Cyber Bullying Part 2

What is bullying? Simply said, bullying is abuse. It is often persistent and can include such things as threatening, fault finding, insulting or frightening… anything that abuses power thrives on an imbalance of power. The bully likes to use his or her power to make the victim react.

What are the types of bullying? There are many different types of bulling. The more traditional forms of bullying include physical bullying such as hitting and shoving and threats of physical harm, verbal bullying such as mocking, teasing and name calling and emotional bullying such as exclusion from social groups or events and rumor spreading. The newest form of bullying is cyber-bullying which uses email, instant messages, websites and text messaging, for example, to harass someone in the form of threatening, mocking, teasing, name calling, excluding and rumor spreading.

How is cyber-bullying different than traditional bullying? The biggest different between cyber-bullying and traditional bullying is that the time and place of the bullying changes. In traditional bullying, the victim can usually retreat to his or her house for a reprieve from the harassment. Home is usually a safe-haven. With cyber-bullying, victims often cannot escape the abuse because the technology of email, text messages, instant messages, the Internet and cell phones give bullies constant access to their victims. Oftentimes, bullies cannot wait to get home from school so that they can continue to terrorize their victims. Additionally, cyber-bullying is different from traditional bullying because rumors and other information can spread so much more quickly with technology than it can spread traditionally. Someone can spread a rumor about another person to everyone on their buddy list with the click of a button - almost instantly, ten, twenty or even a hundred people can read a rumor and begin spreading to people they know.

Why is cyber-bullying so much worse than traditional bullying? The biggest reason why cyber-bullying is so much worse than traditional bullying is that there is no defined time or location for the bullying. The victim is almost always reachable through the advances in technology. This makes cyber-bullying so much more invasive than traditional bullying because the victim literally has an extremely difficult time escaping from the harassment. Additionally, cyber-bullying can occur around the clock. Even if the victim isn't using the Internet twenty-four hours a day, he or she might get home from school or wake up in the morning to an inbox full of threatening messages. Traditional bullying has a relatively small audience. Only the people in the direct vicinity of the bullying are there to see the victim's humiliation, but with cyber-bullying there can be literally hundreds or thousands (or more) of people watching the conversation or visiting an embarrassing website.

A final reason why cyber-bullying is so terrible is the idea that when people have the "protection" of not seeing their victim face-to-face they are often more cruel and do and say things they would never do in person.

What are some examples of cyber-bullying?

Cyber-bullying can take many different forms. It can be direct bullying where people send vicious and/or threatening messages to their victim's cell phone or email or they write the messages to the victim in a chat room or via instant messaging. This is also called cyber stalking.
There is also indirect cyber-bullying, also called denigration, where a person or group of people creates websites that have cartoons, photographs or videos that can potential humiliate another person. These websites can also have "incriminating" stories (true or not) and jokes that ridicule others. Another tactic common to cyber-bullying is when people post surveys on the web asking people to vote for "the most (offensive comment)" in the class.

Admin                                                                                        4/17/07

Why Kung Fu is a Better Way to Improve Your Health

Human beings are threefold: the body, the mind and the soul (spirit). Kung fu training develops all of these areas and greater health and fitness are actually attained compared to more common methods. 

Initially, strength is the first to develop. It happens almost instantly through calisthenics and basic martial movements like kicks, punches, blocks, and stepping.

Secondly, the stamina and endurance begin to develop provided that training is consistent. By practicing breathing methods, the heart and lungs are developed. This also benefits most of the digestive organs as the breathing is done abdominally. Breath training strengthens the breathing muscles and increases lung capacity. More oxygen = more energy! Oxygen also benefits mental functions through meditation, which is very much a part of martial arts training. Kung fu utilizes mediation for many benefits as it bridges the conscious and subconscious minds thus allowing one to make a deeper longer lasting change in ones habits and behaviors.

With the mind and the body improving, the third aspect of being begins to come into balance: the soul (spirit). You are uplifted. You feel better, look better, sleep better, and love better. Life gets better. Worry, doubt, fear slip away, and you are free to embrace those things you once deemed unattainable.

