As our school year comes to a close, our PTA would like to send you a final thanks for helping us with our Fall Festival Fundraiser.  Your Team was very impressive!  The kids always enjoy watching your demonstration.  Thank you for donating your time and talent!  Without your help, we would not be able to provide student programs for the children of Mountain View Elementary School.

Sincerely,

Heidi Kenny, Mountain View PTA

Here’s how the after school program works at Shin’s:  the kids get picked up from school then the first thing they do when they get to Shin’s is start on their homework (or school project) under the adult supervision and guidance of dedicated staff members.  Students who have completed most (if not all) of their school work, will then go down into the gym to bounce and flip on our three Olympic Trampolines or practice their tumbling skills on our 50 foot long tumble track, also a trampoline.  After practicing their flips and tricks on the trampolines, our after school students will then take a martial arts class.  Shin’s Family Taekwondo Martial Arts Fitness Center boasts a wide variety of martial arts classes.  Shin’s offers:  Olympic Taekwondo, Safeguard (anti-abduction/anti-bullying program), mixed martial arts, Krav Maga, XMA (aka “Hollywood martial arts” combining acrobatics, weapons and martial arts techniques), Kick & Flip (combination of martial arts, trampoline & tumbling), Sport Taekwondo and Jui Jitsu.  All these activities (plus help with homework) are available for one affordable price, probably less than what most families pay for day care.

The after school program at Shin’s has improved students’ grades and their attitude about the importance of education and physical activity.  Parents involved in Shin’s After School Program have experienced first hand the benefits of a structured, well staffed after school program.  These benefits include students’ getting in the best shape of their lives, learning simple & effective self defense techniques and acquiring valuable life skills such as self-discipline, respect and self control. 

Not all after school programs are the same.  Shin’s Family Taekwondo Martial Arts Fitness Center has won “Best Martial Arts School” seven out of the past nine years (2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009).  Come check out the difference at Shin’s!!!

Respectfully Yours,

Master Shin

Coached by Dan McCann, a former world level trampoline competitor, Connor has been a member of Shin’s Trampoline Team for more than two years.  Prior to his trampoline training, Connor was a member of Shin’s Family Taekwondo Martial Arts Center’s National Sparring Team for close to four years before switching over to trampolines. 

Connor has done well this competition season due to his work ethic and his desire to win.  However, part of the credit should be given to his parents, Rand and Kerry, who have both gone above and beyond to support both Connor and his younger brother Logan not only in their academic lives but in their athletic lives as well. 

Kudos to the Ferris Family for setting a great example to all the other Santa Clarita families with children involved in high performance activities such as martial arts, trampoline & tumbling.  Thank you Rand, Kerry, Connor and Logan for letting me be a part your lives.  I am fortunate to have such wonderful people in my life.  GO SHIN’S!!!

Respectfully Yours,

Master Shin

At Shin’s Family Tae Kwon Do Martial Arts Fitness Center, we are always keeping our eyes open for new Tae Kwon Do Team members.  The great thing is, you don’t have to be a high caliber fighter to be on the Tae Kwon Do Team.  You do have to be invited, but if this is of interest, feel free to ask one of the instructors, or Master Shin himself.  All you need to give the Team for starters is effort.  That’s what the Team puts forth during every practice and every tournament. 

Respectfully Yours,

Daniel Elman – 3rd Degree Black Belt & Senior Instructor at Shin’s Family Tae Kwon Do Martial Arts Fitness Center

Another example:  Our XMA Performance Team is made up of kids from elementary through high school.  These kids learn to balance school and commitment to the Team.  This will one day help them in being able to balance college with perhaps a job.  Or having a career and coming home and still providing what’s necessary for home life.

Another example:  Our Safeguard program.  We teach the kids to not panic.  Panic can lead to various consequences.  Perhaps you are in college and realize that you have a school commitment and have to work all in the same day.  Panic could lead you to making hasty judgements.  With learning how to control yourself and maintain composure, especially in a fight (where you have to compose yourself both physically and mentally), it will greatly assist you with many other tasks in life.

