Episode 571 - Teaching Martial Arts to Non-Neurotypical Students
In this episode, Jeremy is joined by Ms. Shirley Meier and they talk about Teaching Martial Arts to Non-Neurotypical Students (Autism Spectrum, OCD, ADHD and More.)
Teaching Martial Arts to Non-Neurotypical Students - Episode 571
Here is a topic that is proven to be growing in importance every year in Martial Arts. It is Teaching Martial Arts to Non-Neurotypical Students which includes Autism Spectrum, OCD, ADHD, and More. In this episode, Jeremy is joined by Ms. Shirley Meier and she talks about her experience in teaching non-neurotypical students, including her son. Can Ms. Meier tell the difference between teaching both neurotypical and non-neurotypical students? Interestingly, ego was a surprising factor in this one. Listen to learn more!
Show Transcript
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hey! What's happening everybody! Welcome! This is whistlekick martial arts radio episode 571. Today's episode is on teaching martial arts to non-neurotypical students. The long title to big word but we're gonna get into it. Who am I? I'm Jeremy Lesniak; I'm your host for the show. I'm the founder here in whistlekick and I love martial arts, I love training, and I love it all. We are not styles specific, that's really important to me. And if you want to see how we manifest that all the things we've got going on, you can go to whistlekick.com, check out whistlekick.com. That's the place where you're going to find our store and all the other things that we're working on. Whistlekick martial arts radio gets its own website and if you've been following along the hacking saga. Well, it's on a new host now, as of a few days ago. And guess what, it works! Still got some stuff to clean up but if you've been looking for episodes that haven't been loaded yet they're starting to go up. And we're fixing all kinds of screwy things. And while incredibly unlikely, if the people who hacked the website are out there listening. Can we spar? I got some frustrations that I want to take it out on the people who did it not other people. Now speaking of all that. How do we cover the cost of things like this? Well one of the ways that we do it is through the stuff that we sell. We've got products, we've got protective equipment, though, admittedly, not a lot of it right now. We have plenty of apparel. We've got training programs. We've got a bunch of stuff, and if you make a purchase at the store, you can use the code podcast 15 to save 15% off all the stuff that we've got at whistlekick.com. Now what are you going to find it whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, you're going to find the episodes, the transcripts, videos, photos, links, all that good stuff. Why do we do what we do? Well as traditional martial artists were looking to connect with other traditional martial artists, educate you, entertain you. Wherever you are in the world, no matter what you train. And if you want to support us, yeah you can buy something in the store. You could share this episode with somebody. There are a lot of different ways. If you think of what would be helpful to you, if you are running an organization. If you do that for us, that will be helpful. Now one of the other things you can do. You can support our Patreon, patreon.com/whistlekick. There are a number of you out there who contribute to the Patreon and it all helps. I really appreciate it, goes a long way to offsetting the expenses of this show which are rather substantial. And for those of you who do, well we give you stuff back. We give you book drafts, we give you programs; we give you exclusive audio video, behind the scenes. It’s worth we have very few people who contribute to the Patreon and then stop. Why? Because we're doing our best to give plenty of value. patreon.com/whistlekick that's where you go, almost forgot that part. Now, back on episode 510, wasn't a whole terribly long ago about six months, we had on a guest, Miss Shirley Meyer. And one of the things we talked about was her education of children, teaching martial arts to not just kids but we talked a bit about kids. And we talked about some of the interesting and maybe non-typical demographics of people that she's worked with, people with certain needs. And we've been looking for someone to talk to about this specifically for a while. 03:36 and I, 03:37 doesn't get talked about much publicly on the show but 03:40 behind the scenes, anybody who's come on the show has dealt with 03:43 and I have been taught, how do we get somebody to talk about autism and teaching martial arts to students with autism. And after we talked to Miss Meyer, we found, oh, here's someone who can talk to that subject, but broad it, and that's why we have kind of a different subject than you might expect a different title. Instead of restricting it to autism. Miss Meyer and I talked about before we went live and we ended up with this title. Non-neurotypical and we're going to explain what that means, she is rather, and it's really good conversation. Now, who should be listening to this episode? First off, instructors. Everybody who teaches should be listening to this episode. Next, what if you're not a teacher. Well, there's a good chance that you're going to interact with someone, somewhere in the world with one of these non-neurotypical expressions. And I came away with a much better understanding and I'm sure you will too. So, let's do it. Welcome back!
