It's got my name on the door but Guest's Martial Arts is only possible due to a lot of help from a lot of people.

Over the last 7 years I’ve had so much help from so many people, from first getting started to running the school, filling in for me when I’ve been sick, painting, plumbing and personal training, artwork, friendship and moral support, financial assistance, free equipment and non returnable favours the list goes on ….

I’m writing about this today because as I type I’m also watching another long time student setting up about 5 thousand dollars worth of gym equipment in the gym that he’s letting me keep here for free. He also has another 15K worth of equipment due in about 4 weeks depending on delivery times. The gym equipment that we already have was the another free loan from another student at the start of the year.

So there you go, one 25K gym, free of charge for parents and members.

Thanks to everyone, you know who you are.

A little while ago I recieved a phone call from a concerned mum, she had on of our flyers and wanted to know about how Kids Martial Arts training could help her son improve with his contration and Self Control. She was at her wits end and was thinking about taking her son to the doctors to be assesed.

Apparently he has a lot of problems with being able to FOCUS, it was effecting home and school.Mum hoped  we might be able to help. After listening for a while and asking a few questions we made an appointment to come down for a chat and to watch a class like we always do for someone that’s interested in finding out more.

He was a great kid, lot of energy and questions, but every time I tried to answer one of them straight away he would start to look around the school and fidget in his chair in a really uncontrolled way…….Mum just glanced at me with that “see what I mean” kind of look.

So I said his name a few times until I had his attention and we had a chat about the mind and the body that went something like this….

“Billy” in martial arts we learn lots of amazing things that normal people just can’t do, Awesome Kicks, How to do Somersaults and even for our best students Weapons training and the way that we learn them is by focusing on each moment that we are at training, by listening to our teachers and concentrating on what we are doing when it’s our turn to practice.

In our attention stance, which is our learning stance, there are three things that you need to do

• STOP moving
• LOOK at your teacher &
• LISTEN to what they are saying….. just like at school and at home.

I always link things back to school and home when I can because it’s important for people (kids and parents) to understand that this is not just about kicking and punching, but about life.

If your teacher at school says “Can I have everyone’s attention please “, then you need to Stop moving, Look at your teacher and Listen to what they’re saying so you can learn what to do.

However if you mind is thinking about what’s next or what you did last week then it’s not here right now with your body in this moment. Your body is here at the table with me but your mind is not, it’s away thinking about other things. So your Mind and your Body have to become one thing and do one thing at a time, not two things trying to do five things at a time. He nodded his head and then went back to looking around and fidgeting in his chair.

We then did our 10 minutes mini practice to help him get ready for the next time he comes in to do a 45 minute class with all the other students. He had trouble with his Concentration and his Focus but we’re working on it and I’m pretty sure we will see a big improvement over the next few months.

I’ll add to this post later on and let you know how he’s going.

Martial arts’ training has always been a great way to help children learn about Discipline. As an Instructor we have certain expectations from our students with regards to behaviour in the Dojo (martial arts school).

At Guests Martial Arts one of our main focuses is actually on Self Discipline rather than Imposed Discipline because Self Discipline is the key to getting things done not only here but at home and at school as well.

You can’t have someone looking over their shoulder all the time, and even if you could is that what you really want?

Does that mean that we let them run wild on the mats and do what they like? Of course not, however what we do is give the student the opportunity to control themselves and then if that’s not working, particularly with the younger ones; we are there to provide guidelines and rules that set boundaries for students to follow.

We all know that a child with rules to follow is on the whole much happier overall, despite any protests at the time.  I'm  big believer in this approach because if you don't give a child the opportunity to try for themselves with a risk of failure (in the right environment) then they're not really developing any Self Discipline instead they're just learning how to do what they're told and that’s a big difference.

We have other programmes in place as well, such as the behaviour management tools that I’ve developed over the years, our Excellent Manners and Self Control charts play a huge part in getting the behaviour established no only at Guests Martial Arts but also at home and school.

When primary school children graduate to high school the demands for their time increases quite a bit, in the later stages of high school a student can be expected to study as much as 2, 3 even up to 5 hrs a night during exam periods. The key to success in this area is Self Discipline, there is no other way and the time to teach them is now!





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Regards

Craig Guest