Archive for autism
TAIJIQUAN (NOT TAI CHI)
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Welcome!
Within this section of The MARSTA website you can read all about the fascinating Art of Taijiquan ands where you can leran this essential ancient health tool.
Please feel free to comment upon what you read and if there is anything you would like to see here then, again, just let us know via the email facility here on this site.
Thank you. Read More→
Autism Isle of Wight and The Martial Arts
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Recently I have begun teaching martial arts to a group of teenagers. One is autistic (I will call him John although this is not his real name) and so, I am told, accounts for his disruptive and disobedient behaviour, his inability to control himself, his apparent mood-swings and his rudeness. John is also aggressive (an outlet, I suspect, for frustration and annoyance within himself) as well as being a liability to the group and others as he has already used some of the moves I have taught him outside of the class.
Needless to say I have already excluded John from the class!
John is not ‘unteachable’. He is not a monster but, in my experience, a nice young man and rather quiet when I talk to him one-to-one. It is just that he needs to be taught by me in a small group where everyone is autistic. Better still he needs to be taught by me on a one-to-one basis where his parents and/or a social worker are present. Read More→
Martial Arts For Autistic Youngsters
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Recently I have taught self-defence (by way of traditional Chinese Martial Arts) to a number of very young Autistic boys.
The class was small (numbering between three to six students per one-hour session over a five-week period) and the experience (for me) was good albeit very different to what I am accustomed with other young boys. This was because the boys with autism had needs and concerns that seemed somewhat apart or separate from other minors of the same age bracket. Now I am teaching a small number of autistic youngsters (boys) upon a regular basis.
In the past I have taught young autistic boys on a one-to-one basis sometimes not even knowing that they were autistic because, for me at that time, it had been an unheard of term. Unheard of not just for me but also for the parents who had not been aware of the condition within their youngsters. Autism is a relatively “new” word (and a very complex one at that!) for both the general public and for the medics (apparently) which, I guess, accounts for why such a diagnosis may well be go unrecognized. At least for some time. Read More→