Shirley Meyer:
Hi!
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hi! You must not have had a bad time when you were on before because you're here again.
Shirley Meyer:
I had a lot of fun. Goodness you're willing to listen to me but I love it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
One of the bits of advice that I've gotten just in general in so many different aspects of life is let other people talk. I guess what they show is I just let other people talk, and so often people tell me. Oh, man, you are the best interviewer I've ever worked with. I don't really say that much. And that's what I find ironic. I just give people the space to say what they want to say,
Shirley Meyer:
Well, most people don't realize that even in conversation, they're not listening to the other person. They're only listening to formulate a response; they're actually not paying attention.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Listening to reply is how I've heard it put.
Shirley Meyer:
Exactly.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And so thank you, I appreciate you coming back. We've got some, 05:44 we want to call it a heavy topic because it's not necessarily heavy, but I think it's an important topic and it's one that is if we follow the numbers is growing in importance, every year. And, you know, you and I, we were talking, and I think we've got our, our title. So, listeners, if the title that I talked about in the intro and that you clicked on is slightly different from this, please don't get mad at me, but right now you know we're talking about teaching martial arts to non-neurotypical students and since I have the pleasure of you being here. Can you tell us what you mean by non-neurotypical?
Shirley Meyer:
Years ago, people would have called them eccentric or odd, or, you know, he's just a weirdo, kids who have autism, kids who have OCD, kids who have ADHD or ADD, it's a huge spectrum of not exactly neurotypical responses. And that's why we use the term not neurotypical. It started basically because autism was too narrow. You know, and then they added Asperger's, it was, you know, they tried to keep expanding in the DMV of what they were talking about. And it's easiest to say just not neurotypical.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I would assume being a broad and seeming almost subtle term because it's so collective and doesn't seem to put weight in any one direction. It's not a term that's going to be offensive to anyone or unlikely to be.
Shirley Meyer:
Right, well you see I'm, I can refer to myself as a neurotypical. Even though I know on some levels, I have some of the same self-soothing tics that my sons have, you know, normal people or neurotypical people have little rituals that helps them feel better if they're in a stressful situation. In a non-neurotypical situation, those tics and gestures and ways of behaving become the dominant way of behaving. It's a matter of focus they can only focus, kids who are on the spectrum tend to be able to only focus on feeling safe what makes them feel safe or better, or allows them to at least be in a stressful situation.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And you've got experience teaching martial arts including martial arts to kids and as I'm sure anyone who can follow the breadcrumbs that we've laid out up until now the reason you're here, you have spent time teaching martial arts to people with or that are non-neurotypical.
Shirley Meyer:
I was teaching differently abled self-defense classes before my sons were born and usually it was physical differences but I had a lot of kids who were down syndrome. I found that on some levels, it was easier to teach the girls with down syndrome than to teach the neurotypical girls in grade six, seven and eight. Because the popular girls and one shore really, you know, the golden kids in class tended to question what I was trying to tell them. And if I told the girls with down syndrome and other you know not neurotypical, you know, behaviors. If I told them they could do X, they said, Oh, okay, and walked over and did X like breaking a board. I'm very specifically the there was one class I taught, the most popular girl in the school was in there and she was a golden girl she was, you know, you know what I mean, right. She found it nearly impossible to break. I mean, at the time, my graduation exercise for the girls wants to break a one inch board with a hammer block right. Something that she, the girl who was the most popular girl found it nearly impossible to do she talked herself out of it so many times. She sat there in front of the concrete blocks on the board and she cried because she would put her fist to the surface of the board, and say see I can't do it, see I can't do it. I have to give her a rolled up magazine so that she wasn't afraid of hurting her hand. And she did it. But I'll have to say that every single girl in my class that same girls, the same class who have down syndrome. One had down syndrome, one had another syndrome of some kind, I'm not sure what it wasn't my business, I just taught them, I didn't ask. Both of them I said, look, you do it this way. And you aim below the board and, you know, make sure your fist is nice and tight. And away they went blam! They blew those birds into pieces. They trusted me.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It’s easier to get some of the students ones that maybe in a typical setting people might look and say, this is going to be more difficult because of some differences. And you're saying that, at least in some cases those students are easier.
