Scuffles
“Scuffles” because I never really got into a knock-down, drag-out fight growing up. I was never in a situation where everyone gathered in a circle calling “Fight! Fight!” while some bully squared off with me. Every physical confrontation I found myself in was sudden, unexpected, and only lasted a few seconds. I always lost in the sense that I failed to keep things from getting violent. In my youth and inexperience I might have said the wrong thing or taken the wrong action. I never lost in the sense that I always ended up on top. I attribute this not to the fact that I’m a good fighter, but rather that the guys who attacked me had no real clue how to handle themselves.
Most of my K through 12 education was at home, but the years I did go to school, most kids left me alone. Though I was a skinny kid and not tall by any means, I was never picked on. Kids know who they can pick on and bully, just as adults know who they can manipulate. But some kids (and adults) do have to learn the hard way.
One summer when I was about 10 years old, my parents went on a road trip vacation. One of our stops was a week-long stay at a deaf camp meeting located at a boarding academy. All the students had moved out for the summer and we rented dorm rooms. The camp meeting was a session of meetings led by deaf pastors and speakers. It was also a time for Christian deaf people from around the country to meet and socialize. There were two teenage boys there who happened to be hearing. Their parents were deaf, just like my dad’s. Though this made it more difficult for their parents to know what they were up to and discipline them, I had a feeling the parents didn’t try very hard. They were loud troublemakers with filthy mouths. I disliked even being around them. They were always trash talking, making threats, and trying to make other kids do things. They were older and bigger, and most of the kids there were afraid of them.
This may be where the trouble started, I honestly cannot remember. But at some point I had a direct confrontation with them. I don’t remember what they tried to do to me, but they began to chase me through the dorm. They were yelling threats and their pounding footsteps (and longer legs) were gaining on me. I was actually scared, not knowing what they might do to me when they caught me. I bolted down the hall and into the front lobby. There was a waist-high wall separating the entry way from the seating area. I jumped over the wall, placing my hands on it to stabilize myself. Just as soon as I landed on the other side in a crouched position, I jumped again, back over the wall towards my pursuers. As I passed over the wall I threw my leg out sideways, kicking the closest guy straight in the nose and mouth! He was still running and the force of the impact stopped me in mid air, causing me to fall straddling the wall. His head snapped back just as he got rear-ended by his brother. They both fell backwards, one on top of the other, a mass of writhing limbs.
I was actually quite shocked! It was never my intention to seriously hurt them. I knew they would catch me and I knew I had to do something, but I never planed to take them both out with one kick! For a second or two I just stared at them struggling on the floor. They began cussing up a storm and trying to get up. I realized this was not over yet and took off running for the back stairs.
They caught up to me on the landing half way to the second floor. They grabbed my shoulders, one on each side, stopping me from running any further. I bent my knees and spun around counter-clockwise as hard as I could. My arm caught the guy on my right, shoving him off the top step. He yelled and began stumbling on the steps, grasping for a hand rail. His brother jumped to try and catch him. I don’t know what happened next because I was already on my way up the next flight of stairs. At the top, I turned to my left and bounded a few steps to a janitor’s closet, which I just happened to know was unlocked. It was a gamble, but hopefully they wouldn’t think to look there. The bathroom was right next door.
Sure enough, no sooner had I pulled the door shut than they came pounding to the top of the stairs. They paused, no doubt observing that I could not be seen running down the hall in either direction. Then they stomped past me and into the bathroom. I heard them yelling and slamming the stall doors open. Finally they came back out to the hall and walked away muttering something about “we’ll get him later”. They never did. In fact, I don’t ever remember seeing them again. Most of the time I spent there that week is a blur to me, but those intense moments will be burned clearly into my memory forever.
