Thank for sharing and being the Warrior you are Josh! I have a student who is severely autistic, I shared his story last Dec on face book. Here is the post.
Bill Keeling
Dec 3, 2013
So I was teaching class one day last year, and I had a young man walk in from the mall and sat down at the edge of the mat and watched with pure amazement in his eyes. He sat there the whole rest of the class, and when I finished, approached me and asked if he could do this too? I told him, "why yes, anyone can do Jiu Jitsu! He lit up and went over to what I thought was his mother, then she came up to me and said " this is Bradley Thomas he is severely autistic and we bring him to the mall for therapy, he has never acted like this before, would you mind if he came in for your classes? He might not participate fully, but if he could sit at the edge of the mat and take in all of the stimuli would be terrific!" I said absolutely! Well he showed up for my very next class, and was there every class after that, well all the way up to my divorce, and me leaving training for a little while... He showed up every day with this huge smile, and trained with everyone just like anyone else! Had his therapist not told me about the Autism, I would have never known! That's the power of Jiu Jitsu! Bradley was an outstanding student, one that I still miss to this day, well I miss all of my students... I consider them more close friends than students But Bradley always stood out. It made me feel like I had made a definite positive impact on his life, with out expecting anything in return. I think that is when doing something matters, when you do it for someone who can do nothing for you in return. But it did do something in return, it made my soul smile! It made me believe in myself even more! So I just wanted to give a huge shout out to one of the toughest dudes I ever had the pleasure of training, Bradley Thomas! Thank you for inspiring me! and touching my soul! Thank you for being you! Keep training hard!
Bill Keeling
Dec 3, 2013
So I was teaching class one day last year, and I had a young man walk in from the mall and sat down at the edge of the mat and watched with pure amazement in his eyes. He sat there the whole rest of the class, and when I finished, approached me and asked if he could do this too? I told him, "why yes, anyone can do Jiu Jitsu! He lit up and went over to what I thought was his mother, then she came up to me and said " this is Bradley Thomas he is severely autistic and we bring him to the mall for therapy, he has never acted like this before, would you mind if he came in for your classes? He might not participate fully, but if he could sit at the edge of the mat and take in all of the stimuli would be terrific!" I said absolutely! Well he showed up for my very next class, and was there every class after that, well all the way up to my divorce, and me leaving training for a little while... He showed up every day with this huge smile, and trained with everyone just like anyone else! Had his therapist not told me about the Autism, I would have never known! That's the power of Jiu Jitsu! Bradley was an outstanding student, one that I still miss to this day, well I miss all of my students... I consider them more close friends than students But Bradley always stood out. It made me feel like I had made a definite positive impact on his life, with out expecting anything in return. I think that is when doing something matters, when you do it for someone who can do nothing for you in return. But it did do something in return, it made my soul smile! It made me believe in myself even more! So I just wanted to give a huge shout out to one of the toughest dudes I ever had the pleasure of training, Bradley Thomas! Thank you for inspiring me! and touching my soul! Thank you for being you! Keep training hard!
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