Shirley Meyer:
Because their egos don't get in the way.
Jeremy Lesniak:
There's a recurring theme on this show.
Shirley Meyer:
Funny that. The girl who was most popular had the most to lose. She lost a lot of face, sitting there doing that. And the girls who had down syndrome gained a lot of face in that classroom dynamic. I don't know how it played out. But I know that the girls who have down syndrome went from being low chicken. to they had some pride. You see, so I wasn't just teaching them self-defense, I was teaching them self-confidence. Because most kids who come into a martial arts class who are not neurotypical have had a world of you can't do X. You can't do this. You can't do this. You can't do this. As a martial arts instructor it's my job to say, sure, you can do this. You know, you have good, really good focus. Listen to what I say. And you'll be able to do exactly what you want to do. You get a lot of if you catch the kids’ just right. You get a lot of laser focus there cuz a lot of non-neurotypical kids. Once they fix their attention on you, once they realize that you have something they really want. You'll never get a more focused class, really. I mean, just from personal experience. My boys both have autism. They are on the spectrum, my youngest son, Rafael, he has he has what is referred to as mild autism. And my oldest boy has something called PDD NOS which is pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified, which is alphabet soup for he's on the spectrum, but we don't know where. Anyway, I can't, I won a certain amount of money on a TV science show actually. And I spent that money taking us all hang gliding. And I told the boys, before we went out there, as we were going out to the school I said you have to listen to the instructor if you don't listen to the instructor, you will not get to fly. My oldest boy, he was the first one of us who manages to make it off the ground. The rest of us, our egos got in the way. We had we really had to try. We had really had to learn to let go and let the hang glider take us into the air. My son Tristan, he, he said. It's easy. He listened and you'll let go. He was the first one in the air. So, teaching kids who are not neurotypical is as easy as finding is finding what they're willing to focus on.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Fascinating.
Shirley Meyer:
The funniest thing about raising autistic kids, much less teaching them because I did have to do some martial arts teaching. Certainly, and I was instructing while the boys were toddlers so sometimes I couldn't get a babysitter and I had to bring the boys into the class. So that made for some interesting lessons. But, um, I was talking about teaching. I just lost my train of thought.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That's okay. I have a question with let's roll this one and I've got a feeling we'll end up back there at some point, you talked about even before your children were born, teaching and working with folks that were differently abled I believe was the term that you use. So I'm wondering, Is this something that you've been interested or passionate doesn't necessarily seem like the right word but I'm not coming up with a better one is it something that is an important to you maybe?
Shirley Meyer:
Well, you see my friend TJ, 17:00.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yes, he's been on the show.
Shirley Meyer:
Yeah. So, I realized he's the one who introduced us actually. But TJ was telling us when he was the presenter when I got my black belt. So, he was actually visiting us from from New York. And he would stay at our place. And he was telling us about a class that he was teaching a self-defense class, because in New York at the time. People were attacking differently abled people. It was they weren't, they were not only mugging they were targeting people who were visibly differently abled as targets just to beat up. And so TJ was teaching a class and he was talking about his various students and I thought it was absolutely fascinating how little you don't need to be a perfect physical specimen to defend yourself or to do martial arts you just, you know, people who had one of my best students was a lady in an electric wheelchair, who had partial control of her left hand. She was still perfectly capable of defending herself once I gave her permission to use the chairs or as a weapon of war. She had an absolute blast finding out that she could. If she let herself, she could chase anybody you know six foot tall guy trying to get her out of her chair she could chase him around the gym at will.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm having some great visuals, imagining this.
Shirley Meyer:
It was funny.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It sounds funny but also empowering.
