Heard around the house
Junior: I want you to teach me how to fight!
Me: OK. Put up your dukes!
Junior: *puts up dukes*
Me: Can you run away?
Junior: Yes.
Me: Then run. First rule of fighting is not to get in one.
Junior: That’s not what I meant!
Me: But you learned the first rule.
Junior: Fine, I’ll runaway.
Me: Next we’ll work on what you do if you can’t run away.
Junior: *rolls eyes*
July 16th, 2013 at 9:05 am
Good on ya.
July 16th, 2013 at 9:47 am
Wash and wax all cars. Wax on with right hand, wac off with left hand. Breath in through nose, out through mouth. Breathing, VERY important.
July 16th, 2013 at 10:07 am
Heh. Good one, Dad.
July 16th, 2013 at 10:33 am
Good job!
July 16th, 2013 at 11:16 am
It’s not about winning a fight, it’s about getting home.
July 16th, 2013 at 11:42 am
It’s a shame we live in such a litigious society which does its best to absolve us of personal responsibility. I remember taking martial arts classes in which we were advised of our slippery legal standing if we chose to maim, rather than kill an attacker (the instructor was a lawyer, by the way) (“You have all this training and yet you chose to blind my client instead of incapacitating him?!). You and I would consider it a mercy on our part if we ripped off an ear or shattered a kneecap rather than killing our attacker, but many courts would not.
July 16th, 2013 at 12:15 pm
Good job dad. First two methods of self defense are avoidance and escape…
July 16th, 2013 at 3:47 pm
My dad bought us 16 OZ sparring gloves and told us to take care of issues out in the yard. He was a boxer when he was young. My brother and I would whip on each other till will were good and tired.
After a while most of the local scraps took place in our back yard with two guys in gloves instead of pipes and bats in the street.
My mom gave the gloves to one of my little brothers friends so his kids could wear themselves out.
You’d probably go to jail for that these days.
July 16th, 2013 at 5:11 pm
Evasion is better than direct action unless you really really need to kill the person or secure an objective
July 16th, 2013 at 6:22 pm
Another perspective is that of right verses wrong. I like the example of my son and a school bully. Bully was well known as a bully, and one day he decided to bully someone (a much smaller someone of course) in the school hall among many witnesses including my son.
Before anyone knew what was happening, Son had Bully on the floor crying, with Son on top. It was an automatic, reflexive, and prefect, response. Bully was far less of a bully after that.
Son had been in some trouble at school up to that point, and so he had every reason to avoid a conflict, and further he had every opportunity to flee, or at least to turn away and let someone else deal with the problem, which arguably was not his problem at all.
School admin, to their credit, admitted that Son had done the right thing.
So yes, Grasshopper; while it may at times be appropriate to flee, or at other times the very best thing you can do is nothing, it is in other times entirely appropriate to take the matter into your hands and do the right thing. Let no one, including yourself, tell you in advance what you must do, such that you have a pre-conceived “plan”, but let your intuition, let right and wrong, be your guide. I point out that in the above example, not even Son had time to contemplate what was happening or to “plan” a response, but simply he put a stop to evil. I consider such an act to be a gift, to both parties and to society at large, all alike.
And as I’m becoming fond of saying;
As goes the individual so goes the family
As goes the family so goes the community
As goes the community so goes the state
As goes the state so goes the country
As goes the country so goes the world. That puts YOU at the tip of the triangle, Young Grasshopper, and so, though we all fail in this at times, you have a grave responsibility to be of the right frame of mind.
Be Still and Know…
July 16th, 2013 at 7:47 pm
The Art of Fighting without Fighting…
July 16th, 2013 at 8:02 pm
If someone had given two young men such sage advice, one named Martin would still be alive and one named Zimmerman would still have a normal life ahead of him.
July 16th, 2013 at 8:36 pm
Good start, and the MOST IMPORTANT lesson!!!
July 16th, 2013 at 9:01 pm
jtc: Martin attacked Zimmerman.
And it is difficult to flee when someone is on top of you pounding on you. As the jury found.
Only one person in your example was in need of better advice.
July 17th, 2013 at 7:40 am
“The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”
Said John Stuart Mill, and just about no one since.
July 17th, 2013 at 2:28 pm
Kristophr: It is guys like you that Unc is training his son not to be. Need I elaborate?
July 17th, 2013 at 3:20 pm
@jtc:
Wow, you have proven yourself to be clueless. Total reading comprehension fail (for at least a year, on part of it)
July 17th, 2013 at 5:12 pm
As to clueless, that giant WHOOOOSH was Uncle’s point zooming right over your heads. Let me direct your attention to his subsequent post re: whither the future for Z.