Last Updated on September 4, 2012.
An Essential Resource to Stopping a Bully
By : TSMMA Glendale Blog
When you think of a person being bully your heart goes out to them. Bullying is not a new thing. In fact, it has been around for as far back as you can think. Only today we hear about bullying more often because of social media and what we see on the news. This past Friday, on August 31st, 2012 as a community service, Sensei Christopher Iavarone held an informative and essential bully prevention seminar at Tiger Schulmann’s Mixed Martial Arts of Glendale, Queens. In attendance were several community leaders, law enforcement, and a journalist from New York 1 news.
He felt that it was important enough to position the timing of the event right before school began to educate the children on how to handle themselves if confronted by a bully. This was promoted to parents as the most important “back to school supply” they could provide for their children. When you think about the millions of dollars being spent on back to school supplies, this seminar was free, but more valuable than anything else they’d need.
Sensei Iavarone has been involved with Tiger Schulmann’s since he was 10 years old and he is proud to say that he has never been bullied in all of his 23 years of training. He credits the martial arts for building his confidence through learning self defense. It really is true that people who know how to defend themselves usually don’t have to. Preparing for the event started about a month before, thinking about when would be the best time to hold this class and how this knowledge could fit into an hour workshop. Kids today relate to world differently then when their parents were their age, so Sensei Iavarone specifically designed it to engage the level of his audience in a contemporary way. If you search out how to stop bulling in schools on the internet you would come up with lots of opinions, and most of which don’t make sense or aren’t really a solution to the problem. In his classes daily Sensei Iavarone works to build confidence in each of his students and educates them that standing up for yourself is an inherent right.
Some parents get frustrated when their child comes home from school telling them they were bullied and typically reacts by asking, “why didn’t you stand up for yourself?” A better question to the parent would be, “How do you expect them to stand up for themselves without the proper training?”.
This valuable seminar explained what a bully really is and why they do what they do. There are weak people who want to make themselves feel better at the expense of others. It was not an event for parents to just drop off the kids and go shopping. Sensei strongly encouraged them to stay, hear the discussion and arm themselves with the critical information their kids had so the dialog would be encouraged to continue at home. By the end of this seminar over 65 children ages 5 to 15 and their parents knew the difference between the three levels of bullying. Of course a class like this was worth attending. But truth be told, consistent training at Tiger Schulmann’s will ensure your child’s safety.
To get an inside look at the Bully Prevention Seminar hosted at Tiger Schulmann’s MMA of Glendale this past Friday, click here for the premier interview on New York 1 news.
