I wish I’d fought back…

[Wing Woo Gar49 11]

Praying you made a different life for you and your family.

I have worked since my teenage years. My career is in health care for the last 20 years. I enjoy helping people. I have no children, for obvious reasons…

 

[Gyakuto115 124]

I never had any professional counseling. I did find my Sifu very helpful as his childhood made mine seem idyllic.

A moral, honourable Sifu/Sensei can have a profound effect upon young people..like Mr Miyagi!

 

[Gyakuto115 124]

I have worked since my teenage years. My career is in health care for the last 20 years. I enjoy helping people. I have no children, for obvious reasons…

…hmmm, you prefer a disposable income That’s my reason, too.

 

[Gyakuto115 124]

Several years of military academy got me away from my family during my middle school and early high school years which gave me additional coping skills.

Did it offer routine, discipline, camaraderie, too?

 

[Wing Woo Gar49 11]

Did it offer routine, discipline, camaraderie, too?

Yes. The school motto was “ character before career” but just because you are a character that doesn’t mean you have character.

 

[gspell68]

As a school kid, I was the target of a bit of bullying. Nothing major, a bit of grabbing and pushing up against a wall with verbal threats, the odd kick to the shins with further verbal threat; ‘normal bullying’ if there is such a thing and I ignored these idiots as was often advised by various adults…”don’t rise to their taunts”… you get the idea. So I didn’t. I somehow defused those incidents and remained wary of those two or three bullies.

And yet those experiences stay with me…coming back to me occasionally, as they did this morning whilst vacuuming the house. No trauma or anything just school memories, but I thought today, ‘I wish I’d fought back!’ I wish I’d ignored those adult’s advice and attempted to kick the bully’s arses. I probably would’ve faired pretty well having started my Karate journey at 12 year old, provided I didn’t hold back and ‘punched first and asked questions later’. On the other hand, I may have had the living faeces kicked out of me, got into trouble with the school authorities and had a criminal record for using my hands, registered with the police, as deadly weapons.


Do you think this regret is reasonable? Do you have similar thoughts and experiences?

I was about 16 when a bully sucker-punched me for no reason while skating at a roller rink.
(Well, actually there was a “reason”. I had been yucking it up with a girl he had a crush on, but I’d known her a long time since she was my aunt’s neighbor.)
That summer, I was the first student in a brand new karate school in a martial arts desert.
Anyway, about six months later guess who shows up to observe and see if he wants to start classes?
I kept eye contact for the bully’s whole visit.
He never returned.

 

[Gyakuto115 124]

Yes. The school motto was “ character before career” but just because you are a character that doesn’t mean you have character.

Have you read ‘On Character’ by General Stanley McChrystal?

 

[Gyakuto115 124]

I was about 16 when a bully sucker-punched me for no reason while skating at a roller rink.

On a roller rink? In a sequined jacket and pants? There’s your reason.

(Well, actually there was a “reason”. I had been yucking it up with a girl he had a crush on, but I’d known her a long time since she was my aunt’s neighbor.)

The sequined outfit should’ve assure him you weren’t a threat

That summer, I was the first student in a brand new karate school in a martial arts desert.
Anyway, about six months later guess who shows up to observe and see if he wants to start classes?
I kept eye contact for the bully’s whole visit.
He never returned.

That’s the best way to dish out revenge!

 

[Wing Woo Gar49 11]

Have you read ‘On Character’ by General Stanley McChrystal?
View attachment 33725

Nope. Will check it out.

 

[gspell68]

On a roller rink? In a sequined jacket and pants? There’s your reason.

The sequined outfit should’ve assure him you weren’t a threat

That’s the best way to dish out revenge!

 

[Gyakuto115 124]

Nope. Will check it out.

What McChrystal does in this book is thinks out those ideas that make us what we are. ‘We are the sum total of our true, unequivocal convictions.’ ‘Well that’s bleedin’ obvious!’ I’d think but in actuality, I’ve never thought about that and in those terms. He carries on in this fashion, pointing out the ‘…bleedin’ obvious’ but again, we seldom dissect them out into the open. I often felt unsatisfied whilst reading each chapter but would finish the chapter and think, ‘Oh yeah, that’s absolutely true’!

Please do get a copy, @Wing Woo Gar, I’m sure you’ll find it useful to you.

 

[Prince_Alarming114 144]

Put it this way: our school didn't do the 3 Rs so much as the 3Fs- fleeing, fighting and the other one. There was also an unbelievable amount of favouritism showed to particular pupils. I was once beaten up so badly I coughed up blood, and then had to apologise to the guy who did it. There is a certain amount of guilt that goes along with not having defended yourself, it's like that biology experiment with the crickets. On the other hand, I'm still quite proud I punched the guy who was bullying the partially sighted girl, but fundamentally as long as I never have to talk to any of them ever again I no longer give a sugar.