Parents turn to martial arts to guard kids from knife attacks

Quintin Derham shows blocking moves he has been teaching children. Photo / Greg Bowker

Parents worried about the threat of knife crime are enrolling their children in martial arts classes to learn how to defend themselves.

Instructor Quintin Derham has been teaching Shaolin kempo, a form of Chinese martial arts, in Auckland for 20 years and has always had parents asking him for advice on potentially life threatening situations involving knife threats and attacks.

But over the past two or three years he has seen a dramatic rise in the requests, so much so that children make up a third of the 100 students he teaches a week.

"Their kids talk of knives being brought to schools and fights where they are seen. Others are used as threats but they aren't followed through with," Mr Derham said.

His comments follow a warning from the country's top Youth Court judge that a growing number of teenagers are carrying knives.

Judge Andrew Becroft said young people committing crimes armed with knives was "almost certainly" going to become an issue here like it had in Britain and Australia.

Judge Becroft told a youth mentoring conference in Mangere last week: "We are concerned that assaults with a weapon have increased, and you have to be concerned at what may well be an increasingly important phenomenon of youth offending in the future.

"We are only talking about small kitchen knives taken out by young people on the basis that others are taking them, so they may need them for defence."

Police Association president Greg O'Connor was aware of an increase in the carrying of knives and applauded parents for taking a proactive approach in enrolling their children in martial arts courses.

"It can be no bad thing, not only for them learning to defend themselves but also for fitness," he said.

"I go around and talk to kids around the country. It seems everyone wants to have a go at everyone.

"Basically it's all about bullying ... Anything like this is just an increase in bullying."

Mr Derham said he had heard some of his students - the youngest 11 and 12 years old - talk about knives they had seen.

Recently, a teenager he knew was robbed of his wallet and cellphone. He handed the items over because he suspected the aggressor carried a knife.

"I told him he did the right thing. His ego was bruised, but his life was still intact."

In another example, from a Waitakere City school classroom, a knife was brandished, so the threatened students threw a chair in front of themselves to create distance from it.

Mr Derham said his classes taught techniques to avoid weapons and they proved to students how dangerous knives were.

However, Paul Bryant, who teaches tai chi chuan in Auckland, cautioned against tackling anyone with a weapon.

"It's best to leg it, just stay away.

"We teach people education - ways that look at non-violent resolutions."