KAPA‘A — The students from the Boys & Girls Club, Kapa‘a Clubhouse, had only six lessons from Master Jack Markman of Kim’s Academy Tae Kwon Do, and yet they will be breaking boards for their parents during the B&G Club
KAPA‘A — The students from the Boys & Girls Club, Kapa‘a Clubhouse, had only six lessons from Master Jack Markman of Kim’s Academy Tae Kwon Do, and yet they will be breaking boards for their parents during the B&G Club ‘Ohana Day.
“Are you nervous?” Markman asked one of the younger students whose facial expression demonstrated anxiety when told about the board breaking. “It’s OK to be nervous. That means you’re thinking about it. Your body needs to tell your brain ‘you can do it!’”
Markman said in just six one-hour lessons, there has been a marked difference in the students, as they moved from clique behavior to an attitude of working together to help each other.
Markman, who recently moved to Kaua‘i after being at the helm of Kim’s Academy for 17 years, said the Tae Kwon Do organization has teamed up with the Verbal Judo Institute to provide schools in Utah’s Salt Lake Valley area a comprehensive bully prevention program.
“Happy kids are successful kids,” said Verne Larsen, the Safe Schools coordinator at the Utah State Office of Education in a Kim’s Academy flyer. “Kids cannot learn if they don’t feel safe. That is why Utah requires all schools to have anti-bullying policies.”
Labeled verbal judo, the program is a set of tactical communications lessons which go hand-in-hand with the Kim’s Academy martial arts curriculum.
“It’s self-defense,” Markman said. “When people are bullied, they can be passive and let it continue, or they can defend themselves.”
He said most bullies are cowards, meaning they do not pick on someone who is more powerful than themselves.
Verbal judo offers skills to people, not necessarily just youngsters, which allows them to empower themselves while building self-esteem and confidence, leading to better relationships and outcomes.
Verbal judo, originally taught to more than 700,000 law enforcement officers 27 years ago, is not just about stopping bullies and bad guys, states the Kim’s Academy flyer.
“These communication skills transcend all levels,” the flyer states.
“We teach kids how to keep their cool when angry, how to respond appropriately to some who is angry at them, and to really listen to what others are communicating.”
At the heart of the program, along with “being cool,” is mushin, an Asian martial arts concept, which is the mantra of the students even before warming up for the martial arts which are incorporated into the curriculum.
“The ladies at the B&G Club said to make the program exciting for the students,” Markman said. “We depart a little from what is taught at educational schools, but not by much. You can see, the students are having fun and are enthusiastic.”
Mushin is a Zen term referring to that state of mental clarity and enhanced perception known as pure mind, produced by the absence of conscious thought, ideas, judgments, emotion, pre-conception or self-consciousness, according to the Fighting Arts website, and it prepares the individual to practice verbal judo.
“It’s not enough anymore to tell someone just to ignore behavior,” said Dan Olympia, a University of Utah associate professor of educational psychology quoted in the Kim’s Academy flyer.
The goal of verbal judo is to redirect negative behavior and reduce conflict through verbal communication, the basics of which are provided in the Markman lessons. They are put into practice through repetitive behaviors and martial arts concepts which reinforce the judo.
Markman said the concepts are applicable to all ages and all walks of life because children and adults alike face issues of harassment and bullying — on the playground, at school and in the workplace.
Visit www.sandy.thebullyexpert.com or call Markman at (808) 212-1665, or email katkd06@yahoo.com for more information.
• Dennis Fujimoto, photographer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 253) or dfujimoto@ thegardenisland.com.