These are a few examples.  Martial arts is a great tool for helping any person to develop life skills, whether it’s learning to stand up for themselves, being a little more outgoing, or developing greater self confidence.

Respectfully Yours,

Daniel Elman – 3rd Degree Black Belt & Senior Instructor at Shin’s Family Taekwondo Martial Arts Center

The kids enjoy their time at Shin’s because it becomes their playhouse.  They come and they eventually feel like it’s their second home.  They walk in and know just what to do.  Some begin bouncing right away, others find a cozy corner to play their video game, listen to music, draw, or read a book.  Others put their creativity to the test and build a club house out of mats and pads.  The kids can play games, learn martial arts as well as tumbling.  If a child wants to work on a particular skill, we are here for them.  The gym becomes a lively atmosphere (with music playing) where the kids feel comfortable, make friends with the instructors, where the instructors make the kids feel comfortable and welcome. 

Each day at Shin’s Summer Camp brings a whole new story for each one of us to tell.  For more information, visit www.shinsblackbelt.com or call us at 661-257-6767.

Respectfully Yours,

Daniel Elman – 3rd Degree Black Belt & Senior Instructor at Shin’s Family Taekwondo Martial Arts Center

Most martial art schools usually have some sort of padded floor for better protection for training.  At Shin’s we take that “padding” to another level.  We offer a spring floor (the same that a gymnast uses) for various classes.  The spring floor allows for many explosive drills that we have our students do (all based on plyometric training).  With the springs, it also allows for lower level impact training for adults and anyone else who may have chronic sore joints.  The spring floor also allows our Kick & Flip and XMA classes to take their training up a notch.  The spring floor allows for the kids to take their skills to a higher level safer and in a controlled environment. 

With the Tumble Track and Trampolines, the kids can continue their variety of training.  The trampolines offer not just an avenue for developing trampoline specific skills, but also for tumbling skills, as well as for conditioning training.  Trampolines provide as well for low impact training.  Both kids and adults can utilize them for something as simple as a straight jump or a front tuck.  Also, our National Sparring Team utilizes the trampolines to diversify their training, working on conditioning and fast twitch muscle response.  The trampolines also provide another way of allowing our students, both young and adult, a way of changing up their training.

Respectfully Yours,

Daniel Elman – 3rd Degree Black Belt & Senior Instructor at Shin’s Family Taekwondo Martial Arts Center

 At Shin’s Family Taekwondo Martial Arts Center we created a martial arts/trampoline & tumbling hybrid class that teaches the basic fundamentals of both disciplines.  These fundamentals can then be applied to further training in more difficult skills.  With this class (offered to students of all ages) students enjoy martial arts training on a different level.  They can fuse their training with tumbling which is great for leading up to our XMA program.  The trampoline and tumbling allow for students to not only diversify their learning, but also to add a level of fun that most martial arts classes can not provide (being the trampolines).  Kick & Flip is also great for kids who have a wild imagination.  We teach how to take the skills you know and “freestyle” it, meaning just make it up on the spot.  Freestyle training helps with creativity as well as fun.  The kids take what they know and combine it with whatever video game or anime/movie they just watched and really get creative with their combinations.  Plus, being able to freestyle is a part of Shin’s black belt test.  With summer coming up, we are offering many time slots for Kick & Flip.  If you would like to learn Tae Kwon Do with a bit of Trampoline & Tumbling, then this class is perfect for you. 

Respectfully Yours,

Daniel Elman – 3rd Degree Black Belt and Senior Instructor at Shin’s Family Taekwondo Martial Arts Center

More than 60 years after Nissen tested his first workable prototype, trampoline debuted as a medal sport in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.  “It is something I dreamt, like people winning a million dollars,” Nissen told reporters as he sat in the audience for the first night of Olympic trampoline competition.  Peter Vidmar, a 1984 Olympic gold medalist in gymnastics, called Nissen “a hero of mine.”  “He was so proud that the sport he pioneered had not only become an Olympic discipline, but that its appeal was truly global,” Vidmar said in a statement.

