Loretta Ual, of Jackson, brought her daughter to the Special Needs Martial Arts Program at Fudoshinka Dojo on Saturday for something new and fun to do.

Ual just moved to Jackson, and the class is making it possible for her daughter to meet other children her age, Ual said.

The program was started by Debra Taylor, who also teaches the class.

“I’m a pediatric physical therapist, and my children benefited from the physical and the mental training that they get from martial arts,” she said. “It’s very exciting because I know these kids are going to benefit from it, and it’s a way to work on physical exercise and conditioning in a way that’s really fun, and it also helps with a lot of other things.”

Taylor explained that the program is loosely affiliated with the Special Needs Athletic Association. She is able to go into it’s database to find children with special needs who are in different athletic programs to see if they’d be interested in learning martial arts.

“This is giving them the opportunity to do things that other kids get to do,” she said.

Because Saturday’s lesson was the first of the program, Taylor taught the kids martial arts basics.

The class began with some stretches, then went into blocking techniques.

“The first thing we have to learn is to keep ourselves safe before we learn to do something that might hurt somebody else,” Taylor said.

The children first learned to block their faces while watching a quick demonstration, and then they practiced on each other using soft blocks.

When everyone was able to block properly, Taylor taught them how to block the lower half of their bodies.

Lastly, the kids learned how to correctly make a fist and hit their opponent.

“You want a good, tight fist. The last part about making a fist is roll your thumb over your fingers,” Taylor said. “What you don’t want to do is put your thumb inside … because you will break your thumb if you hit something hard.”

After the class finished throwing punches, the children sat down and Taylor taught them breathing techniques to end the hour of training.

“Breathe in strength. Breathe out fear. Breathe in confidence. Breathe out fear,” she said to the class.

She gave praise to her new students and said an emotional first goodbye.

“You guys did an awesome job today. I’m about to get tearful,” she said.

Then she ended the class with a bow.