COMMUNITY
Create relationships and invite people into your life, such as your family, friends, neighbors, teachers, and club members. Relationships are a two-way street of communication and trust. The more you have, the more support you have.
Martial arts cultivates strong relationships within the dojo. Students are constantly communicating with each other physically and verbally. They are given the tools for and practice on how to build communication and trust among people. Students take pride in the dojo, and as a community, they come together to see it succeed.
Why Community
Community is extremely important in bullying prevention and awareness. It’s a vital tenet for Be There because of the major effect communities have on everyone. This tenet really emphasizes creating bonds with different circles of people in order to create that wide ripple of support, lending help to those who need help with bullying prevention. This support can be shown by helping defusing a bullying situation, asking for help, and telling someone that bullying is happening to someone. Essentially, it’s providing the love and support someone needs in order to get through a situation. Community and support is a strong foundation for a lot of other bullying prevention methods, and that is why the name of this campaign is Be There.
The Stance
This stance invokes community by having a strong foot stance with arms and elbows forward, slightly bent inward to create an open circle. This stance is a solid stance; it’s very powerful because of the way your feet and weight are positioned, but it’s a nonthreatening stance. It’s meant to reinforce that feeling of being a strong individual who can be dependable in a community. Your elbows, arms, and hands are positioned in a way that creates a boundary of space but also creates a sense of bringing people in to your circle to protect them.
Performing the stance
This stance helps you associate with community because of the strong, open-armed stance being portrayed, and it helps with posture and lower-body muscles.
Point your toes inward and your heels out. Your back foot’s toes should be in line with your front foot’s heel.
Set your feet shoulder-width apart.
Bend your knees slightly and keep your weight down.
Place your arms and elbows forward, past your hip and at waist height.
With your hands in front of your hips, make fists. Bend your arms slightly inward to create a circle.
Keep your shoulders and back straight.