George Peter Nissen was born Feb. 3, 1914, in Blairstown, Iowa, the youngest of four children of a Danish immigrant who ran a dry goods store.  In high school, Nissen was a gymnast and diver when he made the serendipitous visit to the circus.  Watching the acrobats rebound, he wondered if the net could help him train for his sports, he later said.

An early prototype crafted from canvas and junkyard scraps gave way to his first usable model, developed in 1934 from strips of inner-tubing rubber while he was a University of Iowa student.  His coach, Larry Griswold, and the school of engineering gave him an assist.  At a YMCA swimming camp, Nissen tested out the bouncer.  When “nobody wanted to go swimming,” he knew he was onto something, Nissen told Reuters news service in 2000. 

At Iowa, he was a champion gymnast and in 1937 earned a bachelor’s degree in business.  With two friends, the new college graduate somersaulted his way around the country and Mexico as one of the “Three Leonardos,” performing what was then called “rebound tumbling.”  But Nissen wanted a catchier name and coined one after hearing the Spaish word “trampolin,” for “diving board” or “springboard.”  He trademarked the name “trampoline” but it eventually became the generic term for the apparatus that has proliferated in so many American backyards.  In 1941, he opened Griswold-Nissen Trampoline and Tumbling Co. in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which manufactured and sold gymnastics equipment.

During World War II, he served in the Navy while trampolines were used to train pilots to learn how to orient themselves in the air.  After the war, Nissen started heavily promoting the trampoline by staging competitions and introducing it around the world.  His favorite publicity shot, taken in 1960 in New York’s Central Park, showed him jumping on a trampoline with a kangaroo that he rented for the occasion.  Another marketing coup took place in the 1970′s atop Egyptian pyramid when he reassembled a trampoline he had sneaked up and took a good bounce, his daughter said.

From 1947 to 1964, trampoline was a gymnastics event sanctioned by the Amateur Athletic Union and the National Collegiate Athletic Association.  The sport long seen as the poor cousin of gymnastics took longer to crack the Olympics.  “There was a terrible lot of politics,” Nissen told the Des Moines Register in 2001.  “I introduced it in 40 different countries over the span of 30 or 40 years after World War II.”  Nissen held more than 40 patents, according to USA Gymnastics.  His other invention included padded bleacher seats that fold up to create walls in a gym and inflatable seat cushions for hunting and fishing. 

After selling his trampoline business, Nissen moved to San Diego about 16 years ago.  An annual international trampoline competition in Switzerland is called the Nissen Cup, and what is now known as the Nissen-Emery Award has been given to the top male collegiate gymnast since 1966.  During a 2008 San Diego Union Tribune interview, the 94 year old Nissen stood firmly on his head and said, “There are really about three things in life that will make you happy: work, loving and creating.”  But then he added a fourth – acceptance for the creation.  It was a triumphant nod to his bouncing canvas that had risen to Olympic sport. 

In addition to his daughter Dagmar, Nissen is survived by his wife, Annie, a former Dutch acrobat;  another daughter, Dian; and a grandson.

Written By Valerie Nelson

If you are surrounded, ascertain what your attackers want.  If they want valuables or your car, give them up.  Things can always be replaced.  If they want to physically attack you or rape you, you may decide fighting back is your best option.  Determine which attacker is the most dangerous and deal with that person first.  If you are being held, use the person restraining you for support and leverage while you kick the person attacking you.

No one can tell you whether active resistance is best, but studies of effective rape resisters have shown that the women who successfully thwarted an attack used several different approaches - fleeing or trying to flee, yelling or screaming, fighting back.  Keep in mind that once you decide on physical resistance, there is no turning back.  You may decide that this is an immediate reaction or a last resort.  In either instance, it helps to have surprise and speed on your side, so you might pretend to cooperate temporarily.  However, if you decide to fight, you must be willing and able to inflict serious injury to yur assailant.

If you do not think you can fight, here is some advice.  Do not panic.  You can defend yourself.  Your will to survive is stronger than his will to hurt.  The moment before you strike back, visualize your confidence, power and strength as a collective force and mentally committ yourself to the struggle.

Respectfully Yours,

Master Shin