I hate it when.....

[Blade96]

People jab a punch at my face or chest and then say 'why didnt you block that'

My father did it to me last night. Was gonna get my supper and he suddenly out of the blue jabbed at me. I jumped and assumed a fighting stance, zenkutsu dachi, even though its obvious I wont actually fight my dad. lol. but still he said I was too slow and he could have hit me and there wasnt anything i could do about it. I said how can one stop a surprise attack right out of blue like that. especially when its your family member and u know they arent gonna hit you He said he was just teasing but I found it annoying.

Anyone ever say or do stuff to you like that because you're in martial arts?

 

[Drac]

It has happened to me a few times..I almost blasted a co-worker once when he came up behind me and grabbed my baton holder..He didnt try it again..I was about 6 months into Shorin-Ryu when I Dad and I were having a Father and Son diagreement, nothing serious mostly joking..And he said something about me wanting to fight him..So I assumed a stance and told him to "put up his dukes"..He hit me so fast I saw stars..He walked me to my room and sat me down and said " You will never be big enough to take on your old man"..Then I made the mistake of telling Sensei what had happened..He wasnt happy...Does Uke of the day mean anything to ya??

 

[Bill Mattocks]

People jab a punch at my face or chest and then say 'why didnt you block that'

Martial arts training doesn't guarantee a person won't land a sucker punch, especially if they're faster than you. They will help to ensure there won't be a second punch.

Anyone ever say or do stuff to you like that because you're in martial arts?

Not my friends/family.

 

[dancingalone]

To me it indicates a basic lack of respect on the friend or family member for you and your interests. There are healthier ways to show his interest in you than trying to 'test' you. Perhaps you could invite Dad to watch one of your classes sometime or even join a training session if he's truly interested in your progress.

Fortunately, I haven't had someone bother me in similar fashion for years but it happened from time to time when I was a teenager taking tae kwon do with some of my friends. In retrospect, I'm sure the motivating factor with my friends stemmed from some adversarial issues and I hope your father doesn't have a similar motivation.

 

[Blade96]

Humph. I'd rather the 'wax on wax off' 'Hiiiiyah' people who tease me with that. They are at least funny, not annoying, and makes reference to that movie I really love a lot and think it is cute, although as an actual karateka I know parts of it isn't very realistic.

When I know I am going to spar with someone, I can block them. I've been training 6 months and havent been hit once (though my punches have sometimes landed on the heads and faces of my fellows even on some brown and black belts who were obviously off their mark)

But who can quickly and realistically block a surprise attack like that when u dont know its coming and dont dream of your family member doing it to you, even as a joke....My bro even did that to me even my mom some months ago......and now this latest one.......

btw my dad wont come to watch me train or anything because he doesnt like martial arts.

 

[theletch1]

Do a search for "Defending the sucker punch" or things along that line on this forum. To an extent, after a while you get to the point where you can judge the intent of folks around you and you'll know whether a person throwing a punch at you is truly a threat or not. I agree with Dancing Alone that it shows something of a lack of respect for you...depending. If you don't mind joking around with your friends then you should expect the occassional punch to be thrown while joking around. It's the folks that hear as part of a normal conversation that you're a martial artist who have no reason to "play" that are being disrespectful. I've only had this happen once. Our chief engineer heard me talking to one of the ladies in our front office who'd attended my women's self defense seminar and enjoyed it. His comment was "Oh, my .357 will kick your kay-rah-tay stuffs *** any day". My response was to ask him if he had his weapon on him at the moment. He didn't as we aren't allowed to carry on company property. I smiled and said, "Well, I still have my aikido anywhere I go."

 

[Xinglu]

People jab a punch at my face or chest and then say 'why didnt you block that'

My father did it to me last night. Was gonna get my supper and he suddenly out of the blue jabbed at me. I jumped and assumed a fighting stance, zenkutsu dachi, even though its obvious I wont actually fight my dad. lol. but still he said I was too slow and he could have hit me and there wasnt anything i could do about it. I said how can one stop a surprise attack right out of blue like that. especially when its your family member and u know they arent gonna hit you He said he was just teasing but I found it annoying.

Anyone ever say or do stuff to you like that because you're in martial arts?

Never my friends or family, at least not anymore.

