Yeah, how do you beat those guys up without getting whacked.

I sure am glad I'm not going to grammer/high school nowadays.

When I was in junior high I often had problems with bullies. I solved it by teaching several much bigger bullies how to cheat at cards. After that I had effective "protection" and no one messed with me anymore.

True story.

You bring up a good point. My school didn't have gun packers, not even rumors of guns. We did have a number of martial arts guys you didn't mess with unless you had to (see Sam Coker who laughed when I said I wouldn't back down. He would have beat me to death.

Scott Coker, Sam wa his brother. Scott was a student of Ernie Reyes, fifth degree blackbelt I Taiwando, how ever you spell it, CEO of Stikeforce and dude who almost hit me.

Tae Kwon Do, also called TKD for short. Ernie Reyes and Ernie Reyes Jr. were awesome. They had a demo team that did some crazy sick moves.

Scott was on the Demo Team and the petite woman always with Ernie was a woman named Margie who I also went to school wit who could also beat me up.

I used to take tae kwon do when I was a kid. I got chopped in the throat during a tournament and woke up on my back, sometime after the fact. Guess I should have blocked but I didint even see it coming. I didn't stay in very much longer after that plus parents got divorced about that time. Last fight I remember being in, resulted in me having bruises and welts all over my forarms from blocking numerous attempts at being hit. I didn't want to hit or hurt the other guy, I just kept dodging and blocking his crap until he wore out.

Glen

The second part of your strategy worked well for Ali against Foreman in Zaire. But if he'd agreed with the first part he'd have lost the fight. Isn't the whole idea of entering ANY fighting tournament to hit the other guy? At least eventually?

Just waiting for your opponent to collapse from exhaustion while you block and dodge doesn't sound like a particularly effective approach. It does sound pretty painful, though.

:eek:

My wife's school had bullies. She remembers it from the point of view of a girl (obviously) with girl bullies. She was able to make friends with one bullie who effectively protected her, but it's interesting because she clearly remembers how the girls who stood up to the bullies where very often the ones who would get REALLY picked on and beaten down. Standing out can make you a target and an example.

A bully doesn't necessarily bully alone and you have to be pretty tough to kick the **** out of several (yes I know you might be able to stand up to the "lead" bully, ..but then again you might not be able to either).

As Lobo pointed out; what if you stand up to a bully and get the **** kicked out of you? See above.



I think high school is primarily a waste of time that instills bizarre and ineffective social strategies.
The variety of education coming out of schools is at least as variable as 'home school' (which can mean anything). There are very very smart people who come out of the public schools, private schools and home schools and there are also people who have not been given any skills at all coming out of each of those areas.

My home schooled children are doing pretty good so far.
Educationally they are not missing anything.
Socially they are at risk of not interacting with a large enough variety of children, but they are also being given the opportunity to make friends and interact with people outside of the artificial structures and confines of school (where age and race tends to be a much stronger factor in long term friendships).
I'm slowly teaching them both jiu-jitsu, kickboxing and sword fighting as well as awareness skills. They are very young, so they are going slow. I believe that they will be able to deal effectively with bullies when they older, either socially or (if they had to) physically, but I also don't think they ever need to be in a place where that is necessary. Blaming children who get bullied is nonsense IMO, how about the schools start dealing with the bullies more effectively, then we don't need to make fun of kids who are to scared to deal with them.


Any thoughts on rape victims?
Is it their fault if they are attractive women, thereby "making themselves targets?"

Could be a good argument for long distance running as an effective form of self defense though.
I used to have a book ("Street E&E" by Marc Macyoung) that was devoted on effective ways to run away from groups people trying to beat you up. There were tips on zigging and zagging through parking lots, how to most effectively run/climb/jump over a fence and more.

Good book; now that I'm ~65lbs. lighter that when I first ready it a could (conceivably) actually run nowadays, maybe I'll get it again.

