Bullying in the Ozarks; Dynamic Edge Martial Arts approach to Bullying

What We WILL NOT DO:

We will not take the approach that violence, as some "experts" suggest, are acceptable paths to bully prevention. 

"Beating up the bully" is not an approach we endorse or suggest.

While defending yourself from harm may be something that needs to be done, beating up ---as in punching or kicking another human being as a way to stop the problem of bullying --is not the path we suggest. 

Violence does not heal violence --nor does it stop it. 

We will learn to elevate our understanding of the problem and work together to solve it. We will teach compassion, cooperation and communication as our primary tools. 

We must learn to interrupt the patter of violent escalation. 

A bully insults, the victim yells back, the bully is entertained, angered, energized, and escalates to using physical abuse or more extreme forms of social bullying. The victim retaliates. The bully retaliates harder with more friends egging him/her on.  The violence cycle spirals upward and out of control until the victim may see the only solution to ending this tormented experience is to kill the bully or kill themselves, thinking "I will never be bullied again." 

Physical confrontation is the last resort of bully prevention --and the least constructive. If we as Martial Artists (and this goes for parents, educators, and the entertainment industry) promote or propose violence as a solution to bullying, we will be catering to the lowest form of thinking man is capable of.  Our aim is to help foster compassion, understanding and a progress that moves our thinking and our humanness forward in a direction away from violence, abuse, and bullying.