Shirley Meyer:
Oh yeah, it was. I mean it's something that started with the story of teaches students. And then I was teaching with my ex. We were teaching, For Sale up in Muskoka, SALE is Sexual Assault Intervention for Living. And the lady I was telling you about in the electric wheelchair had been assaulted in her care home by an attendant. And she was so infuriated that she organized the self-defense classes for sure people in her care help. And she hired us. So, things kind of went on from there. It was finding, people found that I was willing to teach them as people not as disabled people if you know what I mean.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I'm going to guess because you know one of the things we want to make sure that we leave people with today are some concrete, if not steps at least pointers of what they can do to better reach and potentially incorporate teaching non-neurotypical students into their curriculum and I'm going to guess that that's rule number one.
Shirley Meyer:
Yeah, don't see them as disabled because they're not.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Differently abled.
Shirley Meyer:
Exactly.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I would imagine I mean just to take the example of the with a woman in the electrical wheelchair. I don't want that thing on my foot. Those are heavy. 20:54 And I'm not going anywhere.
Shirley Meyer:
The minute she actually moved forward, there's something that kicks in in your hindbrain that says heavy fast moving object, get out of the way and you and the attacker in every case backed up, immediately backed up. And she caught their balance, she immediately got them off guard and could then chase at will because of a very natural human response to being approached by something large heavy and fast moving.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Alright, let's talk about some other things. Obviously, there are going to be times where a mixed class can work depending on the needs of some of the students. There are times when they aren't going to be able to be is mainstreamed in a corporate term here.
Shirley Meyer:
Well, no, it's actually quite easy. Some of the best classes I taught, I had differently abled girls and elderly women. I had to be careful of them learning how to fall without breaking a hip because that's the thing that they were focused on. And they were also focused about the fact that I could not teach a closed hand punch in that class, I normally don't anymore. I teach palm strike because so many people have arthritis and their hands have been injured and they're, you know, so they can't close their hands. So I had elderly ladies on that in, and I had the young girls, again Down syndrome. And what happened is as we were teaching middle of the class, you know, we were, this was a 10-week class so we were for four or five inches so all the students. They all knew each other and they'd all introduced they all knew you know we were we were getting cohesive at that point. And what happened is the one girl who had Down syndrome, said she didn't issue she brought out the fact that if somebody touched her and she didn't want them to. She didn't know how to say no because she didn't want to embarrass them. And she didn't know, you know, she's if somebody is a friend she has to let them do what they want to hurt right. I had a phalanx of elderly ladies surround this girl sit her down, take her in there you know they literally they sat her down in a hug. And, they all told her from various their various perspectives. No, this is how you do it politely. It was the most astonishing thing, and as a teacher I had to let that happen of course, you know, they took over. They the elderly ladies took over and presented lifetimes of dealing with people who you think have the right to hurt you.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I think I want to jump in, I think I'm hearing some emotion in your voice as you're thinking about this, you're remembering it.
Shirley Meyer:
Oh yeah, it got pretty emotional in class.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I think what I'm taking away from this example the most is as martial artists as traditional martial artists. We rely on structure. And these organizational systems within our classes for how they're run, but so often. And here's an example of where letting it happen, letting a bit of that fall away temporarily was so powerful and so important.
Shirley Meyer:
Well, I learned that I find that as a teacher, it is the best place that I learned. And if I'm trying to force rigidity like trying to force my safe space, let's do these exercises, let's do this, the class does this I say this, the class does that kills flexibility. And my students have as much more to teach me in a lot of situations. But like conversing with somebody, you got to listen to your students, as well as shout out. You know, you, it's a weird combination of forms, you get a lot of non-neurotypical kids and the repetitive nature of the class, you do this, you do this, you do this, and then you stop when you think about what you did and then you do this and you do this and you do this, the teacher says this, you do that. It's a very safe structured plays for them to be able to open up to you eventually. It's a place where they don't have to flap, or rock or talk or pull the skin off their off their thumbnails. While trying to learn a martial art because they're so stressed. You see, you start with a formal structure. But as a teacher you have to know the teaching moment, the moment where you have to let go of the class and let them teach each other because they have a lot to teach each other too. I mean, why waste that opportunity. Right, we’re troop. We're a troupe species. We're not individuals, we work best in community. And, you know, just a standard kind of community I say Shaolin and you know exactly what I mean. You know, all of the archetypes or movies, it's always community of monks. And then we talked about we have the movie trope of the heroic individual, but they always learned in a community, somehow, and they're always defending their community. You see.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And when I think about the martial art schools that I've attended or worked with me who are the most successful. They don't just allow that community, they nurture it, they fight for it, they recognize its importance. And I suspect regardless of who you are and how you are abled. It's important, it's something of value and the more you can foster it no matter the demographic of the students, the better off everyone is.