Excellent points, Courtney. But Glen stated that dodging and blocking was the strategy he used in tournament fighting, not in reference to bullies.

I was just pointing out that it is probably not an effective strategy in a fighting sport to refrain from hitting your opponent, hoping that he'll either fall down from exhaustion or give up.

Berkeley? I would keep my kids at home too. Once again, and this includes East Bay types, the question was concerning on line let the student do as they wish schools no home schooling where the parents are teaching and hopefullu not just using the bible as a resource. I am starting to think other states don't have these types of programs or the parents are not as qualified as they think.

Seadog 2, not to be confused with seadog, I don't think rapist are basing attacks on attractiveness. It is based on opportunity and if the attacker thinks they will get away with it.

Sorry for the confusion about the "last fight" I was in. Umm, that was not in any kind of tournament situation but with someone I knew who blew a gasket and kept trying to land one on me.

Glen

[quoet]
that dodging and blocking was the strategy he used in tournament fighting
[/quote]
Oh, well running is definitely only a partial strategy for tournaments; definitely sub-optimal as a teacher of mine would say.
Lyoto Machida is probably the best runner in mma, but he likes to throw a vicious strike first and then run; good stuff.


Fair enough, but I think it still goes back to the parents and the environment the kids are raised in, wether it's school, home school, do-as-they-wish school, or unschool (which is a legit and effective movement and modality when put into place by caring supportive parents).


Undoubtedly you are right, rape is not about sex it is about power, ...like bullying.
Women can learn physical, psychological and inter-personal skills to make rape very very unlikely and it is very smart to learn those skills, but the fault in any rape lays solely on the part of a rapist and blaming the victim is, IMO, simply wrong.
I see very strong parallels to bullying

Also, as a slight aside, saying to just 'fight back' is a very dangerous suggestion. As I mentioned before sometimes it can make it worse to fight back.
Gavin DeBecker, in his book "The Gift of Fear" describes why a simply solution like "always fight back" or "never fight back" can handicap you in real life situations, because it does not let your intuition (your unconscious) process the information and develop a situationally appropriate response.

You missed the fact that he'd been complaining on this board that he couldn't find work. Gee, wonder if it says somewhere; "Don't hire this guy, he back hands his bosses."

My kid was going to a public high school. Her passion was art and she would carry pencils around to sketch. One girl asked to borrow her pencils and Amber explained that they were important to her and she couldn't hand them out. The girl and her friends started coming up behind her, saying they were going to grab her pencils and break them.

In another case, she was sitting in class when she didn't understand what the teacher was saying. Teachers always say if you don't understand, ask and there's no such thing as a stupid question. Well, she said; "I don't get this." and the teacher looked at the student to her left and asked; "Do you get it?" Kid said yes. Turned to the kid to her right and asked; "Do you get it?" Kid said yes, teacher turned to my daughter and said; "It must be you."

So I went to the school office and said; "These events show me that you can't meet her needs educationally and you aren't meeting her needs for a safe environment. Until you can figure out how to teach my child and keep her safe, she's not coming back to this school."

She actually never did. We found a smaller school for her, where she still had a miserable time due to a volunteer who had very few people skills. But she graduated.

Dang it now I want to go to Berkeley. My older brother was part of an art group called the Bezerkly Duo...vicious town at times I saw Bob Dylan wit Tom Petty at the Greek, lotsa freaks...I felt at home.

Everyone's welcome in Berkeley, come on by.

Nah Ed, I am over experienced and older, tough things. The guy I smacked had it coming. Heck, I may give up dumb my resume down to barely literate and work bat Walmart.

Ed,
I'm sorry your daughter had to deal with those things. I'm glad she was able to make it through in a better (if still bad) school.

Actually your post might make me agree with magicsanta a bit here because that teacher really needs a slap and a kick to the shins.
My mind boggles, it reminds me of the other side of teachers unions that was shown in "Waiting for Superman."

Could you imagine Magic Santa as a door greeter?