Life Skills Lessons

ATA Martial Arts includes Social Life Skill Lessons in the ongoing lesson plans. Social and mental skills development is considered just as important, if not more than, physical development.

We start with a life skills lesson during the stretching session at the beginning of class.

We then encourage and highlight students using that social skill throughout the class.

We then end the class with a recap of the day’s life skills lesson.

Recurring positive encouragement helps turn a new idea into a habit. We encourage our students to tell their parents, siblings, and friends what they learned as a means of positive reinforcement.

HONESTY is the first step to a rewarding life. To be honest is to obey our conscience. It means to have the courage to confront the consequences of our actions no matter what price we may have to pay. It is to take responsibility for our actions and to be accountable.

RESPECT is not what you know, it’s what you do. Things like taking care of our bodies both mentally and physically, educating ourselves and finding mentors to help us improve our lives. Self-respect also means thinking positively, making the right choices, and caring for our possessions and our personal appearance. When we show self-respect, others learn that they must also treat us with respect. In the same way, we must also show respect to others.

DISCIPLINE is to obey what is right. It means to practice good habits. And what are good habits? Simply put, they are behaviors that make us better human beings. Discipline begins with obedience. When we are children we must obey our parents, teachers and mentors, since they are the ones who are responsible to show us the right path.

COMMUNICATION is how we relate to ourselves and everything around us. It is so important that the success of a society depends on how well it communicates. The word communication comes from the word “common”, which means “equal”. This means that in order to communicate with each other, we must find common ground. To ensure this, our communication must be seen, heard and felt.

SELF-ESTEEM is the joy of being who we are. It describes how we see and value ourselves. When we feel good about ourselves – independent of the circumstances that surround us – we show self-esteem. We can build our self-esteem by making a choice to see everything in our lives positively. This way, in time, we develop a positive attitude towards life.

BELIEF is having the “YES I CAN” attitude always and no matter what. It is the ability to see the invisible and look beyond the obvious. Belief is our inner power used with our core values towards the fulfillment of our goals. Absolutely everything we do in our lives, in fact, is based on our beliefs. Every action we take, every decision we make, and every single thing we do stems from what we believe. If we believe this, we do that; if we believe something else, we do something different.