Once, when I was about 17 at a family gathering I had a a cousin who got drunk and thought he was tough and would show everyone in the family what a joke the MA is and how his boxing was better. After about 20 min of me telling him I wasn't going to fight him and asking him to stop this stuff, he pushed me. I told him, "See look, I didn't even fight back, and if I did I would probably lose. You win, now can we go play some pool?" Apparently that did register because the threw a punch at me. Fortunately I saw it coming and used a qinna technique, I had him on the ground writhing in pain yelling "get him off me," The only think he suffered from that day was loss of face and a hangover the next day. I head that the next week several of my cousins and an aunt took up training in MA. LOL Since seeing that no one in my family has ever had a bad word to say about the MA. Unfortunately, for some people, they don't respect it until they see/feel it

I had an acquaintance I know do this (though he wasn't drunk, I didn't really know his intention was a jest as it happened so fast and without warning, so I did a maneuver known as paoquan. I hit his so hard in the sternum that he flew back about four feet landed flat on his back sucking wind. It turns out my friends had been bragging about how I did MA, and he just wanted to see what'd I'd do. It really was a dumb move on his part, we had only met once before, and he apologized for the disrespect. On the up side he joined me training and has been my martial brother for about 5 years now. Another good thing is that my friends no longer tell people about me training. I told them this is why I don't like it advertised, I really don't like hurting people.

Someone, (probably not you) needs to sit down with your father and teach him what the MA is and what it is not, and how disrespectful that was of him.

From another post I recall he would get irritated with you saying you talk about MA too much and that he really doesn't care enough about the MA to educate himself about it. If this is still the case, I would just advise no longer talking to him about it as much. Limit the conversations about it to surface level conversations.

Another thing is, he "sucker punched" a novice. IIRC you are Kukyu. Hopefully, he learns not to surprise you like that by the time you are capable of responding in a way where either he or his pride are hurt.

 

[Blindside]

People jab a punch at my face or chest and then say 'why didnt you block that'

My father did it to me last night. Was gonna get my supper and he suddenly out of the blue jabbed at me. I jumped and assumed a fighting stance, zenkutsu dachi, even though its obvious I wont actually fight my dad. lol. but still he said I was too slow and he could have hit me and there wasnt anything i could do about it. I said how can one stop a surprise attack right out of blue like that. especially when its your family member and u know they arent gonna hit you He said he was just teasing but I found it annoying.

Anyone ever say or do stuff to you like that because you're in martial arts?

After he hits you, kick him in the groin and ask him why he didn't block that. After several minutes he'll probably say something along the lines of "I didn't actually expect you to do anything." Nod and agree.

 

[Blade96]

From another post I recall he would get irritated with you saying you talk about MA too much and that he really doesn't care enough about the MA to educate himself about it. If this is still the case, I would just advise no longer talking to him about it as much. Limit the conversations about it to surface level conversations.

yeah he got mad at me a few times. No he really doesnt care about MA. He says he 'likes' philosophy so i tried to get him a little into it by showing him some of Funakoshi Gichin's philosophic beliefs. Sometimes you can introduce someone to something by relating it to something else thats of interest to them. But he just wasnt interested. gimmie a break, its good philosophy. My father a man who 'likes' philosophy but didnt show any interest in that at all. Go figure.

Another thing is, he "sucker punched" a novice. IIRC you are Kukyu. Hopefully, he learns not to surprise you like that by the time you are capable of responding in a way where either he or his pride are hurt.

i'm an 8th kyu - a yellow belt.

 

[bowser666]

Well I had a similar circumstance with my father back when I was a teenager. At the time i was taking Kenpo and when we got into a very heated argument one time, he challenged me to use my Karate , to see if it would help me against him. ( He was very mad at me). Needless to say nothing ever came of it. Recently my father was able to come watch me test for my Red Belt in Shaolin Longfist ( Studying going on 2 years now , and 2 more tests and I am going to be a black belt!! ) He got to watch me do some board breaking. Granted nothing crazy just 2, 1" boards , I performed a couple hand techniques and a couple kicking techniques, and everything went smoothly. Later that night over a celebratory dinner, he leaned over and said to me , Jesus, Michael , I hope you never have to hit me with one of those things. I had no idea your technique was that strong. You showed alot of power. That felt good to hear my Dad say that, and for him to be impressed with my apparent ease(His words, not mine ) , of breaking those boards. It seems now there is a respect there that wasnt when I was a teen.

 

[Xinglu]

i'm an 8th kyu - a yellow belt.

