Last weekend, Nexus Martial Arts & Fitness ran two seminars for members and their guests to help gain self-confidence when faced with difficult situations.  One aimed at helping youth students deal with bullying; the other focused on self-defense tactics for adults.

Run by Nexus Owner and Chief Instructor Stephen Whittier, and Youth Instructor Matthew Borges, who worked for over six years as an early-childhood education professional, the youth Bully Prevention seminar was designed to educate children and parents on types of behavior that constitutes bullying and the various types of bullying.  Students were also given strategies to deal responsibly and non-violently with bullying when it occurs.

"This is the same bully curriculum that our youth students get in our program, only with the school year starting we packaged it all in one seminar to make sure everyone had the information." Whittier said.

Parents were impressed with the quality of information and the strategies. Two parents, Matthew and Diane Sweeney, said that their son has already gained noticeable confidence since joining the program and recently used the strategies they have been working on in class to diffuse a bullying situation.

Whittier also ran a "Mixed Martial Arts for Self-Defense" seminar for thirty Nexus students and their guests, which focused on adapting the practical mixed martial arts techniques to conditions specific to common self-defense scenarios.

"There are only a few places in the country that know this curriculum," said Whittier. "It's a lot of fun to train, and is all based on the fundamental skills our students learn every day in class. But it also gives everyone a different perspective, and we have some very cutting-edge applications of how to adapt those skills specifically to common self-defense scenarios."

"I thought it was great!" said John Murphy, a Nexus student and seminar attendee. "It took a lot of the striking, jiu-jitsu and judo-based stuff we already know and applied it to real self-defense situations. It wasn't re-inventing the wheel... it was taking what you can already do and then applying the tactics we covered to really know how to defend yourself in a real situation."