Transcript of the Podcast:

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Thanks for being here everybody. This is another podcast with Success Training and we’re going to do part three, which is Students with Special Abilities and Challenges and this is a guide for parents who want their kids to excel. So we’re going to go over a lot of things and it’s a guide for parents, but this is a little special topic today. Let’s first introduce our guest today as always is Senior Master Laura Sanborn, who doesn’t have Senior Master on her screen there, but she is a senior master and Mr. Dwayne Flees, future Master. Senior Master Sanborn is a 7th degree black belt and chief instructor of our Cave Creek school and Mr. Dwayne Flees is our chief instructor of the school in Michigan. So thanks a lot for being here guys.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Yes sir, thanks for having us.

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Thank you sir.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

All right, so I appreciate you guys being here and I’m Chief Master Greg Moody and this is what we’re going to cover today.

We’ve covered two parts of this already is kids with physical challenges and kids with cognitive challenges and for parents, this isn’t really for parents, this is for maybe adult students or parents that might deal with maybe their spouse, maybe themself, maybe they’ve got somebody that’s an adult by age, but they may have a cognitive challenge that puts them in a situation that they’re an adult, but they may be still caring for somebody who’s of adult age. So we’ll talk about all the things to do with special abilities and challenges regarding adults.

Next time we’re going to talk about temporary challenges, which may be injuries or other things that happen in the short term so that people can still have success in martial arts and the rest of their life. So that’s what we’re about here is having success in martial arts and in the rest of our life. So let’s talk about this first and what we’re going to do today. So first thing is we’ll talk about physical disabilities. So physical disabilities regarding adults.

How would we work with people with physical disabilities and make it so that they can still be very successful doing something like martial arts or whatever really they want to do in their life and one of the things is that we have to deal with is mobility. So how do we deal with mobility and this could be somebody in a wheelchair or somebody that maybe they don’t physically have legs or arms or they may not have one arm or one leg. They could have been born that way or they could have had an accident. So what other things about mobility? What are other examples of mobility? Anybody have any examples I’m missing there? Well, there’s an infinite number of them, but-

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Age.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Yeah, it could be somebody with a physical disability. That’s a good point that has an age issue where they’re just old and it’s hard for them to get around and what are some ways that you guys have that we accommodate mobility or that people can accommodate mobility and still be successful and have good results?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Well, one of the first things is in the interview when we first talk to them and they come in, they’re like, “Well, I really can’t do this because my back is out or I’ve got knee problems or I’ve got that.” First is letting them know they can be successful in martial arts with any type of disability. It starts with just letting them know and then especially with adults, they can just move to an exercise that they can do if they know for a fact that I can’t do sit-ups, I can’t bend my back that way, then you can do squats. You don’t have to interrupt the class, make a big announcement so everybody turns and looks at you. You just start doing an exercise that you can do to keep mobile and not have to make a big deal of it.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

That’s one thing we’re going to talk about next. I’ll go ahead and write it down, is inclusivity. So if there’s a restriction that somebody has, we work around the restriction. We don’t point out the restriction. We work around and give them a different activity to do. Maybe they don’t have legs or don’t have access to their legs or don’t have use of their legs and in our work today it’s going to be if somebody has a permanent situation there, then we come up with a different activity for them to do a different way for them to still develop if there’s a mobility. What if they can’t move to a certain point part of the class? What are you guys experience that you do?

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

A lot of times we just let them go around, move around the mat at their own pace. Everyone can pass them and everybody understands that that’s part of their workout is actually following the class round or they might just stay in place and turn different directions.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

So one is work within their own pace, work within their limits. Those are a couple big things. What other kind of things would be important in terms of-

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

A lot of times we work on challenging them a little bit too because they may think they can’t do something but they haven’t been trying to do it either they’ve just hit that point of my knee hurts all the time so I can’t do it or I don’t even try to do that because, and so we challenge them a little bit to push that, not in a way that’s going to injure them, but in a way that might help them get better at mobility or increase their mobility and their circulation and everything so that they can get better and do more than they ever thought they could.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Yeah. I think that’s true of students that don’t have any physical challenges or don’t have any cognitive challenges. We try to push everybody to whatever the next step is that they can be and the next step and all three of us have experienced that in doing martial arts. That applies to people with challenges. We want to push and push and push and push and push them so that it’s hard but not so hard they can’t do it. Hard but not too hard. That’s kind of our definition of challenging, make it hard but not so hard they can’t accomplish it. It may be harder than they think they can do, but not hard, so hard they can’t do.