The next time I can remember having a physical confrontation, I was in 8th grade. There was a family event at my school. A lot of parents and church members were there. The grade school students were playing games like hide and seek and tag, or just running around. There was one kid who was a year or two younger than me but considerably taller. For some reason he got it in his head to threw dirt clods at one of the girls. She was running from him as he chased her throwing the chunks of dried mud. I had the previous experience of having kids throw rocks at me during play and having my scalp split open. These dried chunks of dirt were only slightly softer and could contain rocks.
When I saw what he was doing I said, “Hey man, that’s dangerous! You could hurt her.” He proceeded to hurl another clod in her direction as she dodged. “C’mon, knock it off. Don’t throw any more.” I said as I got closer to him. He gave me a defiant look. “You can’t tell me what to do!” He looked back at his victim who was hiding behind a skinny young tree trunk. Then he cocked his arm back to throw again. I was standing behind him and grabbed his forearm, stopping the launch. Immediately, the other arm came around with clenched fist, straight at my head. I ducked the hook and shouldered him in the side ribs while hooking his ankle with mine, preventing him from taking the step he needed to keep his balance. The combination of his spinning motion, my shoulder bump, and his trapped foot sent him wheeling to the ground.
As I looked down at him, his eyes lit up with anger. He jumped up as I took a couple steps back. He came after me kicking with both legs, though only thigh-high, and swinging both arms in clumsy, flailing motions. His arms were longer than mine, but not longer than my legs. As I began back-tracking to stay out of range, I did a hop kick mid-step which hit him lightly on the chest with the ball of my foot. It didn’t slow him down a bit. Still backing up, I kicked at him a couple more times without making contact trying to discourage or at least distract him. Then my heel caught his solar plexus and knocked his wind out. He paused, his knees bent, and I thought he might fall. But he was in a rage and not thinking clearly at all, only intent on continuing his random barrage of punches and kicks. At this point I was not sure what to do next. Then the bus driver came running up behind the kid and held him back. I just stood there. The kid was screaming and struggling for a few seconds, but finally calmed down.
My mom saw part of the incident and suggested that maybe he’d had too much sugar from the deserts and soda drinks, and it went to his head. It was like he went insane for a few moments. She also commented that it seemed odd that we were using our legs and that it must be the influence of karate. At that point, I barely knew what karate was, let alone had any training. It seemed like a safe way to slow him down with out getting too close to his flailing arms and legs.
I went to a boarding school during my junior year in high school. There were kids all over the world going to school there and it was really a great experience in many ways. It seems like I almost always had no trouble getting along with other students. But my room mate talked about girls’ body parts in a way that didn’t seem appropriate to me. It actually irritated me when guys talked about girls like they were pieces of meat instead of another human being with a soul and a brain. I usually didn’t tell them to knock it off, but I never played along either.
My room mate was from
There were a couple guys who were always talking about the girls’ bodies. One night all of us students were at a social gathering, milling around and talking to each other. I was talking to my friend Jon when I noticed one of those guys touching my female friend’s butt. It was a subtle movement and I blinked it off, thinking it might be my imagination. But I saw him do it again. This time my friend turned around and he jerked his hand back. I guess he was hoping that in the crowd of students, she wouldn’t know it was him.
Later that evening I passed him in the dorm lobby as I came in. I didn’t see anyone else around, so I approached him. “Hey! What’s up?”
He grinned at me, “Oh nothin’ much. Just waiting for Joe.”
I nodded and then said, “Listen, I happened to notice the little touchy thing with Susan tonight. Just because I know her and I know she doesn’t appreciate that kind of treatment, I’d advise you not to touch her like that anymore.”
His face darkened with anger. At the same time, he looked shocked at being confronted, “You can’t tell me what to do! I can do that if I want to!”
I nodded, “Ordinarily, I’d agree with you. What you do is your business. But this involves my friend, so I’m just telling you, don’t do it anymore.”
He stood up and towered over me, a full foot taller than me. “You can’t make me do anything.”
I shrugged, “I don’t want to make you do anything, I want you NOT to do something. Don’t do it again!”