Shirley Meyer:
Oh yeah. Some of my best classes when I was learning were when since I brought his kids in and, you know, you'd be doing horse stance and Georgie would be riding his big wheel in between your legs, you know. Practice your front kicks. Do not kick children in the head, you know, that kind of thing. It provides an extra level somehow of awareness because all of a sudden there's vulnerable, there are the little kids running around. And what was hysterically funny is when the toddlers decided. Oh yes, we're going to we're going to join daddy and they and they would line up with their father, and they would do the moves he was demonstrating. Just how they learned. We laughed our asses off of course. But you see, here's the thing with non-neurotypical kids. They get enough serious in their lives really, kids who are not neurotypical are more vulnerable than neurotypical kids. A lot of people think they can be easily targeted. And, you know, people treat them differently. They treat them with more seriousness or. Either that or ignore them. You know, they don't treat them like kids. And some of the best classes, I've had when I'm teaching kids on the spectrum is coming up with games that teach the move I'm trying to do. I'm trying to teach them and letting them have fun doing, you know.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Can you give me an example?
Shirley Meyer:
I'm playing duck, duck, goose. For instance, coming into a Montessori schools, Montessori schools are very, I mean, a lot of these kids have never really been taught any kind of competition. Cooperation yes, competition no. So, you throw you throw a game like Duck Duck Goose. And they find out that if they are going to be playing this chasing game, they cannot win. If they chase the person who tapped them they have to run the other direction. Just a little change of thought that let these kids who didn't understand competition with their peers. Let them have a fun game and chase each other around the dojo. The fellow who hired me to teach these classes did not understand this, he said oh just teach them sit-ups, teach them push-ups. Where do you think you are in violent dangerous places, like I'm alive right? I wanted to say. anyway, he and I eventually parted ways but, you know, they actually did not, the parents did not like me teaching their kids competition, which is fine. But it's games, here's a really simple game. When I have a bunch of grade fours, grade three, grade fours and the boys are making fart jokes and making rude noises and I basically want to show them, 32:21 for instance, how to stand, and not be moved. Can I take off my black belt in my hand. You know I have like 10 little kids on one end of my black belt. And I get into 32:34 and I say okay your guy's job was to pull me across the room.
Jeremy Lesniak:
A moment please for people who may not train in Japanese arts.
Shirley Meyer:
Japanese arts, Zen 32:43 is a front stance. It's a slight lean forward. If you ever see people practicing football pushing. They automatically get into something called 32:58 which is the one leg is forward and leans forward slightly. And the other leg is back. If someone pushes against you. It all goes through the hips, and they're pushing against the ground through your heel. If they pull, they are literally trying to pull you through your knee and it won't work. In one direction, it is a very powerful stance. You know, it's like trying to it's the way your body shifts if you're trying to push a wall over. You can actually try it if you like. It's kind of fun. But anyway, I would get into this stance, and I would hand my belt to 10 little kids and say okay pull me across the room and they wouldn't be able to hear you know they'd be wandering around you like like all of them straining like heck on my belt. And then I would say after they've, you know, they've started to get a little tired I say, okay, I'm going to go that way I turn around in the same stance, put belt over my shoulder and I say, I'm going to take one step now stop me. And I would take a step. And then that way I would literally show them how powerful that particular stance was, and I walked the walk 10 little kids dragging them across the room on my black belt. They loved it. They absolutely loved it because they got a chance to try and take the teacher down.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What I'm hearing and it doesn't sound like it's that different from teaching everyone else. So, I think I'm gonna bring it back I think you've said this. Is it the first rule or the second rule?
Shirley Meyer:
You teach them like a people first.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So then the question becomes, because I've experienced, I've observed martial arts schools where they have struggled to teach non-neurotypical students. Is it because they're breaking that rule or is there is there more nuance to it. I want to make sure people listening are able to come away with some action items.