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Yes.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

And then our student that we have for his entire life, everybody has done so much for him. He doesn’t even have to ask. He just expects people to do things for them and then here at the academy that’s changed. He’s accountable for himself to the best of his ability. So we don’t allow them to say, “Well I can’t do that.” We’re like, “No, you just need to find a way to make it happen,” so they can-

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Still having high standards for the students that are… They have a challenge, we’re going to work with that challenge but still hold them accountable for what happens. That’s fantastic. Really good points there. So one is mobility. The other point that I had written down was inclusivity. So even though they’re maybe different than the typical kids that we have or typical adults in this case, typical adults, we’d still include them in the class and they’d still be interacting with other people. How do you guys see that happening if somebody with no challenges is working with somebody that may have a challenge, maybe they don’t have?

I know we have one of our black belts and our instructors has some restrictions with their hand and they can’t use their hand the same way. It’s got a disability with their hand that’s not fully formed. They’re always going to have that, but they’re working with somebody that doesn’t have any of those issues. How do they work together?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

It goes under the challenging thing as much as anything else. They’re still going to work with a partner. The partner is not going to baby them or take their level of training down to… We’re not making it easier on them and we’re not expecting our other adults to do that as well. Treat them like another adult. You talk to them the same. You don’t go, “Oh well is this okay? Can we do this? Can you do this? Are you sure you can do this?” We don’t have that conversation in class. This is the drill, this is what we’re working on. Go and then the instructor goes around and might tweak something but not… You treat them like another adult. You don’t treat them as if they’re incapable of something just because they have a difference.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

So I’m hearing a couple things. I’m hearing a couple of things in what you said Senior Master, is one is showing both people are showing respect towards each other, that they’re going to respect them, that they can do the activity within the limits that they have and that the person, in both cases, both people are taking personal responsibility for, I’m taking responsibility if I have a challenge for making sure I communicate to the other person and they’re taking responsibility for checking if they need to, whatever limit they have, but also challenging me and not being timid about being too soft so therefore I don’t get a workout.

If I’ve got a problem with my body, I want to make sure that I still challenge myself and if my partner is going to be afraid of me, then because I have a challenge, then I’m not going to get good movement and good development. Are those two things, respect and personal responsibility that we’d want to have? Okay.

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Yes, and the respect is so crucial.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Okay, cool. Those are key points. I love that. We’re trying to codify those into a couple pieces. Anything else to add there in terms of inclusivity and keeping them in class? I know Mr. Flees, one student I love teaching of yours is DJ Ashlock. I hope it’s okay to mention her and she has a dog in class that’s a service animal that she keeps with her.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Yes sir.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

And how would you talk about her in terms of inclusivity?

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Well, so first thing we did was let her dog Nick find his place on the mat. So he found his place on the mat and that’s where he goes every single time. He never deviates from that and he just lays down and he waits. Ms. Ashlock, if something changes in her body that he senses, then he’ll stand up and then he’ll alert. He’ll alert that she needs to do something and sometimes she wants to ignore it because she wants to stay in class and keep working out because she pushes herself really hard, but then we have to tell her, “Nope, go do what you have to do right now.” So then once she does whatever she needs to do, whether it’s… It could be as simple as just taking a break and getting some water because her body got out of whack with something and then they’re fine.

Then she can get back up and get in class and get back at it but we watch Nick, the service dog almost more than we watch her to see what we need to do to help her out and some things we do have to adjust for her, like the exercises and whatnot just because of the restrictions that she has and they’re always changing for her. So we just adjust as needed so she can continue on and she feels really successful that way.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

So this is a person who has a service animal that kind of monitors her physical health and alerts both the instructor and her if there’s something that needs to change. So there’s an adaptation. We normally would never have a dog allowed even in the facility or least of all on the mat, but yet this is a case where because of the situation the service animal’s allowed on there, and this could be in a variety of situations that might happen, but it’d be a conversation where we have instructor awareness. So I wrote that down in terms of inclusivity. There’s an adaptation. It’s not where the instructor has a hard and fast rule.

