up once in awhile and my answer to that is simple as well. This is one of the ways that I can teach someone empathy in a very simple way. By learning about bullying, and being educated about the effects about bullying, it's not very hard to put yourself in the shoes of the guy that's being picked on at the bus stop, or excluded from playing a game. It makes it way easier to be his or her friend;
and not be tempted to be peer pressured into becoming a bully yourself.

I believe that this is an essential part of my identity as a black belt, and has drastically changed the way that I approach my teaching in Kung Fu.

For our orange belts in the kids classes, we started the new green stripe requirement of them having to create a multimedia presentation on bullying, which will eventually be displayed on the monitor in the school. The picture I included in this post was one from a project that one of our orange belts handed in. There was my chuckle for the day. =)

Sifu Wonsiak