WESTPORT — “One, sir,” first-graders in Westport Elementary School’s anti-bullying gym class shouted on Thursday, followed by a louder, “Two, sir,” when martial arts instructor Bruce Sylvia Jr. prompted them to give it more, until the students hit the last position with a roaring “Five, sir” that resounded like furious chipmunks through the gymnasium.

They, as are all Westport Elementary School students, were learning an important lesson to protect themselves from bullies: Overcoming shyness and cultivating a strong voice are the best defenses against a bully.

And if all else fails, they’re also learning how to protect their heads against attack and launch an attack of their own in defense.

Mr. Sylvia, a taekwondo black belt and owner/instructor of Absolute Martial Arts of Dartmouth, has volunteered his time to teach an anti-bullying class at the school. He started the first of five weeks of lessons last week.

On Thursday as a group of first-graders got ready to enter the gym, physical education teacher Kim Mercier directed them into straight lines of boys and girls and told the fidgety students to be on their “best behavior, please.” When the girls entered first and a few boys slipped the line, Ms. Mercier told them to “stand in line.”

“This is a gym class takeover,” Mr. Sylvia said. “For the next five weeks you’ll be in an anti-bullying gym class and do martial arts.”

This elicited a few “yeahs” from some boys and girls, and some heads perked up.

Then Mr. Sylvia asked “what is martial arts?” Several students said it is karate. Asked a few more times if the students know of any other martial arts, one boy replied, Kung fu.

“Well,” Mr. Sylvia said, “martial arts is an art form. You guys are going to be learning discipline, respect and teamwork. And what is bullying?”

Picking on somebody; being mean to someone; calling others names, were some of the responses. When asked if they’d ever been bullied, a few raised their hands. Jenna Moniz said she had been bullied by her brother.

Two boys said that they are bullies.

The martial way

Teaching the principles of discipline, self-confidence and respect are the most effective tactics to keep bullies from being successful, Mr. Sylvia said.

Developing self-control — like being able to go through the martial arts stances, controlling fidgety movements or learning to not talk out of turn — is the first step to finding one’s confidence and respecting oneself and others, Mr. Sylvia said.

Learning self-confidence, for example, by “using your voice, not your fists,” makes one less of a target, he said. Bullies often pick on shy or quiet children. That’s why Mr. Sylvia teaches the students to find confidence in their voice by shouting “Yes, sir!” and “No, sir!”

“I was one of the quiet kids in school, and I got picked on at times,” Mr. Sylvia said. “Then I got involved in martial arts and learned how to speak up and be confident. It’s the shy one who gets picked on. That’s why the key component is confidence and using your voice.”

And, lastly, he said, respect is the most important key.

“Because if you respect one another, you won’t become a bully,” Mr. Sylvia said. “And if you’re confident with your voice, you won’t be bullied. You’ll be the self-confident person who uses your voice to say, Stop bullying me. And if you can control your body, you won’t be hitting other people.”

Taking it to school

Mr. Sylvia, a Westport resident, opened his martial arts school (at 668A State Road, behind the Benjamin Moore store) in September. He teaches taekwondo, mixed martial arts, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and grappling. A New Bedford High School graduate, the 26-year-old said he wanted “to give back to the community because I am so fortunate to be able to have my school.”

First, Mr. Sylvia offered 100 one-month passes to his school for students in schools in Dartmouth, Fall River and Portsmouth. He also met with Westport Schools Superintendent Carlos Colley to give scholarships to Westport students. But Dr. Colley, himself a taekwondo brown belt, had a better idea.

“He said I’d love for you to get into the schools and teach them,” Mr. Sylvia said.

“It sounds counterintuitive to have someone talk about martial arts and non-violence at the same time,” Dr. Colley said recently. “But most people who practice martial arts develop such self-control that in times of conflict the last thing they want to do is take it to the physical level.”