We’re going to be flexible enough that we have a certain situation that that’s going to be okay and other people need to learn the rules apply, we have firm solid, strong rules in our martial arts school. However, those firm solid strong rules are about the big picture of things and are about the big picture of everybody developing and one of those developments is some people have some specific cases that need adjustments and there’s going to be adaptations where needed but only where needed, not in other situations. So maybe that’s a good rule. Adaptations where needed but only were needed. I think that covers what we talked about.

The other thing that I was thinking about as we were talking about physical disabilities is that the skills that we teach are still going to be real world skills. I wonder if we could talk about regardless of somebody having a physical disability, I know a famous guy, at least in our space, a Master Chair who became a Senior Master when I did, he’s 7th degree black belt and he was paralyzed from the waist down in a car wreck when he was a fourth or fifth degree black belt and so he had to learn how to adapt all of his martial arts to being in a wheelchair and he really did real world skills and I got to train with him when I became a 7th degree black belt, but how we adapt, the adaptation isn’t just so they can participate.

The adaptations would be so that the skills that they learn are still real world and do you guys have some examples of that where if somebody has a physical disability regardless of age or something that’s permanent, that they still do learn real skills, at least as far as their martial arts skills, their physical defense skills that are going to be applicable?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Absolutely. I’ve got one who’s he’ll never be able to kick much higher than his knee just ever and so that’s not a requirement for him, but he needs to do that kick with the proper skills, with the proper technique and he needs to know why even a kick that low is effective. So I will make the entire class kick that low for a while because it is an effective kick and he needs to know it, but so does everybody else need to know it. It’s not just that he’s kicking low because he can’t get his leg up higher. It’s that all right, so we’re all kicking low, what’s the target there? What’s happening if you’re kicking that low, where do you use it? When do you use it? So it’s using the example of him to teach everybody else that that is effective, not just that he knows it, but everybody now knows that it’s an effective kick.

It’s just lower than where we normally kick for board breaks or another style in the form or something.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Yeah, but he has to make sure that it’s to the right target and that it would be effective in a real situation.

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Right. The proper part of his foot, using the right amount of power and knowing what the target is when you’re kicking that low.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

That’s great. That’s a good example. Mr. Flees, I’m sure you’ve got a few examples too. Oh, I put you on the spot.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Yeah, I think about one of our teenagers basically he has one good arm that can block his head. So we’re constantly getting him to go faster because he’s, like I said, sometimes he just goes slow because he’s gotten away with it for his whole life and people accept it because he’s challenged in that way but we’re like, “No, bad guys aren’t going to take it easy on you just in your cart. They’re going to smack you upside your head and you have to get your arm up there fast enough to block it. So if that’s your only good arm, then we have to make that one the strongest.” So we’re always pushing him to be faster, especially on that side, because it has the biggest range of motion so that continues to get better and better.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

That’s a great example. That’s a good one. Well, so anything else to add for physical disabilities? We could probably go on for hours and hours and hours about the things that we do and the examples that we’ve had of all the students over the years that we’ve helped with physical disabilities, because the beauty of what we do is that it’s such an individual activity even if you wanted to be in competition, we have competitions where people with physical disabilities can participate and cognitive disabilities, which we’ll get to in a second, but it doesn’t have to be a competitive… This is a sport and an activity and a way of life that doesn’t have to be competitive.

You can continue to learn and grow and learn for, like me, over 30 years and like you guys for decades. So you can keep doing this forever and grow and grow and grow and grow and it doesn’t matter where you’re coming in at. So that’s what’s such a great thing about this and you can have any kind of situation and still continue to grow and you guys as instructors and all of our instructors are so fantastic at being able to adapt to these different types of situations. Anything to add about these? So we could talk for hours about the different situations we’ve encountered. Anything to add that we maybe missed or that we’d want to put in here about physical disabilities in particular?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

No, it’s also finding the skill. I’ve got one student who he’s never going to be able to put his arm all the way out and leave it all the way out. It goes out and it comes right back. There’s not the ability to hold it up there, but we’ve also found that if we convert him to weapons, which he loves doing, he has a wider range of motion and it’s a new challenge for him that it can replace that inability to do something specific. We find something else that he can do that he never even thought, nobody even would’ve considered it because it’s just, “Oh well, I can’t do a kick or I can’t move my hands as much so I can’t do weapons.” Well it challenged him and he finds that he can do that and he can do it as well as some of the other people in class that have got no challenges. So that was a super successful adaptation that was really successful for him.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

That’s fantastic. That’s a really good example and I was going to share as we move on from this, I think a lot of things, well let’s use this as one example here and move on to cognitive disabilities. Unless you had one to share, Mr Flees, I didn’t want to [inaudible 00:19:51].

