Fifth-degree Black belt Stacy Busby took time out of his schedule last Tuesday and Thursday to teach a bullying self-defense class to children at the Avenue B YMCA Adventure Camp.

The children were trained on different ways to handle situations when being bullied. The instruction was on a video and Busby would pause the video, explain it and then do some of the exercises that were shown on the video.

“This is a new program that came across back several months ago,” said Busby, who owns Busby’s Family Karate. “There’s a lot of good viewpoints in it and it expresses very good. With it on video this way, it is good. A lot of the kids seem to relate a little better because it’s something off of TV. It’s somebody a little closer to their age group and there are other kids involved in it as well.”

Busby said he hopes to inspire some of the children if their self-confidence is kind of down or if they’ve been bullied in the past.

“Statistics show that the vast majority of them are in one aspect or another, if not physically, verbally, cyber or whatever, to give them some confidence for them to understand that they don’t have to be,” Busby said.

Busby, who has been teaching martial arts for more than 25 years and cardio kickboxing for the last two, said he wanted to show the participants that there are a few simple things they can do. You can show them how to stand up for themselves.

Busby said 90 percent of it is self-confidence.

“It’s not all of it because sometimes even somebody that has self-confidence, they have to stand up for themselves as well because somebody else may want them to prove it.”

Busby said bully prevention is something he is just starting to do. He wants to show his students when and how to defend themselves. He said you can run, ignore or stand up to them.

“The bully prevention is big in the news now, but there’s always been bullies,” Busby said. “It’s nothing new. The bully prevention program is about giving them the confidence that they can defend themselves. Bullies tend to prey on those who are not confident or can’t defend themselves. We want to give them the confidence to defend themselves. We are a light bulb of showing, who we are by the way we carry ourselves and talk to others. We want to give them a well rounded confidence that they can look out for themselves and for others.”

Busby, who is testing to be a six-degree Black Belt in July, has been training for nearly 30 years.

He said he got involved with the sport because he wanted to stay in shape.

“After the first class, I was hooked,” Busby said. “I knew that was the thing I wanted to stay with. I had no idea I was going to become an instructor, but I knew I enjoyed it.”

Busby used to have his studio on Alabama Avenue in Bogalusa, but a fire on Feb. 8 forced him to relocate his business temporally to Highway 21.

He has now found a permanent home and as of Monday, Busby is at the Avenue B YMCA.

“I took this school over about 20 and a half years ago and this is where the studio was when I took the school over,” Busby said.

The program was part of the YMCA’s Adventure Camp, led by Toni St. Phillip.

Some of the things the clinic featured besides the bullying seminar, included repelling, ascending an a zipline, which was done inside due to weather.

St. Phillip was very happy with the way last week’s camp went.

“In my opinion, it was the best camp we ever had,” St. Phillip said.

“Everyone just had a great time. There were a lot of extra things involved with this camp like the bullying, that we have never done before.”

The YMCA is holding a Y Camp next week.

If you are interested, call 732-3741 and ask for Toni St. Phillip to find out more information on the clinic.