I published this post on Tuesday, June 21, 2011 and I'm Revisting it to reflect on my friend's progress.
The Original post below:
MMA: My Mate's Autism
I sometimes help Guy out with the junior MMA class. One child in this class has asperger syndrome, a type of autism. Children with asperger syndrome typically have trouble with social situations and communication. He started training with the junior class about a month and a half ago with the idea of getting some exercise. However the therapeutic benefit for him has been phenomenal. Before he started MMA he refused to hug people, especially ladies. According to him, "Ladies can't be trusted". He started hugging Wendy, who also helps guy with training. He now hugs a few select people and this morning he made my day by giving me a kind of handshake-hug. Asperger syndrome kids supposedly don't have a good sense of humour, but I laugh with him quite a bit- He makes funny remarks during training while cheering his friends on. He has a good heart and as my friends would say "He's a good ou"
Wow,
He is a different person to everyone who meets him for the first time; He is himself from the start. When I first met him I could only get a conversation of a few sentences from him. Now we can chat for 5-10 minutes easily. We talk about training and complain about schoolwork. I introduced him to a friend of mine (a girl) and I wasn't sure quite what to expect. He gave her a strong handshake and introduced himself. My friend asked him a question about training, and so it began- an enthusiastic 5 minute conversation between the two of them during which I was invisible.
Training
I'll be back at conditioning on Monday night but I can't spar or roll for another two weeks so Tuesday training for me will probably be a lot of bag work.
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