Ricardo Vargas

I BELIEVE IN MARTIAL ARTS! HERE IS WHY!

The worldwide popularity of martial arts and its endurance for over twenty centuries is due to the intangible benefits acquired by martial arts students.

Through martial arts training, an individual can achieve all the following:

The longer the students practice martial arts, the more pro-social they become.

Martial arts training promotes peace makers! The more an individual train, the less violent they become.

It is all about the development of self-knowledge to achieve self-control.

It is extensively demonstrated that there are strong links between martial arts training and

increased confidence and school grades, alongside the more obvious improvements in health and fitness.

To be more specific, here are some key traits of our martial arts approach:

• We promote physical and moral virtues. Our students are strong and skilled, but also prudent, patient, temperate and generous.
• Our workouts, breathing drills and meditation take physical energy and sublimate it into restraint and grace instead of mere brutality.
• Our ethical principles encourage reflection and make one’s social duties and responsibilities clear.
• Training can reveal one’s physical limitations and build humility alongside resilience;

it allows one to better understand one’s own emotions as fear and rage, just to mention some.

 THIS IS MY APPROACH, AND IT WORKS!

“There is an intimate and necessary relation between the process of actual experience and education.”

~ John Dewey, 1938

Experiential learning is referred to learning through action, learning by doing, learning through experience, and learning through discovery and exploration.

Experiential learning is a philosophy and methodology in which educators purposefully engage with students through direct experience and focused reflection; this is to increase knowledge, develop skills and promote values.

 Each training session is run for one hour. The first 5 minutes consists of warming up and the focus is on joint mobility, followed by what we call the fitness challenge, which is another 20 minutes of gentle strength activity. After that, we incorporate a period of 20 minutes of martial arts drills utilizing a range of training equipment; balance, coordination and focus are the aim of this training. Then we devote 5 minutes for the cool down period, which involves stretching and breathing exercises. Finally, we use the last 10 minutes to engage participants with different activities, focusing on both individual and team development, (using a wide variety of props and educational materials). This is to have significant experiences developing positive virtues and life skills that we actively promote throughout our programs. We finish the session with a brief debrief to provide individuals an opportunity to share their learning, both on a personal and social/community base.