Kicking gaming addiction with martial art

In this picture taken on December 20, 2017, students from the Research Institute for Vovinam and Sport Development (IVS), a boarding school set up to treat online addictions and discipline unruly youngsters aged from 13 to 19, practise vovinam at the campus in Ho Chi Minh City.There are around 300 teens at IVS in Ho Chi Minh City, where the physical and emotional control demanded by vovinam is used to wean kids off screens, addictions to booze and drugs and help lift depression. / AFP PHOTO / HOANG DINH NAM / TO GO WITH Vietnam-sport-gaming-Vovinam,FEATURE by Jenny Vaughan

An’s folly was League Of Legends, a fantasy fight game that consumed her for 18 hours a day until she joined a school for troubled teens which features the real-world hard knocks of Vietnam’s homegrown martial art.

With no phone or console and 5.30am wake-up calls, the 16-year-old initially struggled to adjust to the rigours of life at the boarding school on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City.