Same thing, most places I've seen run a 10 kyu ranking. and in those places an 8th kyu would still be wearing a whitebelt.

It is a shame he can't at least appreciate the philosophy behind it all.

So perhaps just limiting your conversation about it might help. He might get the hint.

Personally, I'd want to know everything about something my daughter loved to do even if it wasn't of great interest to me (though it would be, because SHE is. Hope that makes sense.). But that is just me.

 

[xJOHNx]

My family doesn't care about the whole wrong world of voilence (powertraining, bodyweight training, ma, armwrestling and so on), so I just don't talk about it. I do it for myself, although I can relate that the beginning of a path can be something you want to talk about all day!

Just tell him: "you are my father, I don't need to defend myself against you..." (push his buttons). Works better than all the tough guy crap.

 

[ap Oweyn]

There's two ways to look at this. I suggest you do both. On the one hand, people who do that are trying to be obnoxious. And you should deal with that however you feel is appropriate. Ask them to stop, don't hang around them anymore, whatever is appropriate to that relationship.

The other thing is to stop and consider that they might have a point. When I was in college, one of my roommates was a high school wrestler. He used to tease me all the time about martial arts, saying that if he shot in for a double leg, there's nothing I could do about it.

I did all the usual. I ignored him. I told him what, theoretically, I'd do to stop him. Etc.

The one thing I DIDN'T do was take the opportunity to be honest with myself and say "you know, he's kinda right about that." If I'd done that, I could have gotten his help learning a thing or two about staying on my feet.

So your dad has a point, regardless of how obnoxiously he made it. You weren't prepared for a sucker punch from dad. (And realistically, who would be?!) So you could take this as an impetus to look into good sucker punch defenses (acknowledging that it's probably still not going to work with loved ones, because who really wants to walk around their own home like a scene from "The Pink Panther"? "Kato?!!") And some good defenses against a decent boxer's jab. Because, honestly, I've seen plenty of accomplished martial artists (myself included) who weren't aptly prepared to defend against a jab.

So make use of the annoyance. Don't let the fact that it's obnoxious prevent you from thinking it through. Just because they're irritating, doesn't mean they're wrong.


Stuart

 

[Franc0]

People jab a punch at my face or chest and then say 'why didnt you block that'

My father did it to me last night. Was gonna get my supper and he suddenly out of the blue jabbed at me. I jumped and assumed a fighting stance, zenkutsu dachi, even though its obvious I wont actually fight my dad. lol. but still he said I was too slow and he could have hit me and there wasnt anything i could do about it. I said how can one stop a surprise attack right out of blue like that. especially when its your family member and u know they arent gonna hit you He said he was just teasing but I found it annoying.

Anyone ever say or do stuff to you like that because you're in martial arts?

When he isn't ready, just do the same thing to him and you'll see he wasn't able to block it either. The say then same stupid crap he said, then he'll realise the stupidity of it. My older brother used to do the same thing, but when I did it to him, the look of embarrassment was worth it.
He would next grab me, then say stupid crap like "See, where's your Kung Fu now?" I told him I could have done several things, and of course he came with "But you didn't! You froze!" So the next time he did it, I nailed him so hard it broke his nose. He was really pissed off, but my dad told to him calm down and added "You asked for it, so quit cryin like a girl and take it like a man". He never messed with me again after that.

Franco

 

[Omar B]

I don't really see it as a huge problem but I'm pretty easy going. My friends and I punch each other all the time for various reasons. Like we have a rule that if one of us is getting out of hand in public (anything that could actually lead to a barfight) then we are perfectly within our rights to hit him. My rational is, if I hit you it's to keep you out of trouble and the rest of us from having to jump into a barfight to defend your drunk butt.

But yeah, you can usually read intent with who actually wants to hit you and who's just playing around. Either way, block, grip, control and put them in a compromising position without hurting them and then ask if this is what they expected.

 

[Draven]

I've alway been of the "above all else attack" school of thought. So when I was younger in Karate or Jujitsu & one of my uncles or cousins would "test me" by doing stupid crap like that, I usually ended counter-punching. One of my god sister's b/f when she was younger tried to grab me in a bear hug from behind & got a knife hand to the groin & shoulder thrown into the door facing...

