My name is Kylie Murdock and I am a junior at Palos Verdes High School. I have been training at Elite Training Center for almost 3 years and have my blue belt in Krav Maga, an Israeli form of Martial Arts that has been around for over 75 years. This past summer, I had the honor of creating and teaching a 4-week long self defense summer camp at the Boys and Girls Club of San Pedro as part of my Girl Scout Gold Award Project. I taught elementary and middle school-aged kids basic self defense principles including how to be aware of their surroundings and how to react if they are grabbed by a stranger, while also promoting exercise and fitness through the use of a daily fitness log. This camp had a positive impact on both my students and myself.
At the end of the camp, students were better disciplined, had better self confidence and walked away with a basic understanding of self defense concepts and techniques. Plus they have a DVD they can look at which shows all the techniques they learned over the four weeks. At the beginning of camp, there were two boys who never listened and always disrupted the class. When I introduced a behavior chart during the second week, class disruptions dropped significantly. The fear of having to “move their clip down” compelled the students to behave. The two disruptive boys became very determined to be a “Super Star”, the top of the chart, and started behaving themselves By the end of the camp, those two boys were among my most behaved students; I saw a big improvement in the behavior of all the kids. Big improvements also happened to the students’ level of self confidence. On the first day, most of the kids in the older class were hesitant about doing the shoulder rolls. None of the kids volunteered to go first; they were scared of embarrassing themselves in front of their peers. By the second week, the kids fought over who got to go first. They would beg me to let them go across the floor twice so that they could do more. When we reviewed techniques at the start of class, all the students would raise their hand to cite the steps; gone was the hesitation to stand out or mess up in class.
All of the kids now have a working knowledge of basic self defense skills. The kids also have a DVD will all the techniques to help refresh their memory. With these two tools, these kids are now ready to defend themselves in case of an emergency.
Assistant teaching at Elite Training Center and participating in the Leadership program there have helped prepare me, but teaching this camp has required me to be a more patient and creative person. When teaching twenty second-graders krav maga self defense for kids, patience is very important. This applies to martial arts especially because techniques have to be remembered in a certain sequence, so steps may have to be repeated ten times in order for the kids to remember them. I have also learned how to think on my feet and modify things at a moment’s notice. After spending some time with the kids and realizing their strengths and limitations, I decided to modify parts of the curriculum that would be too difficult for them. Some days I even changed the lesson during class based on the skill of the students there that day or how much time was left in the hour. I also had to be creative with my methods for getting the kids to behave. I started off with yelling “attention”, and the kids would yell back “ready” while standing like a soldier at attention. That worked for the first week, but they got tired of that. I then resorted to giving the kids three chances, and when they got three strikes, they would be put in timeout. When that didn’t work, I created a behavior chart with four levels: Super Star, Ready to Learn, Think About It, and Last Chance. Each kid had a clothes pin with their name on it, and when they misbehaved or were disruptive, they would have to move their clip down a level. Conversely, they could also move their clip up and redeem themselves. This was very effective because all the kids wanted to be a “Super Star” and when given the threat of moving their clip down, they quickly corrected themselves.
While I know that the crime rate in San Pedro won’t drop, I know I made an impact on the lives of the kids I taught, especially Jorge Gomez and Sanai Diego. These two received six-month scholarships to Elite Training Center and will hopefully be teaching the camp next year. Sanai and Jorge were always so eager to learn new things and wanted the scholarship the moment I mentioned it. One day they both showed up at the younger class and I was very confused because they were too old for that class. When I asked what they were doing, they told me they wanted to be my assistants and help me with the class. They caught on to all the techniques so quickly and so accurately that I allowed them to help with teaching the little kids. They went above and beyond in filling out their fitness logs; they both had every day of the four weeks filled out and Sanai even drew pictures to go with her exercise for the day. I am so proud of both of them and would like to congratulate them on their scholarships. They definitely earned it!