Shirley Meyer:
You gotta hear. It's not just listening, you got to hear. Coz, you see, my oldest when he was in a phase where everything was actually he would not speak to you, he would repeat a movie will be tags, movie lines. I got to realize that whenever he was particularly stressed I would get. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father, prepare to die. He was about six.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Was it's funny at the time? I'm embarrassed at laughing.
Shirley Meyer:
No, it was hysterical. It was so funny because but you see I had to hear it a number of times before I realized how he was applying it, it was like, do you remember the Star Trek episode darmok. There was a there was a whole alien species. They spoke in phrases and aphorisms. They didn't speak in individual words. And they conveyed meanings through mythic story, and trying to get the universal translator couldn't deal with it. Here's the thing. The main in the episode, the main opponent says, darmok, 37:07 and who knows what that is, their cultural 37:11 we knew nothing about. So, in effect, my son was saying, My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die. When he couldn't say something. When he was so scared of doing something, my kid is not is not very scared of anything but if he's approaching as if he was approaching say a strange dog. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father, prepare to die, but then you'd put his fist out, and the dog would sniff, and he told me some other movie line. He literally was he literally was not speaking English. And until I realized that, I had to. I got so angry and impatient and because you know I'd have to listen to movie lines over and over and over and over again, and I got mad because he wasn't speaking to me but she was. Here's something that I found the most difficult dealing with autistic kids. I had to absolutely not take it personally. I was raised in a German household. And you did everything right, you listened you did you know and everything you did was a reflection on your on your parents. So, when 38:49 is bouncing off the walls and climbing into the attic and hiding in the piano. I felt like a complete and total failure and miserable and I got mad and I caught myself by the neck and said, Why Am I mad? What am I scared of? I was scared of what people were gonna think. I literally had to pull apart my own expectations for my children as reflected on me. I was not going to live through my kids. I had to. It took actually quite a bit of work and quite a bit of soul searching to be able to listen to my kid, walk up to a strange person and say my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father prepare to die and know that he was saying it because he was nervous. And they would laugh. And I would then I would not have to feel bad about myself. As a teacher, if I start taking kids who are not neurotypical actions, personally, then I'm doing them a disservice. I'm not teaching at that point I'm trying to impose. Our society is really good at imposing things on us. And that's one thing that is cracking things at the seams right now because we have so many non-neurotypical people that we can't do that anymore. It's not viable anymore to force someone into normalcy. Like, my son, my grandfather would probably have taken a belt to him to force him to be more normal. It was something that was done that. You didn't step out of line you didn't. You didn't march up to total strangers and start talking to them. As if you've known them all your life. My mother would have been embarrassed by that except the weird thing was; she was embarrassed because I did that. Now, I don't see myself as non-neurotypical, but all kids have all of these behaviors, the non-neurotypical ones just sometimes can't put them down. If that makes any sense at all.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It does.
Shirley Meyer:
So here's the thing, when you're teaching. Go in. Leave your ego at the door and go have fun. Because the more fun you can have, the more everything sinks in, the more the more gets absorbed. Well, at least, that's from my experience.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I would suspect that. That's true. So far, just about everything you've said winds up with. I gotta be honest; the best instructors I've seen are doing all of these things. So I wonder, maybe we flip the subject in a way. What is different? What might be different? I actually, I took a note. You mentioned early on. There was someone in a class and you weren't quite sure what their non-neurotypical expression, 42:30 you didn't ask, is it okay to ask? Is it okay to ask a parent? If so, how do you ask?
