Rock and Water Program: Calm Confidence and Resilience

BUILDING SELF-CONFIDENCE, SELF-RESPECT AND SELF-REFLECTION

Basically, Rock and Water is a course that is delivered over a number of lessons to students in primary or high school, but has been adapted for focus on women and girls, trauma, autism spectrum, and family resilience. A series of exercises and games are practised to develop self confidence, self control and self reflection. The games are martial arts based, and students learn to block, hit strike shields, stand strong, negotiate using “rock” or “water” verbal approaches, walk away from a fight, consider alternatives to aggression, and develop understandings about who they are, their intuitive feelings and their personal direction. By working on their intrapersonal connection to their self through a bottom-up psychological approach, they in turn develop empathy and better interpersonal connections to their social world and community, as well as strategies for coping under pressure, dealing with conflict, and making better decisions.

Master Instructor Brian Hayes has been involved as a teacher of Rock and Water since he met Freerk Ykeema, the founder and Grandmaster of the program, in 1999. Freerk had been invited to present a workshop at the University of Newcastle, and, with a deep interest in boys educational programs as well as a passion for promoting self defence abilities in boys and girls, Kyoshi Hayes attended. He liked what he saw and began to implement the program immediately as an instructor. As a Deputy Principal, Brian implemented and managed the program in two Newcastle High Schools, before being invited to conduct one-day training seminars and then three day training seminars around Australia and in New Zealand. He is now the Master instructor for Rock and Water Australia, facilitating the program in schools, youth services and corporations nationwide.

It is this commitment to developing the powerful Rock and Water program that takes Hayes Sensei away from the centre at times, but the benefits are surely felt in the development of curriculum at the centre and continuous staff training to reflect the principles of Rock and Water in evidence based, trauma informed approaches to student learning and growth in all Hunter Martial Arts centre’s.

Rock and Water was developed as a program for boys, but the benefits for girls were immediately recognised by Australian teachers and the program is taught widely in mixed groups. The impact of the Rock and Water program can be readily seen at the Hunter Valley Martial Arts Centre. All junior classes stop for a mat chat each lesson, where principles of honesty, compassion, gratitude, patience etc are discussed. Many of the games played in Minimites, Kindymites, Dynamites and Dragons classes come from the Rock and Water program and are used to teach students to handle conflict and other difficult situations by grounding and centering, breathing out before taking action, and self reflection.

Most importantly, we emphasise the relationship between the physicality of martial arts training and the development of social skills, wellbeing, self confidence and resilience. This important principle has influenced the development of our unique leadership program, our mat chat values and many other aspects of our program.

See why Kyoshi Hayes has ingrained rock and water in our childrens programs by viewing it’s research studies here. 

Our staff are Rock and Water accredited and can teach the program at any of our Martial Arts centre’s or on site. Enquire about our external programs here.