Fit2FightUK Pershore Youth Program (Kids Self Defence)

Jonathan Purton
Feb 22, 2019
3 min read

Fit2FightUK Pershore youth program is well underway, with our partnership with incredibly supportive Abbey Park Middle School. Firstly we ran workshops for their year 6 and year 7 students handing out marketing materials to their students and sending letters home to the parents.

It's been a great pleasure to get to know the staff at Abbey Park, the keen few children that have attended so far and their parents. Our sessions are every Wednesday evening at 5.30 and 6.30pm.

The main ethos of the club is to help your children make safe choices and understand when violence is appropriate while keeping the context firmly grounded in real encounters.

It's important to understand that there is no sport element to the training, this doesn't mean there's no competition but in the street we need to know that we're responsible for our own safety. Learning defensive tactics in a sport environment where the opponent behaves like another martial artist is not what your child will face in a real violent encounter. We're not in Ip Man era China where marital challenges were common place.

We need to understand the issues that effect our children. Bullying from their peers and the risk of an adult threat. Keeping with our ethos of situational, emotional and physical skills we can empower your child with the skills to combat these 2 risks before, during and after an encounter. More detail on the ethos in this link: (https://www.fit2fightuk.com/single-post/2019/02/21/The-Ethos-of-Fit2FightUK).

We have to understand that a child will in the most part be unable to "fight" an adult, no matter their skill level. I've seen extremely highly graded TKD, Karate and Ju Jutsu practitioners get turned inside out by low grade adults in sports fights where there are rules to protect them. In the vast majority of Dojos the adults are kept separate from the kids for this reason. During a fight kids have little chance against the adults so instructors don't get them to practice any techniques on them because they won't work. This attitude is detrimental to a young persons development, this practice reinforces an unconscious bias that they can't defend themselves against an adult.

Then there is the a second school of thought where children do train with adults with little resistance and little regard for the reality of real violence, this gives our children a false sense of security which may stop them from making a safe decision. If you think you have the ability to fight off an adult you're less likely to try to avoid danger and make decisions based on ego.

To break this concept and empower our children with the right knowledge, we need to change what a win is. If we say the aim of a tactic or technique to "get to safety" rather than "win the fight" we change everything that's possible when it comes to young persons self defence.

All physical drills should be delivered in a way that builds to a genuine looking encounter, weather that is an discussion with a potential bad guy trying to manipulate our child or a simulated ambush attack that leads to an attempted abduction.

We understand these dangers exist they happen in obvious places to those with little knowledge or skills. We need to give our children the knowledge of reality to combat ego based decision making. This helps our children reduce the risk of them becoming a victim as well as emotionally and physically prepare them for the danger should they encounter it.

The Fit2FightUK ethos allows our children to make better decisions, safe in the knowledge that what the are being taught is easy for them to access in their moment of choice (Situational or Physical) and helps them move towards safety no matter the danger.

Please let me know if you have any questions about the syllabus and the ethos I'd be happy to discuss any of the elements with any curious parents.