Shirley Meyer:
Well, you say what things should I be careful of. Cuz every like any instructor, who's going into a class cannot assume that everyone is going to be able to do everything that you asked them to. I mean, like, My elderly ladies who couldn't close their hands. The woman who could not walk, the girl who didn't know how to say no to her friends. You have to find those things out or you can't teach. I mean, some of them. Some of them are more obvious. I mean, aren't we all non-neurotypical in some way. Sure, you know. And if I am a half decent teacher. I'm going to try and find out where my students have these work we have to do workarounds big deal. I can't talk to one student, about a certain emotional thing because they haven't worked through theirs yet. I mean this this comes out of working with women who had been sexually assaulted. You know, working with women in shelters. Working with kids in the schools because in a lot of a lot of back rural schools, a lot of rural schools are still behind in ways of teaching things. Some schools are unconsciously a warzone for some kids, You know, and for someone to be not neurotypical. I don't want to make their lives harder. I want to teach them. That's different. And in fact, in teaching them. I can make their lives easier if I'm careful, but that's every student. That's all. Now you stand there and you walk in, you have a new class, and you've got all these faces, and you don't know any of them. If you assume that they can do what you can do, then you're not set to teach them they're going to run screaming. In fact, I had a teacher tell me that that is a teacher of good teachers job to make you angry and drive you away. A neurotypical person being confronted by a teacher who is pushing them really hard to face stuff that they need to fix or that they will not, they will never progress in their martial arts training. That's. You can be you can be a right sob. But, if you have autistic kids, you can't do that. What you're doing there is you're being perhaps the one place on earth that isn't trying to force them into a space that they don't fit.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I would imagine that that leads to a lot of joy for them and desire to succeed and please, the instructor.
Shirley Meyer:
Oh God. Those are some of should those are some of the most fun classes. I swear to goodness, I'm watching a little boy who has an artificial leg, he's six. And my instructor at the time, I was a green belt at the time, my instructor who currently is working as a nurse up north. He's six foot three. He tries to get you to laugh by self-deprecating things. However, the little kid. Did the shoulder throw perfectly? He did the move perfectly. And my honking great instructor flew across the room, he honestly threw himself across the room because the kid did the move right. The joy on that boy's face, cuz he managed to throw the black belt. Trick is you're reinforcing the correct movement. You're reinforcing doing it right. You're not trying to scream at them and say do it right, don't do it wrong. Yeah. How many people in life really get anywhere when somebody says you're doing it wrong, you're doing it wrong, you're doing it wrong. People who are not neurotypical trust you when you tell them things. See you got to tell him the good stuff. Or you're going to have some really unhappy students.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That sound punctuated my next question beautifully. What about unhappy students? What about discipline? Does discipline have to be handled any differently with this group?
Shirley Meyer:
Yeah, I find the most undisciplined kids are the neurotypical. They're the ones acting out and try and show off, trying to get your attention, trying to, you know, stand out and starting to think that that is there a typicality, you know, you treat kids like that differently. And it's, for instance, this summer, just last summer I was teaching at my equestrian instructor’s summer camp. I was teaching martial arts 101 and one of the worst boys. He could care less. He was sloppy, he was never focused. I basically had. I'm not quite sure why I did this, but I I pulled him aside after the archery clock class. And I said, look, Charlie, I could use a hand. And I figured you'd be able to help me move the archery butts inside. But you have to run and go get on the horse right now so, but I thought I'd ask you, he says oh yeah sure went off completely forgot. I moved the artery butts in myself. However, I acted as if he had just not been able to help me, so I went and I said, you know, you don't have to worry. I got them in. But, you know, thanks for being willing to help me. The look on his face was. Oops. Oops. Next day and then the end of the week. I had a really attentive kid because I had treated him as if he had made a mistake instead of blowing me off.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You assumed the best.
Shirley Meyer:
Yeah, coz if I assume the worst I'll get it. You know, a lot of neurotypical kids, a lot of boys. Everybody assumes the worst of them. And so they act to that point. I flipped on his head for this one kid and I don't think anyone ever had done that before. Nobody had ever expected the best of him. So that's what we do. It's what you do, you know it's, I wouldn't even say, you know, he could have been on the spectrum; I didn't know he was in, he was in equitation classes. But I'll tell you something. Some of the horses straightened him out right quick.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I believe that anybody who knows anything about horses is probably chuckling right now.
