Month 1 – BBE Life Lesson: Kindness – Drill for Skill: Power

Here is your class management materials for month 1. Our Drill for Skill theme is Excellence and our Life Lesson theme for your mat chats is Integrity.

Downloads

Download PMA Kindness Materials

Mat Chat Week 1

Week One: Kindness and Caring comes from strength.

Kindness is the quality of being warm-hearted, considerate, humane, and sympathetic. When you think of a person who meets this definition, you probably do not think of them as also being strong, but they are. Being kind and caring of others is not a sign of weakness like some people may think. Kindness is an inner quality that comes from a person’s confidence and strength inside them. Some of the strongest people in history have been kind, thoughtful and caring, so much in fact that many of them gave time, money, energy, and even their lives to help others in need. People like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and many others.
Many of our modern sports heroes are the epitome of strength. Take Shaq for example, one of sports’ most powerful figures have set up a foundation that is dedicated to helping those less fortunate, or how about our American soldiers who are the worlds’ strongest and bravest, but yet they fight for the freedom of other nations. So when you see someone doing something nice for someone, know that it is a sign of strength. When you are asked to help someone or see someone in need of help, see this as an opportunity to be strong.

Mat Chat Week 2

Week Two: Acts of Kindness and Caring

There are many movements, charities, and volunteer organizations that are set up to provide help to care for, and spread kindness to people all over the world. The Red Cross helps people that have gone through catastrophes. Green Peace is a worldwide organization that helps to keep our environment clean and safe for everyone. Second Harvest is a local organization that helps to feed the less fortunate right here in our own community. Those are great organizations, and there are many more, that accomplish amazing acts of kindness. But did you know some of the greatest acts of kindness come from the hearts of individual people for no other reason than they want to help others. Like giving up your seat to an elderly person on the bus, holding the door open for someone, helping your parents with the household chores, participating in a neighborhood clean-up, or being kind to the new kid at school. Simple acts of kindness can be great, as long as they come from the heart.

Mat Chat Week 3

Week Three: Random Acts of Kindness

Random acts of kindness are the best because you are helping and being kind to others spontaneously and for no other reason than because it is the right thing to do at that time. Don’t get me wrong, planning to help others like planning to attend a mission trip with your church, or planning during the Thanksgiving weekend to help feed the homeless, or less privileged is a great act of kindness. But being the type of person that wants to help people every day, at any given time, means you truly care about people and want to help, care for, and be kind to others. This type of caring attitude will be contagious to others around you. Your friends and family will start wanting to help others. The people they help will begin to want to help and be kind to those that they meet. Then all of a sudden our community could become so much better, and it could have started with one person like you, trying to make a difference. Finally, people will see the kind of person you are, and you will start attracting people in your life around you that are caring people also. These people will be true friends that you can count on the rest of your life.
(This month in our Black Belt Excellence worksheets, the students were to perform 10 random acts of kindness. Discuss with the students what acts they performed and how it made them feel. Emphasize to them that if they feel good about their acts of kindness, not to stop! Continue having this impact of their community as their part of making our world a little better.)

Drill Week 1

Week One: Jab or Cross, you decide

Equipment needed: X-Ray Sheets
One of the most important elements of Power is speed. Our techniques cannot be powerful without momentum needed to execute them. This week’s drill develops not only relative speed, or how fast something is between two objects, but it also develops quick decision making.
Have the students line up in two lines facing a partner with one side holding a sheet of X-ray paper. The students on the other side should go to their fighting stance. They should listen to the instructors’ commands of jab or cross and deliver the appropriate technique with speed and power. Instruct the students to execute the proper punch with as much relative speed as possible. Also explain to the students that by them listening to the commands of jab or cross and executing the techniques as fast as they can, they are developing their ability of quick decision making.

Drill Week 2

Week Two: Do you have Rotation in Your Cross?

Equipment needed: Focus Mitts
This week we are concentrating on the second element of power; Rotation. Rotation is what helps to deliver our power into our techniques. You can’t have a powerful round kick if you do not pivot your supporting leg. You cannot have a strong punch if you do not rotate your hips and shoulders. Have the students’ line up in lines facing a partner. One side has on a set of focus mitts. Have the students throw the following combination; Jab, Cross, Cross. This will help the students understand the importance of rotation by using rotation when throwing the first cross, then resetting and having to use rotation again in the same technique. Also remember to emphasize teamwork by insuring that the side holding the mitts are cheering on their team mates and paying attention to their techniques.

Drill Week 3

Week Three: Move them Back!

Equipment needed: Kicking Shields
The third element of power is back-up mass. Back-up mass is when we utilize our bodies’ mass in our technique to increase our power. By focusing our back-up mass on the smallest point possible of our weapon, we also develop another type of power called penetration power. Penetration power is the depth of the impact of the technique. Image that you punched a big pillow – how far your fist went into the pillow from its’ surface represents the penetration power of your attack on the pillow. Have the students’ line up facing a partner. One side is holding kicking shields. Have the students on the other side line up in their body position to throw a sidekick to the shields that their partners are holding. Emphasize to the attacking students to concentrate on the heel of their foot, having only that part of their foot impacting against the shield as they use back-up mass in their technique. Challenge the students to move their partner back when they kick. The more their partner travels back, the more power they delivered in their sidekick.