 Admin                                                                                    04/14/07

Getting Started Right With Martial Arts

If you are ready to start to learn how to exercise correctly you should learn these exercise tips before you get started:

• Pick an exercise. We like martial arts because it works the whole body as well as you learn how to defend yourself. As well as the mental benefits cant be matched by a gym or video workout.
• Pick a time of day to start. Keep it consistent until it's a habit.
• Get a physical. If you have not exercised for a time please tell your doctor what you have in mind.
• Start slow and easy and learn to enjoy the process. It took you time to get out of shape it will take you time to get back into shape so be patience.

Read the rest of this article for more helpful tips on getting started and learning how to exercise smartly.

You know you need to exercise for better health and a better sense of well-being. The problem is that most people don't know how to exercise, and are often left feeling discouraged when they don't see any results. This is because exercise is only half of the answer, you have to know how to exercise correctly for proper gains, and you have to pair that with a sensible and healthy eating plan. One won't really work without the other if you don't know what you are doing.
If you want to know how to exercise, you should start with proper breathing.

Panting away while you exercise can leave you feeling winded much too soon, and the amount of exercise you can accomplish in one session will not be what it should be. If you learn how to breath properly, you will get more done, and your body will get more out of your workout. You will find that simple breath techniques will be a part of any video or DVD that tries to teach you how to exercise. Make sure you master this before you get too far down your path towards a better lifestyle.

Once you know how to breathe, you may still be stuck as to how to exercise. You can start by deciding what you are most interested in doing. Sure, martial art classes will help burn calories, and you will learn self defense as well, but if you have absolutely no personal interest in doing this, you will stop after just a few sessions out of pure boredom. Remember that you have to enjoy what you are doing, or at least part of it. Exercise is work, but it can be fun too. You are going to have more fun when you learn how to exercise if you love what you are doing.

If you can't decide how to exercise to your full potential, it might be in your best interested to sign up at a local martial arts school and see what they have to offer you. Many have different programs, and they have instructors that can teach you how to exercise so you get the full benefit of your workouts. They may have suggestions for you, and the group dynamic may be just what you need to stay on track. They will show you proper form and breathing for all moves, and teach you how to exercise so that you are not injuring yourself. This makes exercise fun and rewarding. Plus if you chose martial arts you have the benefit of learning something as well. Need more information on martial arts feel free to give us a call at 888-505-2562 at the Academy of Kempo Martial Arts. We will try to guide you on the path. Good luck.

Admin                                                                               02/19/07

Cyber-Bullying Is Your Child at Risk?

Cyber Bullying Part 1

If you have a school-aged child, he or she is very likely to have been involved in bullying to some extent. As a martial arts instructor, I see parents coming in all the time to ask for advice about how to "bully-proof" their children. There used to be a rather straightforward answer that involved teaching children the skills they needed to fend off the bully that approached them in the school yard or on the way to or from school.

Now, we are seeing that bullying is changing. It doesn't necessarily involve a "brute" of a boy picking on the small kid, shy kid or just plain different kid. It doesn't just occur during school hours. It doesn't just involve nasty notes or writing on the bathroom walls. Bullying has evolved as quickly as technology has been evolving because all these great advances that are supposed to make our lives easier serve as the medium for bullying. Bullying now includes a space on the World Wide Web with an audience that's too large to count, but even though the medium has changed, it's still abuse and it's still a way for one person (or group of people) to thrive on an imbalance of power to terrorize someone else.

It's called cyber-bullying and it can permeate literally every aspect of your child's life. We know that about one third of kids say they have been bullied at least once and that about one tenth of kids admit that they are bullied every day. These numbers don't include the children who are bystanders who observe the bullying but do nothing to stop it. If that's your kid, you're lucky because those who are actively involved in cyber-bullying can suffer grave consequences whether they are the bully or the bullied.

Some people immediately jump to the thought that technology can easily be banned from the affected children's lives, but the issue goes much deeper than that. Cyber-bullying is not simply a technological issue, but an issue of what we are teaching (or not teaching) our children on how they can use these great advances to interact with the people in their lives and how today's children are held responsible for their actions.

It's also very important for parents to know about this modern form of bullying and how to handle it as well as what we can do to teach our kids to empathetic and give them the skills they need so that they are not likely victims. That's what we do when we have bullying seminars and self-defense courses for children and the results of teaching them these skills are very positive.
Admin                                                                                        01/11/07

How Martial Arts Helps to Combat SAD

Admin                                                                                     23/11/06