I felt I had made my point and turned to walk away. Suddenly, he grabbed my neck with both hands from behind. I could barely breath but I managed to squeak out “Please let go!” He continued choking my neck, and I forced out another hoarse “Let go!” He had pulled my head close to his upper chest, no doubt for better leverage. My head was getting light and I realized he wasn’t going to let me go. I swung my right arm up, elbow out to the side, and struck his nose and mouth with the back of my fist. I felt his grip on my neck relax a little. Peeling his right hand off my neck with my left hand, and grabbing the sleeve behind his right elbow with my right hand, I wheeled him around and threw him to the floor.
As I stood over him, staring at him lying cross-wise in front of me, what struck me was the drastic change in his expression. A few seconds ago it had been twisted with anger. Now, it was a confused look of bewilderment. “Owe, man! I think you broke my nose!” He whined. I shook my head and walked away, listening for him to get up and come after me again. But he didn’t. The rest of the school year he tried to get on my good side and be my buddy. I certainly couldn’t have predicted that outcome!
Later that year, it had snowed and some of us students were playing with the snow around the cafeteria. It was a weekend afternoon so we didn’t have to rush off to classes or work. I was talking with a friend of mine while she rolled up a large snowball the size of a bowling ball. I saw one of the girls come running around the corner of the building with a guy chasing her, a large pack of snow in his hand. I laughed, just because it looked funny.
Then he caught up to her and grabbed her coat. She slipped out of it and kept running. He caught her again and she spun around, trying to jerk free. This time he grabbed the front of her dress and was trying to dunk his pack of snow down her chest. I looked at my friend’s huge snowball. “Hey, can I have that?” She tossed it to me, and I took off. As I ran up behind him, the guy was still trying to throw the snow into the front of her dress, pulling her neckline out so far that her bra and breasts were visible. She was pulling and jerking, trying to get free, and yelling the whole time for him to let her go.
I reached him, yanked the back of his collar out, and shoved the huge snowball down inside. He let the girl go, but he was not happy with me at all! He spun around, swinging his right fist at my face. I caught his wrist in my left hand. He swung at me with his free left hand and I caught the wrist with my other hand. Holding both of his arms, I knew what was coming next and turned my hips sideways just in time to catch his knee in the side of my leg. “Let me go!!!” He yelled, so I did. Seeing that he hadn’t been successful with the rapid fire, right-left-knee maneuver he resorted to a projectile weapon - liquid projectile, to be precise. Stepping back, he spit angrily at my face, which was also unsuccessful, as I dodged the flying wad of saliva. “Have a nice day!” I told him as he stalked away. I can’t repeat what he yelled back at me. Man! No sense of when to quit, and then he got mad when I gave him the same treatment he was giving. Oh, well, what can you do?
A couple years later I took kickboxing for a few months. Those were some of the hardest workouts I’ve ever had. After 2 hours of pushups, jump rope, and working various bags, I barely had strength to turn my steering wheel on the way home. I went on to take Jujitsu, Tae Kwon Do, Okinawan Karate, and Kenpo in the next few years. The interesting thing was that I’ve never been in an angry fight since I started training in martial arts. I can think of three things that would contribute to this.
First of all, I lead a fairly conservative life. I don’t go to bars or clubs. I don’t drink at all. In short, I don’t put myself in places or situations where confrontations are likely to develop. Second, I truly believe that when one gains skill in handling themselves and confidence from martial arts training, they feel less of a need to prove themselves. If they are challenged but don’t want to fight, they just don’t, and they don’t care what people say. Third, I think as teenagers grow into their twenties, they begin to mature in many ways. What used to cause fights no longer matters, and peer pressure begins to lose it’s intensity. Of course, there are people who never grow up and never grow to understand that the real fight is with your own ego and emotions, and that hurting another human is not cool, doesn’t impress people, and it never resolves disagreements.
Comments