The most important thing is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle.
Elite Olympic Martial Arts students are taught to honour this Olympic Games’ creed. The North Vancouver-based martial arts studio is now introducing a class for children with special needs.
Elite owner John Yoo said he saw a demonstration of special needs martial arts at an event a couple years ago, and he was amazed.
“I could see how proud the students were of being on stage and performing and how proud their families were,” said Yoo.
Inspired by this experience, Yoo enrolled one of his instructors, Jung Yun Kim, in a program that offers certification to teach special needs martial arts.
The program was pioneered by internationally acclaimed martial artist Mike Sirota, a former teammate of Yoo’s and director for the International Disabled Self-Defense Association.
Now that Kim’s certified, Elite is ready to have students enroll in the program, which accepts children with a wide variety of special needs including physical disabilities and those that are hearing and sight impaired.
Many children with autism have studied martial arts with great results, said Yoo. A child with autism currently enrolled in a judo class at the studio has benefitted “immensely” from the class, his father has told Yoo.
As for exactly how it helps, Yoo points to a December 2000 New York Times article that stated martial arts can “help ease the symptoms of (ADHD): impulsiveness, inability to concentrate and, in some cases, hyperactivity.”
The article quotes an associate professor of clinical psychology at Harvard Medical School who said martial arts is becoming very popular as a means of treatment for children with special needs.
Children on the autism spectrum showed remarkable improvement during a 2010 research project conducted by the University of Wisconsin that found in the process of learning martial arts the children became more socially assertive and co-operative.
The study also found that the children demonstrated better balance and coordination, eye contact improved and better plays skills developed.
Kim is a fourth degree black belt in taekwondo and has trained in Korea her whole life. Her parents are both champion martial artists, her mom in taekwondo and her dad in judo.
The important technique Kim will impart on her future students is patience.
“It comes little by little,” she said of developing martial arts skills.
Elite is hoping to have the program up and running in December.