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

No, I was just going to say that just the inclusivity is the biggest part. So no matter what we’re doing, whether it’s a weapon or okay, find something that they can do at that time, whether it’s with a partner or not, that they can learn to be successful at it so that they can still feel like they’re making progress.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

That’s exactly right and honestly, as much as we say we’re focused on physical disabilities today for our podcast, this applies to all of our students, because we all sometimes have challenges and I believe that’s one reason why our instructors are so good at working with any kind of people, any kind of disabilities and honestly even really high performing people is because we’re always challenging and pushing them. So I think that’s a good point that you’re bringing up. Now, if I change this to cognitive disabilities, what part of it changes I wonder about. Now, cognitive disabilities are what we’re specifically talking about here. Not mental health conditions specifically, but cognitive disabilities. Like somebody’s either got an injury or there’s something genetic that has happened. Now some things are in between genetic and environmental, but somebody with, they might be an adult with down syndrome and there’s a wide range of things.

Could have been a car accident, could have somebody that could have had a stroke, just met somebody other… One of the instructors I know up in Canada just had a stroke. That’s a serious challenge for people. Now they could have some of all these things that we just talked about. There could be mobility issues. All the inclusivity issues that we have could be very similar. So I wonder if you guys would agree that these are all important characteristics for people with adults with cognitive disabilities as well. Would you guys say these are all important things too?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Absolutely.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Yeah.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

I mean I don’t think we, as far as this challenging and accountability, if they have a very serious cognitive disability, we want to challenge them as much as possible and make sure they’re accountable. We don’t let them off the hook even though, and that’s one of the best things about what we do, even though some other people may say, “Well they have a challenge so we can’t push them as hard or we can’t expect as much out of them,” but a lot of people will thrive or all people I think will thrive if we expect a lot out of them and we want them to have personal responsibility and all these things. So I think these all are sort of covered in what we talked about. What other things would you guys say are different or additional things to cover regarding cognitive disabilities? Let me clear the whole thing out.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Probably-

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Go ahead.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

You’re higher rank. You get to go first.

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Recognizing and celebrating successes. It’s something we do with anybody, but I feel it’s particularly important with people with cognitive disabilities making a big deal of the progress that they’re making and that they get recognized for that all the time when they’re being successful at something that we do recognize it and that everybody recognizes it.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Yeah, true.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

So there may be a different level of this recognition and celebration then you would do a little bit different than you do for the typical adult student?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Yes. A normal student, I might just give him a high five, say, “Great job.” With somebody with cognitive disabilities, “That was fantastic.” Take an extra minute on really specifically saying what the success was and what they did to get there. “You’ve been practicing a whole lot on that and I can really see a difference on how well you’re doing it and that was a fantastic thing, everybody did you see that sidekick he just did?” Making a little bit more of a big deal. So it goes in and sinks a little bit deeper into them that they did have a success.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Great. So in other words, there may be a difference in emotional or psychological development and we need to consider that because the emotional psychological development may be at a different age or a different level and that’s a broader way to say that, but I think what you said is exactly right in a general way to functionally address it because of the difference in psychological development or motivational development. Nothing wrong with that and that may be a way to keep things positive and be a good instructor. What else would you guys add that’s different from what we covered already?

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Sometimes I think when you’re the instructor and you’re used to everyone hearing and moving on command, but sometimes people will need a moment to process what you just said and that blank look on their face might not be them not paying attention to you, it might just be them processing what you said so they can get it down.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

So there may be some sensory or perceptual skills that they need help with. One of the things that I was thinking about when we were talking about this was an adult with autism for example, or an adult with ADHE, it’d be similar to a child where they may be sensitive to loud noises or may not hear if it’s a different type of cognitive disability, may not hear loud noises or as you said, may not process things at the same speed as other people, may need me to be at a different part of the floor, may need me to be in a different part of the room when certain things go on so they can see us properly.

