Bullies made Ted Argyle’s teenage years powerful.
Key factors:
- One in 5 children in yr 4 expertise bullying on a weekly foundation, in keeping with a research
- Ted Argyle took up martial arts as a strategy to fight bullying in his personal life
- The Warrnambool fighter desires to advertise martial arts to different younger individuals as he says it builds confidence
He yearned to discover a strategy to stand as much as them, and that is when he found Bruce Lee movies.
“It was Bruce Lee motion pictures that basically made me conscious of martial arts,” he mentioned.
“Simply seeing a a lot smaller particular person taking over swarms of individuals, as a 14-year-old, impressionable boy, that was fairly interesting.”
Mr Argyle now teaches blended martial arts in Warrnambool, and sees a gradual stream of younger individuals coming to his coaching centre looking for the identical factor he sought as a teen — the means to face as much as bullies.
However is studying to battle the reply?
‘Confidence is king’
In accordance with the federal authorities’s Traits in Worldwide Arithmetic and Science Research, one in 5 yr 4 college students expertise bullying on a weekly foundation.
Mr Argyle mentioned at the very least half of the scholars he had taught over the previous three a long time had ticked ‘bullying’ as a motivator for studying martial arts.
However he stresses that it isn’t about preventing again — it is about confidence.
“There is a saying within the self-defence neighborhood that the place ignorance is mutual, confidence is king, which suggests … if one other child sees a child is assured they’re much less prone to goal that youngster,” he mentioned.
Though a lot of the scholar’s time is devoted to studying to kick and punch individuals, Mr Argyle mentioned he at all times taught children that the purpose was to cease any bodily altercation.
“If a bodily altercation takes place, that just about at all times means there was a failure earlier on in that interplay,” he mentioned.
However do different consultants agree with Mr Argyle’s strategy?
The scent of concern
Psychologist and creator of Bully Blocking Evelyn Subject agreed that confidence was key, however mentioned martial arts would solely be useful if it careworn non-aggressive behaviour.
“Should you present concern to a canine or a horse, they are going to both run away or assault,” Dr Subject says.
“Bullies are precisely the identical.
“I believe martial arts will be actually wonderful so long as it isn’t about preventing again, however as a substitute about confidence and subsequently how they appear, how they communicate, the voice they use.”
Dr Subject mentioned it was when kids appeared “unbothered or unruffled” by bullies that the bully would really cease.
“You have heard of surfers doing the identical factor with sharks,” she mentioned.
“They’re simply calmly going previous the shark on their board, however not exhibiting any concern.
“And that is what it is all about as a result of they are going to simply scent your concern.”
Dr Subject mentioned there wanted to be a better neighborhood strategy to tackling the issue of bullying and that it was not an issue that needs to be left as much as faculties that have been exhausted from COVID.
“It is about instructing children easy abilities, verbal abilities and, just like the martial arts, the non-verbal abilities,” she mentioned.
“Eye contact, standing up straight, having a impartial look in your face — simply being calm and picked up.”