White Tiger Martial Arts are launching their brand new Karate Kids Classes in March 2010 at their Martial Arts Centre in the McHale Road Business Park, Castlebar. The specially designed classes for children focus on awareness and self protection skills for young people aged from 4 to 8.

The new class, Shorin-ryu Kids will be held at the Castlebar venue on Monday evenings from 6 to 7 pm and Martin O'Malley, the Chief Instructor of White Tiger will personally lead the classes designed specifically to meet the needs of children from 4 to 8 years of age.

Martin began teaching in 1997, and soon realised that the methods being used to teach children were the same as those being used to teach adults - and that doesn't work. He told us that ‘The dangers facing a young child are totally different to those facing an adult, and so the training has to be tailored to suit'. Over the course of the next decade he developed a system of teaching which he felt worked for the children in his classes.

The Kids Karate Class itself is based on the teachings of Okinawan Shorin-ryu Karate, one of the oldest forms of Karate in the world today providing the children with an understanding of the self protection skills of Okinawan Karate, but also includes Anti-Bullying, Stranger Danger training, and techniques designed to break away from adult aggressors, concepts which Martin was among the first in Mayo to teach.

‘The Bully Buster system was something which I first included in our teaching in about 1999' Martin explained ‘and after that we also introduced the No, Go, Yell, Tell system of stranger danger. The simple lessons like how to deal with Bully's, what to do if you're approached by a stranger, what to do if you get lost or who can help in an emergency, are some of the most valuable for children to learn and time is taken in classes to teach these skills'.

As regards the Breakaway Techniques, Martin told us that ‘the scenario of an attack from someone equal size is very different than that from someone who is twice as tall and two or three times your weight, but that's the unfortunate reality which some children may have to face', he went on to say that ‘we promote awareness and what to do to stop the children getting into that situation in the first place, but we then support this with the skills to escape if necessary'.

Despite the serious nature of the training Martin was keen to emphasis that ‘disciplined fun' are watch words for his teaching style. ‘We need to have this kids attention for us to get our message across' Martin told us, ‘but we also want them to enjoy themselves in training'. So the class itself is structured in a way which intersperses the serious training with explanations through role play, and a series of skill development games and exercises.

Martin O'Malley has been teaching children for 13 years, he is a tutor for the Code Of Ethics for Children and Young People in Sport through the Irish Sports Council, was the National Children's Officer for the Kickboxing National Governing Body for eight years and is the only instructor in Mayo with a Level 3 Coaching Certificate through the Irish Martial Arts Commission and the National Coaching Training Centre at the University of Limerick. Martin has had articles published in several Martial Arts magazines, and has been invited to teach Martial Arts across Europe and even as far away as Korea. Over the last number of years he has trained annually in Okinawa, and has received many awards for his work in Martial Arts in Ireland and beyond.