Did you know next month, October, is National Bullying Prevention Month?

Before and during October will be an excellent opportunity to for martial arts schools worldwide to come together and help their communities by hosting free, local anti-bullying classes.

Having visited schools all over the world, we know martial artists are already doing a lot to address bullying. We’ve known for a long time that simply training in martial arts helps children develop their confidence, which aides tremendously in decreasing their chance of being bullied.

However, we believe we all could be even more effective if we worked together against bullying as an industry in a common, unified effort. Part of our ongoing mission is to unify the martial arts community in an effort to educate, inform, and help eradicate bullying. We even created the Martial Artists Against Bullying program specifically to help children overcome the negative impact of bullying.

This program teaches participants:

Awareness – How identify predator behavior

Avoidance – Realistic ways to avoid being a target of bullying

Assertiveness – How to stop bullying behavior

Research shows that bullying peaks in 5th through 7th grades. The program’s goal is to minimize the effects of predatory behavior in grade and middle school-level children. This anti-bullying program accomplishes this through role-playing, small group discussions and empathy training.

As individual marital artists we make a difference in our community already, but as a united movement… we can change the world! Help us support the cause this October.

Martial Artists Against Bullying is a not-for-profit project, teaching participants Awareness, Avoidance, and Assertiveness. If you would like to join in on these global efforts through activities with your student body or local community. Visit the website: http://donewithbullying.com/.