Martial arts expert teaches Shelter Island students that  ‘Attitude beats skill’

“If you don’t remember anything else — fight back.”

That was the message from Soke Tony Morrison who taught Shelter Island high school students Monday how to defend themselves if they’re attacked.

The program of self-defense lessons at the school was suspended for the past two years during the pandemic. But Board of Education member Kathleen Lynch arranged for Mr. Morrison and Sensei Michelle Del Giorno of Epic Martial Arts in Sag Harbor to return with assistants at a time when violence is all too present in the country.

‘I think it’s incredibly important,” Ms. Lynch said about the program.

The program was initially for girls who were graduating a couple of years ago to help them prepare for a life on college campuses, or bound for jobs in communities that could be less safe than Shelter Island. Ms. Del Giorno offered the early sessions, but this time, it was Mr. Morrison who took the lead, demonstrating and instructing students.

They were mostly 9th and 10th graders, with a group of girls up first, followed by the boys. Some had never participated in earlier programs, while a few are students of martial arts.

Mr. Morrison stressed that attitude is more important than technique. He pointed out how a mother bear protects her young, urging the students to think about how they might react if their mothers were being attacked — realizing the rage they would feel would spur them to strengths they hadn’t known they had.

“It’s not always necessary to beat a person up,” Mr. Morrison said. Just keeping an assailant down until help arrives could be sufficient, he said, reminding the students this isn’t a skill designed to attack people, but one meant to provide self-defense or defense of others.

He particularly stressed to the girls that their effort had to at least temporarily cause enough harm to an assailant to enable them to run from an attack.

Ms. Del Giorno and Emilie Nill served as “victims” for Mr. Morrison to demonstrate ways in which a slim female could still have power with a much heavier attacker. Try not to fall on your back, he advised, but all is not lost if that happens. He demonstrated how they could actually disable a larger person and roll them off to gain the upper hand.

Conversely, he demonstrated how it’s possible to keep an attacker from being able to similarly roll away, so they could keep the attacker in place until help arrives. He reminded students to protect their faces and use strength in their legs and feet to cause pain to an attacker so they could flee the scene.

“Don’t panic,” he said, admitting that’s difficult to do when an unanticipated attack occurs. But instead of becoming frozen, they should respond with anger, allowing rage to fuel their ability to fight back.

“I don’t care how scared you are — you have to attack,” he said. Two Shelter Island students — Sebastian Quigley-Dunning and Hayden Rylott — who have trained at the Sag Harbor dojo  — were on hand to practice the skills they’ve been learning.