JONESBORO, Ark.-Logan Lee says one of the reasons parents sign up their children for karate is because of issues the children have with bullying.
Lee runs Lee's Karate in Jonesboro.
"We had a lady sign up last night for that exact purpose," he said to The Jonesboro Sun.
Lee said the reasons why children join the class vary from issues at home to trouble at school.
"(Bullies) don't want to fight. We have to teach our children not to act like victims."
"A lot of our customers come because of the bus situation at school," he said.
Kaydan Tran, sixth-grader at Valley View Intermediate School, said he has seen racism at the school.
"Both friends are half-Filipino," he said. "They get picked on."
Kaydan said he wants to help them get through bullying, and he wants to stand up for others who go through it, too. He specified he would stand up in a non-physical way.
Lee teaches his students to ease tensions when confronting conflict.
"If we can verbally deescalate, we don't need to get physical," he said.
Kaydan, 11, said since he started training with Lee four years ago, he feels more confident.
He said he would tell bullied students to ignore the bully.
"They only want to make you feel bad," Kaydan said about bullies. "Something bad probably happened to them."
He said he is in the class because his cousin, who is a black belt, attended it. He wants to be like his cousin.
Lee said a true bully management program would start with words, non-verbal communications and proxemics, which is the study of the nature, degree and effect of the spatial separation individuals naturally maintain.
He did not want to call schools out, but he said people know what is going on when it comes to bullying and that he wants to try and help children deal with it. Bullying has been around in schools for decades.
"People call us about issues," Lee said. "Martial-arts are a great way to build confidence."
He said he teaches conflict management for children. He said the key is dealing with conflict and how to push forward.
Lee talked about his own childhood experience.
"I grew up being a half-Asian kid," he said. "There were no other racial minorities around. From seventh through 12th grade, it was me in terms of race, and I dealt with bullying."
He said when it comes to bullying, the person acting as the bully-whether a child or adult-wants a victim.
"They don't want to fight," Lee said. "We have to teach our children not to act like victims."
He said bullies do what they do for all sorts of reasons, including stress they have, feelings of inadequacy they might experience and-or maybe they like another child and do not know how to express it.
Lee said he had a 13-year-old student in one of his classes.
"He looked like he was 17," he said. "He was a big teenager. Maturity-wise he was a little lower and acted more like a kid than a young man. He lived next to a park. He couldn't go out to the park because they picked on him."
Lee said the boy would isolate himself in his room and play video games. He said it's sad to see.
"All his socialization was through a headset as he played "Call of Duty,'" he said. "I talked to him about how to get out of the house. He said, 'I don't have to. All my friends are online.'"
Jacob Hill, an instructor since October 2018 at Lee's Karate, said he has been involved in karate for 14 years. He said he tries to be level with the students and treat them as an equal.
Hill said there was bullying when he was in school. He attended school in Riverside School District.
"There is definitely bullying," he said. "These kids talk about it all the time."
Hill said people who are being bullied should tell somebody who can do something about it.
"You have to stand up for yourself," he said.
Hill said he always brings up bullying to the students while they're in class.
"It activates their drive," he said.