Youth Akro Skills Program Teaches Life Skills with Fun and Fitness

Youth Akro Skills is a program created by Shauneille Blair that teaches valuable Life Skills through active engagement in partner-based acrobatics.
According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Life Skills are the skills and knowledge we need to live healthy lives.
The Youth Akro Skills program builds the following 31 Life Skills:
  1. asking for help - notice when you need support and practice asking for it
  2. apologizing - accept responsibility and work to make things right
  3. adaptability - be flexible with expectations, modify and embrace changes
  4. balance - give and receive support, improve physical and emotional stability
  5. body autonomy - establish and enforce your physical boundaries
  6. communication - use effective words to tell others what you need, listen and respond to others’ needs
  7. compassion - consider others, use words and actions that are kind to yourself and to others, treat others as you want to be treated
  8. confidence - feel assured in acting and speaking for yourself, feel proud of your achievements and believe that you can achieve more
  9. conflict management - determine the best way to resolve disagreements so that you can continue your partnerships
  10. cooperation - work with others to achieve a shared goal
  11. critical thinking - take in relevant information about a situation and determine the benefits and drawbacks of available options
  12. decision making - use information gathered to make a decision about how to continue
  13. empathy - consider and try to understand the feelings of others and choose your words and actions based on that understanding
  14. focus - improve ability to pay attention to what you are doing in order to do it well and become less likely to be distracted unnecessarily
  15. feedback (giving) - be clear about what you are experiencing and what you need or don’t want from people around you
  16. feedback (receiving) - receive and use feedback - hear what someone is telling you that they need or want you to change and decide for yourself whether or how to provide the change they are requesting from you
  17. interpersonal interaction - become familiar with positive and consented physical contact to be able to distinguish from unwelcome physical contact
  18. negotiation - practice using your words to compromise with others to get what you both need or to establish a new boundary if your needs are not being met
  19. partnership - how to interact with others in constructive and healthy ways that validate and support all participants
  20. patience - giving yourself the opportunity to achieve something in your own time and allowing the same process for others
  21. perseverance - keep trying even if something isn’t working at first and believe that eventually it will work out
  22. physical strength - supporting your own body weight and/or your partner’s body weight builds physical strength
  23. resilience - recover from an unwanted outcome, assess lessons learned about something that didn’t work, make any needed adjustments and then continue
  24. respect - respect is given and earned by each participant equally because there is no designated leader and no competition except internal motivation
  25. response - answer verbally and/or make a physical change based on the needs your partner has expressed to you
  26. safety - learn how to gauge your own safety as you practice, determine and express what is needed to maintain safety for yourself and others, build physical strength that allows you to defend your body if you ever need to
  27. self-advocacy - speak to the person interacting with you about what is or isn’t okay with you and ask them to stop or change what you don’t like
  28. self-esteem - accomplish something that you previously thought you couldn’t do and feel that you can probably accomplish other things too
  29. self-motivation - accomplish something based on your own will, become familiar with noting your own success and wanting to exceed it
  30. support - provide and receive physical and emotional support
  31. trust - earn and build trust by giving chances to fulfill expectations

Coming Soon:
How “Youth Akro Skills” prevents rape and teen pregnancy:
  • Provides healthy, non-sexual interpersonal contact 
  • Builds self-defense skills (mental, verbal and physical)


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