My name is Kylie Murdock and I am a junior at Palos Verdes High School. I have been training at Elite Training Center for almost 3 years and have my blue belt in Krav Maga, an Israeli form of Martial Arts that has been around for over 75 years. This past summer, I had the honor of creating and teaching a 4-week long krav maga self defense for kids summer camp at the Boys and Girls Club of San Pedro as part of my Girl Scout Gold Award Project. I taught elementary and middle school-aged kids basic self defense principles including how to be aware of their surroundings and how to react if they are grabbed by a stranger, while also promoting exercise and fitness through the use of a daily fitness log. This camp had a positive impact on both my students and myself.
At the end of the camp, students were better disciplined, had better self confidence and walked away with a basic understanding of krav maga self defense for kids concepts and techniques. Plus they have a DVD they can look at which shows all the techniques they learned over the four weeks. At the beginning of camp, there were two boys who never listened and always disrupted the class. When I introduced a behavior chart during the second week, class disruptions dropped significantly. The fear of having to “move their clip down” compelled the students to behave. The two disruptive boys became very determined to be a “Super Star”, the top of the chart, and started behaving themselves By the end of the camp, those two boys were among my most behaved students; I saw a big improvement in the behavior of all the kids. Big improvements also happened to the students’ level of self confidence. On the first day, most of the kids in the older class were hesitant about doing the shoulder rolls. None of the kids volunteered to go first; they were scared of embarrassing themselves in front of their peers. By the second week, the kids fought over who got to go first. They would beg me to let them go across the floor twice so that they could do more. When we reviewed techniques at the start of class, all the students would raise their hand to cite the steps; gone was the hesitation to stand out or mess up in class.
All of the kids now have a working knowledge of basic self defense skills. The kids also have a DVD will all the techniques to help refresh their memory. With these two tools, these kids are now ready to defend themselves in case of an emergency.
Assistant teaching at Elite Training Center and participating in the Leadership program there have helped prepare me, but teaching this camp has required me to be a more patient and creative person. When teaching twenty second-graders, patience is very important. This applies to martial arts especially because techniques have to be remembered in a certain sequence, so steps may have to be repeated ten times in order for the kids to remember them. I have also learned how to think on my feet and modify things at a moment’s notice. After spending some time with the kids and realizing their strengths and limitations, I decided to modify parts of the curriculum that would be too difficult for them. Some days I even changed the lesson during class based on the skill of the students there that day or how much time was left in the hour. I also had to be creative with my methods for getting the kids to behave. I started off with yelling “attention”, and the kids would yell back “ready” while standing like a soldier at attention. That worked for the first week, but they got tired of that. I then resorted to giving the kids three chances, and when they got three strikes, they would be put in timeout. When that didn’t work, I created a behavior chart with four levels: Super Star, Ready to Learn, Think About It, and Last Chance. Each kid had a clothes pin with their name on it, and when they misbehaved or were disruptive, they would have to move their clip down a level. Conversely, they could also move their clip up and redeem themselves. This was very effective because all the kids wanted to be a “Super Star” and when given the threat of moving their clip down, they quickly corrected themselves.
While I know that the crime rate in San Pedro won’t drop, I know I made an impact on the lives of the kids I taught, especially Jorge Gomez and Sanai Diego. These two received six-month scholarships to Elite Training Center and will hopefully be teaching the camp next year. Sanai and Jorge were always so eager to learn new things and wanted the scholarship the moment I mentioned it. One day they both showed up at the younger class and I was very confused because they were too old for that class. When I asked what they were doing, they told me they wanted to be my assistants and help me with the class. They caught on to all the techniques so quickly and so accurately that I allowed them to help with teaching the little kids. They went above and beyond in filling out their fitness logs; they both had every day of the four weeks filled out and Sanai even drew pictures to go with her exercise for the day. I am so proud of both of them and would like to congratulate them on their scholarships. They definitely earned it!
~Kylie Murdock
Elite Training Center
1628 South Pacific Coast Highway,
Redondo Beach, CA 90277
(310) 543-1600
www.elitetrainingcenter.net