Dr. Colley trained in taekwondo while he was a school administrator in upstate New York. He got into it when his son asked to start classes, so he joined him. After a while, his son decided to join a basketball team instead, but Dr. Colley kept on training. He then took a little time off, but soon his daughter wanted to take up taekwondo, so they took classes together. Again, he lost his training partner when his daughter’s soccer games kept her on the road a lot. But Dr. Colley continued training, eventually achieving a brown belt (two belts below black belt) and assisting in the training of lower-level students. His best move was a spinning back kick, which he can flick out with both legs.

He had to stop his training because he no longer had the time after becoming assistant superintendent for Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard school districts.

“I found it was a great workout. I went through a lot of pounds, shedding (10 to 15) pounds and adding muscle,” Dr. Colley said.

What he hopes this will do for students is to inculcate self-control and “a positive self-image.”

“I am powerful in and of myself,” said Dr. Colley, voicing what he wants students to learn. “When I see things being done that is wrong, towards me or someone else, I shouldn’t allow it to happen. I need to raise my voice and say, No, this is wrong.”

Dr. Colley said he wanted the elementary students to be the beneficiaries of these classes to instill these values at an early age. “As kids get older, a lot of peer pressure develops. When they get faced with that, hopefully they already have the skills to deal with it.”

As far as any bullying issues in Westport’s schools, Dr. Colley said, “I don’t see or I have not heard of a big problem. It’s just one of those things that happens at every school.

Tough stuff

Once the students are introduced to the new class, Mr. Sylvia breaks them right into a conditioning workout.

Students lined up against the back wall of the gym, and took turns sprinting to the other end until their faces became a mottled scarlet. Then Mr. Sylvia had them line up in rows and asked them to “stand still for 10 whole seconds with your attention on me,” some still lightly panting from the running.

As the students were taken through a stretching routine, Mr. Sylvia instructed them to yell, “Yes, sir” for each movement — another opportunity to bolster their voices.

Then he partnered with Preston DaPonte to show the students how to protect their heads from punches and kicks. He asked Preston to put his hands way up over his head, and then tapped his side with a focus mitt. That was what he calls the “I’m in trouble stance,” he told the students, because Preston had left his body open to a strike. Next, he asked Preston to keep his hands at his side, and he then patted the top of his head. This is the “I’m lazy stance,” Mr. Sylvia said, “and I don’t want to see anyone in those stances.”

Mr. Sylvia instructed Preston to then put his fists in front of his face, elbows pointed down — the old-school method for blocking punches.

After they’ve learned the defensive posture, the real fun begins. Mr. Sylvia teaches them how to do a front kick with their right legs (as class advances, they’ll begin using both legs for kicks) by holding a focus mitt at the students’ hip levels. Many had difficulty getting into the correct stance to throw a kick — with the leg that’s firing in the rear. After a few minutes of this, they were ready for a friendly competition pitting boys against girls to see who could kick the mitt the fastest (and who would use the right leg).

Eleven boys faced nine girls as Mr. Sylvia and Ms. Mercier both held focus mitts in each hand to gauge who was the quickest. The first boy was out for using his left leg. Then a girl missed a target and left the competition. Soon the contest had dwindled down to three girls against five boys. Each side cheered on their team.

But once it came down to two girls, Jenna Moniz and Jenna Cadieux, the boys had trouble. Jenna Cadieux struck at the pad first, knocking another boy out of competition. Then Jenna Moniz crouched ready in a springy stance, her eyes wide and unblinking, a determined look on her face, as she waited to compete against the last boy. She won. And the girls screamed wildly.

At the end of class, Jenna Moniz shared her strategy. “I was thinking, I hope I win. I said, I have to kick fast, and I did,” she said.

Jenna was so enthralled with her first martial arts lesson that she said, “Karate” — even though it was not a karate class — “is awesome. I’d do it a hundred years if I had to.” In the next class, Jenna said, she hopes to learn how to do “karate chops.”