Kids Train to be Fit For Life

by Angela Scott

Billy Blanks, known to workout buffs as “Mr. Tae Bo,” is not just another fitness trend. As a member of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, Blanks, 48, travels throughout the country speaking at schools, motivating and encouraging children to unlock their inner selves. The Southern California resident believes that the same energy and effort placed in a task one enjoys and excels in can also be channeled to help overcome in areas where one is weak and low-performing.

Growing up the fourth of 15 children, Blanks experienced extreme tendon pain caused by inflexible muscles. The young boy walked with a limp and was unable to participate in physical fitness activities. Blanks also could not read and speaking very little was a protective shield he used to cover his illiteracy. He was placed in special education classes, where combined into one classroom were the mildly and profoundly retarded, students with learning disabilities similar to Blanks, along with physically challenged children in wheelchairs. Blanks saw and sympathized with the struggles of his classmates.

“I would hear teachers tell the kids in wheelchairs to move their bodies. But their bodies wouldn’t move. I saw in their eyes that these kids were really trying. I knew that their ‘inner man’ was like mine – trapped and unable to get out,” Blanks explains of his battle with dyslexia that wasn’t diagnosed until the athlete was 37.As a ‘tween, martial arts became a platform for Blanks to build enough self-confidence to release his inner man. However, Blanks’ physical and mental challenges made karate a difficult endeavor.

“When I first started karate, I couldn’t pick it up and I would have a hard time picking up the combinations. I would copy my sensei and he got tired of doing it and seeing me get it all wrong,” Blanks recalls of his instructor.

Because dyslexia often causes one to confuse their left from their right, Blanks was placed in the back of the studio. His karate teacher feared that Blanks’ wrong positions were creating confusion in the class and the instructor urged Blanks to quit.

“Instead of giving up, I became motivated and started coming in an hour earlier than everybody else. I also taped my hands so that I would move my left and right like my instructor,” says Blanks, who within 18 months, was the first of his friends and students in the studio to be promoted to black belt in Tang So Do – a feat that even surprised his karate teacher who had made a $5 bet that Blanks would quit. His 1982 induction into the Karate Hall of Fame, 36 gold medals in international competition and a seventh-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do are examples of the “never quit” attitude that Blanks shares with students around the country.

At the Billy Blanks World Training Center in Sherman Oaks, Calif., a number of programs are geared towards children. Two in particular, Team FOCUS and the Billy Blanks Youth Health and Awareness Program, are personally taught by the busy physical fitness advocate. Team FOCUS is designed for boys and girls ages 8 to 14, where they learn to have body awareness and control, be able to convey authority, have the karate discipline of spirit, mind and body, as well as learning to overcome academic and social challenges in order to lead more focused and accomplished lives. With Godly principles taught as foundational truths, Blanks emphasizes to his Team FOCUS students the importance of being in touch with one’s own spirit in order to become empowered and successful in life.

“I try to find what they like to do the most. Whatever you like the most, you’ll apply to it a lot of energy and perseverance to get it done. Now, when you take that energy and re-channel it towards something that you have a weakness in or don’t do so well, you can overcome what you couldn’t do before,” Blanks states. He adds, “It’s really just a lack of focus. And the real object is to learn to re-channel all of that energy in order to create success in all areas of life.”

The Billy Blanks Youth Health and Awareness Program addresses the physical fitness crisis in America, where according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, more than 30 percent of schoolchildren in America are overweight. In Blanks’ program, children are asked to monitor their eating habits, staying mindful of excess fat and junk foods. Kids are also taught the muscular and skeletal systems as a means of making the kids aware of their body and how it works. Following a series of warm-up calisthenics, Blanks takes his class through a Junior Tae Bo workout, introducing children to the importance of creating a personal fitness regiment. Kids are awarded medals after mastering concepts in both physical and health awareness.

Because everybody wants a “quick fix,” Blanks sees many fad diets as being harmful, especially to teens. Instead, Blanks encourages youngsters to know how their body works and to know what’s going on inside their body when exposed to fad and often overwhelming diets.

“You may look good, but you need to know how it’s killing your body. Any quick fix diet doesn’t give you a foundation on how you got there. With Tae Bo, you learn how to communicate. You learn how to move and how to build your muscles. You’re exercising your will to be able to overcome anything you need to overcome. The will allows you to be able to accept something or not accept something,” says the father of two.

Having “unshakeable” faith and self-confidence are the tools that Blanks believes and offers as the keys necessary to attain success.

“Every person is where they are today because of his or her will. In order to achieve your goal, you have to already see your hope. Once you visualize yourself reaching your goal, then your work is ‘in progress.’ And that’s the beginning of success,” he says.


Resources
www.taeboonline.com
www.billyblanks.com



Angela Scott is the Special Sections Editor for the Southwest region of United Parenting Publications and resides in Southern California with her two daughters.


January 15, 2003