Shirley Meyer:
Oh yeah, probably, you know, they don't they don't eat they don't have to buy. I mean, the funniest thing that happened same kid. He was on this part pircher on. This was the end of 10 weeks of summer camp the horses were exhausted. And this kid is trying to get the horse to do something he's done perfectly, a dozen times before. It was too much. The horse sat down in the middle of the ring like a duck with the kid on his back. Of course that was the end of the class I mean, the horse decided the end of that class that was funny. But, you know, the kids learned you can't force him. Especially not just an 1800 pound horse. So, the thing is there it's any instructor gets to take advantage of that of those situations too Right, that's one reason I like working with animals and kids. Coz because you get a lot more honesty, and a lot less well once you get past the ones that are afraid. You see fear is something else again. Discipline often, lack of discipline often arises out of fear. The kid is terrified that you're not going to like them. So they act, they act up they act out, you know, they're louder than everybody else, because they want you to see them, they feel invisible. They feel unlike. They don't realize that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. And in fact, one of my jobs as a teacher is to kind of gently point this out to kids who are doing this. Alright cool, I could scream and yell and jump up and down, and all it would do is making me look stupid. So, discipline is not imposed discipline is requested and non neurotypical are much more likely to give you their focus and their discipline easily because their egos aren't going to like it and once my ego got out of the way I found them much easier to teach actually cuz they're not playing silly games with you or trying to.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Let's start to wind down but let's see, is there anything that we've missed any do's and don'ts. And we've got quite a few on both sides of that line.
Shirley Meyer:
Well, yeah. If you're not having fun. Teaching typically neurotypicals or non-neurotypicals, if you're not having fun. This is not making you happy. I'd say don't teach, cuz you're gonna pass on your own happiness. The most powerful thing you can do is go have fun. discipline and everything else and doing it right. falls quite naturally in the line. If you're having fun doing it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Make sense to me.
Shirley Meyer:
Here's the thing, the angrier you are the more constipated you look, the more you're, the more rigid your, your motions. Like a karate student trying to do Tai Chi.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And the more, at least somebody around you is going to laugh to try and balance that out and make even angry.
Shirley Meyer:
And make you angrier or unless you can stop and see their point. And then you can break through that rigidity. I mean, you know, people don't do well, becoming brick walls. Really. So, I hope I gave you some interesting stuff.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You did there first, you were here, two months ago back on episode 510. But contact info, websites, emails, social media any of that stuff, you can share with the listeners who maybe don't want to go look back at the past episode.
Shirley Meyer:
It is pretty much all the same. shirleymmeyer@gmail.com is my Gmail. I'm on Facebook as Shirley Meyer. I actually have a Wikipedia page. And I have a book coming out. Then, young adult book called Lamia's Daughter. I have another book coming out on the seventh of January called Blood Marble. And it's kind of funny because it's a building's Roman, it's a fantasy that starts with the protagonist at age 11. And he has been entirely untaught his whole life his dad rules the world, and nobody dares tell him no.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, interesting. This is going to come out after that. So, you said January 7, where would people be able to find it?
Shirley Meyer:
It'll be Amazon, unfortunately, but Amazon. And I'm going to be releasing that, it's the beginning of a series. The Eclipse court series, I'm working on a new book that has I have no idea when it's going to be out, but I'm not at the moment doing any articles for amazing magazine but the amazing hardcopy magazine for last couple of years, I have articles on writing and how to write. And don't go look at my website it's not ready yet.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I really want to Miss Meyer for coming back on the show had a great time again. And this time, not only do we learn about her and kind of see between the lines on some other things. We've learned a lot which I did. I hope you did. If you are an instructor and you are not addressing this population I think you're leaving a lot of benefit on the table. And it's something I'd like to see more martial arts schools, embracing because, well, if you know anything about me, you know, my passion, through whistlekick is making sure that martial artists throughout the world are sharing martial arts with as many people as possible. And we talked today about some of the ways that martial arts, specifically, can be a boon for certain people. So thanks again Miss Meyer and I'm sure we'll talk again soon. You can visit whistlekickmartialartsradio.com to see the show notes, you're going to find photos and videos are linked to social media and all kinds of good stuff over there or all of our episodes. And if you want to support us. Oh, you know what to do. There's tons of ways, Patreon sharing episodes, all that good stuff is appreciated. You see somebody out there wearing some whistlekick on it. Say hello. You got 59:12 feedback, email me at jeremy@whistlekick.com. Until next time, train hard smile, and have a great day.