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.

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