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Hi

Sorry for the criptic approach.

I am not nor do I have a family member who has asperger's.

I am a martial arts instructor with a teenage student who has asperers.

He has been with my club now for almost a year and has settled in prety well and he is treated exactly the same as all the other students without loosing site of his dissability. He is well liked by other students and today took his second grading Orange belt, he worked realy hard throughout the grade and was succesfull gaining his yellow belt.

As an instructor I will be looking for him to move along the grades but each grade becomes increasingly harder.

I am not sure how he will handle the added pressure, or how best to support him on his journey I will appreciate any help support and guidance given by members with relation to helping him move along.

I will be popping in from time to time in order to provide an update on the students progress and I will give him the name George.

Regards Bill

Hey there, Bill. Glad to know there are those who care, I can't tell you how many people have suffered because they are the way they are. Correction: It's not a disability per-se, more like a neurological re-wiring. Thank you for your time.

I'm only 16, so I wouldn't know much, but I just felt like I should make this look noticed (and it will be!)

If he has AS, it sounds like you are handling it fine. Don't ALL find it harder to get higher degrees, at least early on? ALSO, his goals may have been met, etc.... If they were, his studies may falter a bit.

But HEY, we're probably all curious, and would love to hear of his success. Who knows, he might get REALLY involved, and surprise you!

Steve

Bill, everybody's different. We really need to know more about George. So far it sounds like he's doin' alright and you should probably just keep doin' what you been doin'.

Hi Bill,

I was in karate when I was younger (tang soo doo) i think it might be relevant for you to know I almost made black belt when i lost interest in it.

I do kick boxing and Kali.

Modeling new moves halps a lot. At the club usually someone would grab my hand etc and manually pattern me through more complex destructions.

Also helps if I play a song in my head that matches the moves or I just replay them in my head until they are part of me.

Hey Bill

I think it's great that you take such an interest in the individual needs of your students. I don't need to tell you that a lot of instructors don't bother or don't care.

You've got one huge factor working in your favor. Nobody, I mean nobody in the world, can get interested in a subject like an aspie. You want focus? Aspies invented focus.

The pressure and the increased difficulty of higher level training may not turn out to be that much of a problem. Aspies often excel at difficult tasks. In attempting to deal with normal human interactions, aspies characteristically spend their lives in total confusion and doubt about what's actually going on and what they're supposed to do. He won't have to deal with that in the training hall, because it will be very clear what he needs to be doing and why. If he doesn't understand something, he will, once you explain it to him.

Aspie obsessive interests sometimes last a lifetime and sometimes vanish. As long as he stays interested, he should have plenty of motivation. With aspies, the passion comes from some mysterious place inside. People often take a special interest in some particular aspect of the martial arts, maybe the history, or the philosophy, or the cultures the arts came out of. If he shows an interest in any of these approaches, I would suggest encouraging him to explore those directions and for you to take the time to talk to him about them.

It would be perfectly normal if he got totally fascinated by something really weird, like traditional swordmaking, or asian architecture, or calligraphy, or mythology, or anime, no telling what.

The Chinese have a saying, "Blue ink from the lavender plant," to describe the situation where the student gets to be better than the teacher. It's entirely possible that there may be some specialized area where he will come to know more than you do. If this happens, I hope that you will feel secure enough in your own all around strength and understanding that you will not feel threatened by this. Having your respect and encouragement will help him tremendously.

There is one area where he may have much more difficulty than the other students; applying the lessons learned in training to life in the outside world. Individual aspies vary greatly in this, but it might be something for you to watch out for. It is difficult to suceed without confidence, and difficult to be confident when you constantly fail, and aspies fail very often in normal human relationships.

What you are doing is tremendously important. Let us know how things are going.