MOSES LAKE - School-aged children who want to know how to deal with a bully, or the social problems that bullying can bring on, can attend a free Youth Empowerment Workshop this and next Saturday at Freewind Martial Arts.

Jack Gibson, Freewind Martial Arts director, said the workshop aims to end a problem he personally had to confront.

"As a child, my family moved around quite a bit. I had to deal with new schools and new communities and back in the '60s it was just par for the course to pick on the new kid, which often crossed over into ceaseless bullying," he said in a prepared statement.

The workshop's curriculum, developed by Hyper Martial Arts, teaches children self-defense tactics and why bullying is damaging.

Gibson said the workshop "has a mixture of education and awareness of the tools that kids and parents can use to recognize and deal with bullying as well as basic self defense tactics."

Parents would be required to sign a consent form showing their children can participate in the self-defense and activity portion of the workshop, Gibson said.

The program is being offered at more than 2,000 other martial arts schools worldwide. October is national Bully Prevention Month, and Gibson said he hopes the program reaches 1 million students.

The workshop is 11 a.m. to 12:30 for children ages 6-11 and 2 to 4 p.m. for youth ages 12 and older. The workshop takes place Oct. 11 and Oct. 18.

Freewind Martial Arts is located at 3426 Citation Rd. NE, a few blocks behind the Exxon station on Wheeler Road.