So there may be sensory or perceptual differences, they may need sensory aids or if we slap a pad together really loud, that might be very shocking to them. So there could be some other issues that come up. Anything else that reminds you of sensory perception?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

You might have to find another way to explain something because it might just not be kicking in with the words that you’ve been using for everybody else that they’re just not understanding your terminology and you might have to break the terminology down just a little bit differently for them.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Sometimes the way we use it for the tiny tigers, the preschool kids works the same way for the adults that have that cognitive disruption or disability so, [inaudible 00:26:55] understand.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Right for the preschool kids, very similar if they’re having the same focus and I think that’s another reason why our instructors are so good at working with adults with disabilities. It’s not that they’re the same as preschool kids, but we’ve got a tool set that we can borrow. We can borrow a lot of tools from our experience with younger people. If somebody is having trouble paying attention, we have this tool set, we can grab it from that group of people and use it in the other group or use it for that person. So that’s one reason all of you guys are so great and all of our instructors are so great, because we’ve got such a big toolkit for different situations like this.

So one would be sensory issues, the other would be successes. What else do you think is important for cognitive disabilities? Anything else comes to mind? Well, one thing I was thinking about is the pacing of the class, making sure the pacing of the class may be too fast or too slow and they may need some help with memory and we expect our adults to memorize more and they may not be able to memorize as much. So there may be some memory differences and just like if I was working with somebody with a cognitive disability and they were learning Spanish, for them learning half of what the rest of the class learned may be adequate.

Now if they were in high school, that might be very difficult for a high school teacher to have the person in their class because how do I manage somebody learning at half the speed of the rest of the classroom? It may be very difficult for me to break them into groups and the teachers are very good at that, but there may be some challenges if that speed is not going to be the same. For you guys, you’re very good at managing somebody that may not be progressing at the same speed and we may have different target goals for them for doing a certain proportion of the material that we want in a certain amount of time.

Have you experienced that with somebody with a cognitive disability?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Definitely and part of that is making sure that they and their caregivers and their guardians and anybody else with them is aware of where to find the material to support them, “Do you know what page of the manual has what we’re working on so you can reinforce it at home so you can help them with that. Do you know where the video is for the video material of what we’re working on? Do you know how to access that so that they can,” because it may be just in case they need more reps and they need those reps at home on small parts of it. So making sure that they are aware of where to find the resources to be successful in class.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Right and sometimes I think not just the videos online to follow, but sometimes a video of themselves performing in class so that they can see what we’re actually saying when they think they are doing a technique or part of it the way we’re saying and they’re like, “I am,” and we’re like, “No look. Are you?” And they’re like, “Oh I guess I’m not,” and that again applies to any student of any age really, but sometimes that’s helpful for them to actually see where they’re at at that technique.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

So some support resources help and then working with parents or other caregivers if it’s a very severe cognitive disability, if it’s a minor cognitive disability, maybe somebody is there themself and they have a stroke and they’re working on their own, they wouldn’t have another person helping them. So then helping them with the support. Maybe they don’t necessarily have to do the same amount of material as somebody else, but they repeat it more. They may have to do more repetitions and they may have to do more to keep things moving.

Anything else with cognitive disabilities that we could probably, again, go on and on and on and there’s so many different ones that it would require different adaptations, but we’ve already covered that somewhat in our physical disability section. Anything else you want to add specifically for this area?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Again, they are required to make progress and the expectation that they will make progress and get better at what we do and not letting them off the hook with that.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

So just because there’s a challenge doesn’t mean we aren’t expecting them to move forward and make progress and get better. If they don’t get better, they won’t be proud of themselves. They won’t see achievement, they won’t see success and they won’t feel good about what they did.

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Correct.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Awesome. Okay, well great. Now the last one for adults with disabilities, it’s not really a disability but it’s something that we may have happen and it happens pretty frequently is mental health conditions and because I’m a licensed psychotherapist, I can talk about this from a little bit different perspective, but you guys end up dealing with people that have different things that are going on in their life. Now we’re not… In our school a lot of times we get people asking us about all kinds of things when we’re talking about kids, parents will ask us to help their kids with many, many different problems, whether it’s their attention issues or they’re getting bullied at school or they’ve got ADHD, they’ve got autism, they’ve got some other mental health issue, a cognitive disability or a problem and adults do the same thing.

