What martial art or activity would help children stand up to bullies with more confidence?

[Earthymama]

Re this thread bullying

Has anyone any ideas if learning these skills can help children who are being picked on to stand up for themselves?

I wonder if it would apply to both children who are physically confident and those who are more unsure of their abilities?

My DGS is a force of nature and has a heart as big as the world, he is lovely. A little boy in his class is homing in on his vunerability and need to be friends to put him down constantly. my DD has spoken to school who are dealing with it.

I think maybe he would benefit from gaining some skills in a martial art.

(I also think DGS should kick him if he spits on him again but there you go I'm his nan!!)

My ds has never been bullied and always fairly confident, but I think that may have something to do with the fact that he's been doing karate for years, and it does give you an inner confidence to know that you don't need to be afraid of anyone.

There was an incident a couple of years ago where a lad at school kept calling ds racist names and he eventually (and regretably) snapped, punched the boy once in the chest and broke his sternum.

Clearly that was an unfortunate incident and ds ought not to have physically retaliated, but it was a one-off and since then no one has given him any aggro.

Thanks I'm off to move some soil now, I'll suggest this to DD

My DS (9) who is quite shy and has erm very unusual 'interests' (security cameras and disco lights) so isn't shall we say 'Mr Popular' has just started Taekwondo with his best friend. He is absolutely loving it and its giving him so much confidence (and also some letting off steam time as he has a severely autistic younger brother who REALLY annoys him).

Thanks I'm bumping

My daughter did kick boxing for 2 years and she finally managed to defend herself against a classmate who was bigger and bullying her. She has never been bullied since.

the best skill ds learnt was to tell a teacher

but then it was a good school and they dealt with it