Whenever someone tells you I could have hit x-amount of times already. Just look at them, smile & remind them that a jab is a probing strike with no real power just speed. The jab wouldn't have hurt much if at all because it lacked the mass of the body behind the strike. Then simply execute a quick slap-jab to the chest & follow up with a much slower but stronger hard-lead jab-push with your body wieght behind it to demostrate the principle. Usually it leaves thinking & they get skeptical about themselves...

 

[Xinglu]

Whenever someone tells you I could have hit x-amount of times already. Just look at them, smile & remind them that a jab is a probing strike with no real power just speed. The jab wouldn't have hurt much if at all because it lacked the mass of the body behind the strike. Then simply execute a quick slap-jab to the chest & follow up with a much slower but stronger hard-lead jab-push with your body wieght behind it to demostrate the principle. Usually it leaves thinking & they get skeptical about themselves...

Seriously?!

Before people start bagging on the power of the jab (or lack there of) let me remind you of the power of speed. A properly executed jab from a skilled boxer should hit as hard as the average persons straight punch. Why? Speed and distancing.

Here is the math from another post:

Kinetic energy = 1/2 mass x velocity^2

Momentum = mass x velocity (and so the rate of change of kinetic energy).

The former calculation, with velocity being squared means that the speed of a punch is more important than the mass - if you double the mass you'll double the kinetic energy, but if you double the speed, you'll quadruple it.

However, it's not just the energy of the punch which counts but how you transfer that energy - and that's where momentum comes in. If you have a very fast punch but it bounces off your opponent, you won't transfer much energy - when you punch you have to learn to punch through the target else a fast punch will just bounce back against a heavier opponent.

Basically if the target of the jab is two inches behind your head (like it should be) if hits exponentially harder then if the target was the orbital (like the average joe thinks a jab should be). It is far more then a feeler, it is a set up. The jab should rock the head (possible concussion there) that effectively blinds the opponent to the on coming combo.

I have personally seen a person knocked out cold by a jab with no gloves on. I have personally felt the jab (with gloves on) from a skilled boxer... and it hurt.

The sheer speed of a punch has a lot to do with it's power. Don't believe me? Ask a skilled boxer to jab you just once full force with no gloves on.

Yongchun (Wing Chun) is an entire art dedicated to the idea of "speed kills."

 

[Xinglu]

I don't really see it as a huge problem but I'm pretty easy going. My friends and I punch each other all the time for various reasons. Like we have a rule that if one of us is getting out of hand in public (anything that could actually lead to a barfight) then we are perfectly within our rights to hit him. My rational is, if I hit you it's to keep you out of trouble and the rest of us from having to jump into a barfight to defend your drunk butt.

What is key here: you and your friends have an understanding and are not blindsiding each-other or just generally being *******s to each-other.

 

[Blade96]

After he hits you, kick him in the groin and ask him why he didn't block that. After several minutes he'll probably say something along the lines of "I didn't actually expect you to do anything." Nod and agree.

actually i could have hit him. let me finish what happened. He was wide up, i mean open, I could have blat him with something. what I did was a slow version of the yoko geri kekomi (not hard i wasnt actually going to kick him) and a knife hand to the neck when he backed up and i moved in. He backed off. He said 'i know i dont have the training you do'

Same thing, most places I've seen run a 10 kyu ranking. and in those places an 8th kyu would still be wearing a whitebelt.

oh really? a white belt and a yellow belt are not the same. I passed a real legitimate grading to pass to yellow belt. must be different with those places u speak of.

 

[ap Oweyn]

Whenever someone tells you I could have hit x-amount of times already. Just look at them, smile & remind them that a jab is a probing strike with no real power just speed. The jab wouldn't have hurt much if at all because it lacked the mass of the body behind the strike. Then simply execute a quick slap-jab to the chest & follow up with a much slower but stronger hard-lead jab-push with your body wieght behind it to demostrate the principle. Usually it leaves thinking & they get skeptical about themselves...

I'm with Xinglu. Getting ambivalent about the power of a jab is a good way to get your nose broken. The fact that it has less power than a cross does NOT mean it has no real power.

A jab in the chest is one thing. A jab in the relatively fragile head is entirely another.

To my mind, a response like that plays into the hands of people like this. Because, instead of using it as a learning experience (which is the only good likely to come out of this kind of idiocy), you're perpetuating the cycle of unrealistic give and take.

Jabs can do plenty of damage. And you need to be prepared for them.


Stuart