They come to us and ask us about, they’ve been training with us a while and they’ve got problems at home or they’ve got other things happening. We’re not professionals in those fields. We do a really good job of referring people out and referring people for the proper help so that we can be supportive in different ways. So there’s a few things that I wanted to mention though, how we help with things like depression and stress and other things where the last statistics for mental health conditions are that the National Institute of Mental Health said that 26.2% of the population, the adult population could be diagnosed with a mental health disorder.

That means one in four. That’s very high and you and everybody listening has people that are having some challenges on a day-to-day basis. That’s beside the other things that we already talked about. So one of the things that, other than us referring people and how do we provide for helping people with how their mood is and how their stress is, let’s talk about stress. How do we help people with stress in the martial arts school? Not specifically something that’s wrong mentally but with stress. What are some ways that we help with that?

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

I think just the physical activity for one, just working out hard and focusing on something else other than whatever was causing you stress before you came in. If it’s hard and it’s difficult for you and your muscles are straining, you’re not going to think about that which you left outside the door.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

I think you said something really important there, Mr. Flees, is physical activity we know helps with stress and you go to the doctor a lot of times and they tell you get less stress or you’re having problems with your blood pressure, get less stress, you’re having problems with your weight, get less stress and it’s like you want to tell the doctor, “Yeah, right. I mean what am I supposed to do, not have a job or what am I supposed to do? Not drive in traffic every day? I mean I have to get to work. What am I supposed to do?” I mean, “Thanks a lot doc, what’s your prescription for that?” And sometimes they give you a pill for that, but then it doesn’t really change the amount of stuff you have to go through every day.

So physical activity we know reduces stress, but the focus on something else, if you go to the gym and you do aerobics or you go to the gym and you lift weights, you can still be thinking about your problems. You can still be thinking about work or at home or the traffic or whatever the problem was, but if you go to your martial arts class, you’re learning stuff at the same time. So you’re doing physical activity plus you’re learning stuff and there’s a focus on some next level of achievement, whether it’s the skill you’re learning in class or wanting to get to your next rank or whatever the thing is.

So the focus on something else, those two things together I think are a big difference in the stress relief you have doing what we do versus doing something else that doesn’t necessarily have the physical plus the mental or it has the mental, you could meditate, but why do you still… It’s hard to meditate and not worry about stuff because you’re not physically doing stuff at the same time. So because those two things are together, it helps with stress a lot I think. So stress management is the other piece. The other thing I think… Anything else to add there guys before I move on?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

I was thinking how we don’t stand around in class and gossip. There’s not time to bring up your problems in class so it doesn’t become part of the class that everybody hears it and you’re talking to somebody about it. There just isn’t time for that and we don’t make time for that during class that people can just stand there and talk to each other or they should be doing something and moving on to the next thing and whatever we’re working on, the instructors have the pace of the class and there’s a planner.

So we’re doing this and we’re doing this and we’re doing this. We’re not stopping to, all right everybody sit down and just like you can talk with your partner and talk to them and stuff like that. It’s keep moving, do the next thing, you’re going on with this stuff.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Yeah, I think that’s a major point that you’re making is the structure of the culture isn’t for people to lounge around afterwards. There’s not a lounging around and chatting about whatever, whether that’s politics or whether that’s the day that you had or you’re mad about somebody or whatever that is. That’s not the culture that we have partly because of the structure of what you’re learning, but somebody could be liberal and somebody could be conservative and they come into the school and they work out and they train and they do stuff and they learn some stuff and then they leave and they could go out later if they wanted to and be friends or they don’t have to, it doesn’t make any difference but the structure of the culture isn’t so that you absolutely could be very nice to each other and friendly and friends even, but you wouldn’t have to have any kind of interaction at the school that deals with that and I think that’s a good point.

So it becomes a very safe environment. Ironically, I think the worrisome people have is if I go do martial arts, it would be unsafe. It’d be like the bad karate kid environment and it’s in fact because of these things we just mentioned exactly the opposite, that you go there and then everybody’s really concerned about safety, everybody’s really concerned about the environment being supportive and I think that I was going to write that supportive environment and the supportive environment thing is important because contrary to what people that might be outside of martial arts or haven’t worked with us before and honestly even some styles or schools, it’s not about you coming in learning to go fight in a tournament.

