{"id":707744,"date":"2026-06-01T06:45:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T06:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/707744\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T06:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T06:45:09","slug":"mma-lessons-in-birmingham-aim-to-empower-special-needs-pupils","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/707744\/","title":{"rendered":"MMA lessons in Birmingham aim to empower special needs pupils"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The owner of Kombat Martial Arts in Stirchley said his programme was tailor-made for learning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He teaches core skills such as behaviour, non-verbal communication and social skills to &#8220;develop them as people so they can go out and do better&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Malakye, a Year 10 pupil who has autism, said: &#8220;Not a lot of schools offer this type of thing, and I think it&#8217;s definitely helped a lot of the kids here, including me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The student, who was excluded from primary school before his autism diagnosis, said the MMA lessons have improved how he regulates his emotions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Being able to go and maybe if I&#8217;m angry, or something, I can get my anger out,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He has developed a passion for the sport and is among a number of pupils now attending lessons at the dojo outside of school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The owner of Kombat Martial Arts in Stirchley said his programme was tailor-made for learning. He teaches core&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-707744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=707744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}