Jiu-jitsu is often hailed as a way to help bullied children gain both practical self-defense skills and confidence, and hopefully, that’s exactly what one young boy is going to get out of a year’s worth of free BJJ lessons offered by 2015 American Nationals champion Tanner Rice.
Rice became aware of the boy’s plight after a viral video surfaced of the boy being bullied on a school bus. He then posted that he wanted to help the victim by offering him a whole year’s worth of jiu-jitsu classes at his academy, Rice Brothers Jiu-Jitsu. Rice told local news station KRCRTV that this was the first time the academy had offered to provide an entire year’s worth of lessons, but that they had previously offered a few free months at a time to other students who were being bullied.
Rice also explained the benefits that jiu-jitsu could offer the bullied kid, telling KRCRTV, “We try to tell them to do their best and to go to their teachers. And in the long run, self-defense is important in the long run. They need to learn to respect them. But if it got to a point to where the kid did need to fight back, jiu-jitsu gives you a way to do that without injuring the kid that you’re fighting [by] controlling the situation without someone getting really hurt.”
The boy’s mother has reportedly accepted Rice’s offer, and the boy will soon commence his jiu-jitsu journey at the academy.