It’s not about you coming in learning to go, I don’t know, have a bar fight or something. It’s about you… Excuse me, coming in and learning to get better yourself. We have tournaments but a low percentage of our students go to those and it’s only if you wanted to. It’s not really a big part of what the purpose of what we do is. So it’s about us supporting each other. So you could be working with somebody a lot bigger than you, a lot smaller than you and everybody is still trying to make each other better, whether that’s a student or the instructor. Maybe you guys could say a little bit more about that?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

The respect that we would require everybody to show everybody, using last names, saying yes sir, and yes ma’am to each other as well as to the instructors when somebody is in charge of something, the introduce yourself when somebody comes in for their first class, so they’re not standing there, I don’t know what to do next. I make sure, especially with the adults, that I take a new student over and say this is their first class, introduce yourself, say hello, but not having big conversations with them, but do say hello, welcome to our class and then class starts. So again, it’s part of the inclusivity, but the inclusivity with the element of respect that comes with martial arts.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Yeah, that’s a good point. That’s a good point. I mean the structure and the way everything is built and the way we talk and the way we act and the way we have just built everything. When you walk in the front door, you say whatever our life skill is, as you walk in and you bow because you know that the environment changes, it’s a signal, it’s a psychological signal that the environment changes so that hey, this is different, I walked in here, it’s different, I’m going to act different. People do that in a lot of different ways. I mean you go to a sporting event, you’re wearing the T-shirt of the team and you’re going to be starting cheering for the team and you sort of act crazy. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m just saying that you go into the arena, you know you’re going to act different.

You go into our school, you do something to trigger yourself to act different and then everybody acts really supportive and positive at each other in contrast to what you see in the movies and the images that you get of martial arts is very different. Other things that related to mental health, one is stress, one’s a supportive environment. Anything else related to improving people’s mental health that you feel like that are things that you wanted to mention?

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

I think sometimes, not only is it our own students that are benefiting from reduced stress in the supportive environment, but the parents as well of the students. The instructors being supportive with the parent, backing the parents up, helping them with different issues that may come up so that they can reinforce that at home with the child or we can reinforce it with the student as well. So we kind of have a team working with the individual so that it’s easier for the parents to get the message through.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Yeah. Well so if I could say that another way, since this is about adult students, many of our adult students are also parents of our kids. So if they’re stressed about the environment because their kids are not behaving, then they may have another challenge. Whereas if we’re helping them with their kids and they’re also training here, then that helps them in a lot of other ways because it’s an overall environment that’s going to help them be better and I mean both of your kids and my kid, all three of our kids have done martial arts and become black belt. So that’s something obviously we buy into, not just from the point of view of being instructors, but it’s helped us be better because our kids got the support. We’re kind of products of the product that we started with here. Cool. Anything else to add on any of these topics before we wrap up here today?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

I don’t have anything else.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Okay. Thank you. All right, well thank you guys very much for being here and I’ll clear the screen. There’s a lot that we do for adults with physical challenges, with cognitive challenges and then also with mental health conditions and helping them with their stress and what they do day to day and even if people don’t have any mental health challenges, which we still have stresses and other things in our life, even if it’s not diagnosed as a mental health challenge and it isn’t then, it’s just normal stress being in the school and all the structures that we have to help everybody, help literally everybody to help people without those kinds of challenges as well.

So our instructors get to draw from this large range of tools that we have from all the different types of students that we’ve taught and worked with over the years and that’s what makes it really special in our school to when we work with our adults with any kind of challenges.

Next time we’re going to talk about temporary challenges and what to do or what we do and how you as a student or a parent can help, whether it’s your work with kids and adults and how to help them be successful even during maybe a short medium or maybe even a little bit of a long-term challenge so that they can still be successful during that time. We worked through a lot of different ones over the years so we can kind of cover everything when we get to that. So thanks very much everybody, and I appreciate you guys being here. Senior Master Sanborn, thank you very much.

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Thank you sir.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

And Mr. Flees, thank you very much, especially for being out here a little bit later in the East Coast time zone.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Yes sir. My pleasure.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Okay, thanks a lot everybody.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Okay.