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I hesitated to post these cause their not krav related but kenpo as far as SD systems go. Have no interest in discussing the merits of each. The vids are news interviews about Bullies and the effects of Zero Tolerance in the schools. Zero tolerence exists in the work place as well, so even if you don’t have a kid you’ll get something outta it. SteveTunas post led me to share this here. I feel the themes are universal whether your a kenpoist, kravist or don’t train at all. Enjoy
The 1st vid is the 2nd segment. I posted it first cause it had the action
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOyBxJtEDdUThis vid is part 1 and is more an interesting discussion on the subject. I think its interesting to pay attention to what the host is feeling in both of these
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7p3Z_WwMEc
the third is another interview David did on the subject
Re: Bullies
“The child has every right to defend themselves”
I had to talk to the administrators at my 14 year old daughters school this week. My daughter is a level 2 Krav Maga student. There is a bully at her school that has decided that my daughter is her next target, and has enlisted several of her friends to help in this. I explained to the staff that my daughter is trained and that she will defend herself. The staff agreed that she should.
We all know what will happen if she has to, but I want my daughter to know that I have her back in this situation – I dont want her walking around in fear of either getting beat up or of getting in trouble – 8th grade is hard enough without that kind of bs….
Re: Bullies
Well I have had this discussion on several fronts.
My daughter is 14 as well and has had problems with a bully in her school. My daughter has a Black Belt in Kenpo and has a very high self esteem, but she is scared to get in trouble. She went to the teachers and counselors and they spoke to the parents and kids. The girl proceeded to follow my daughter and keep trying to get her to go. I explained to my daughter that she is not to allow this girl to touch her or hurt her. My daughter did exactly what was told for her to do by the school. a few days later my daughter and the girl were suspended for causing a disruption during school. The school video shows my daughter avoiding this girl and this girl following her to start problems. They still suspended my daughter. I explained to her that if this girl comes near her again to defend herself and not back away.
My son is 8 years old and is a Black Belt in TKD and loves to watch and take KM when allowed. (there are no childrens classes for him) He has no problems in school, his problems are in summercamp. My son has been told to go to the counselors and if nothing is done to defend himself. My son has been suspended once. He was involced in a altercation with 3 boys, older than him, and they were trying to beat him up. My son had gone to the counselors and the boys waited for them to leave for a mintue. then they ran at my monster and tried to hurt him. My son yelled loudly, the counselors heard and turned around, they saw my angel put 2 of them to the floor and kick the third in the face, with a nice sidekick. (I have seen the video). Here is the problem. At the exact time that all of this is taking place another boys mother is coming through the door to pick him up. When this boy runs to his mommy, from behind my son, my son backfists him in the face and splits the bottom and top lip. The boy screams mommy runs over, the counselors arrive. This all took place in about 9 seconds of video.
An after thought. I told my son that he did nothing wrong. He should definitly look before hitting something though. The counselors watched to see if anyone else was involved and the counselors thought the whole thing was awesome.
I never want my kids to feel like victims, as kids or adults.
Re: Bullies
Zero Tolerance, which BTW == Zero Intelligence, is a very sore point with me. I believe that it only stays the hand of the people it should be protecting. Isn’t there a saying to the effect that prison is only a deterrent to the honest man?
My son was being bullied on a daily basis by three boys older and significantly larger than himself (20-25 percentile height and weight). Following instructions given by the school principal, (during a meeting to address this specific problem), he went to a yard monitor and asked her to intervene several times. The last time, clearly tired of dealing with him, she said “Can’t you take care of yourself?”, so he did. He basically ran up and attacked all three of them at once, but unfortunately did so right in front of the monitor and was promptly suspended for 1 week. He did not have any fight or MA experience, thus his attack was not very harmful physically, but it sure scared the heck out of his (former) antagonists.
Anyway, I was called in from work and the principal told me that they would reduce his suspension to match the other boys (one day) if I would tell him, while in her office, that violence was never an appropriate response; I refused. I pointed out that there was a record of our complaints regarding constant bullying by these boys, all of whom were older and larger than him. Further, he had followed her instructions to go to the yard monitor, but she had refused to help. I told her that he had been raised in a nonviolent household, but telling any small boy that he can’t defend himself was basically just throwing him to the wolves and I wasn’t going to to that. She did eventually relent and reduced his suspension to one day, but it left me with a very bad taste in my mouth.
So now were taking KM…
Re: Bullies
Wow. I know what it’s like to be bullied. I was the typical skinny weakling kid. In fact in 5th grade I was 5′ and weighed 73lbs. In 5th grade I took Karate for 3 months and then quit. In sixth grade I was walking back from the lunch room and I was jumped by 3 kids who asked me for my money. One had me in a bear hug from behind. I don’t know how I did it but I elbowed backwards into the kid who had me in the bear hug and he doubled over. I punch the other kid in front of me in the face and took off running as fast as I could with the last kid left standing running after me. He never caught me before I made it back to my classroon. I was filled with both fear and eurphoria, because I could not believe what I did. Insticts took over and the weakling won this battle. For those of you out there that have kids that are being bullied I recommend that you tell your kids to not hold back and make it quick and brutal against the bully. Don’t take it being bullied over days, weeks, etc. They will keep doing it. Most likely they will be suspended but I can almost gurantee the bully will not do it again.
DS314Re: Bullies
All my kids are furry but I wanted to applaud you folks for not letting your kids be sitting ducksthumbsup
Re: Bullies
quote parishd:Zero Tolerance, which BTW == Zero Intelligence, is a very sore point with me….I agree with what has been said here very much. I found my self getting very angry reading these stories. Fortunately my son has never been had any trouble this way.
Why do bullies always seem to have free reign and the nice kids get the brunt of the punishment.
Re: Bullies
quote KMCat:I agree with what has been said here very much. I found my self getting very angry reading these stories. Fortunately my son has never been had any trouble this way.Why do bullies always seem to have free reign and the nice kids get the brunt of the punishment.
Because nice people follow the rules:dunno: the rules as they stand lead to victimhood, not self reliance
Re: Bullies
Mike – thanks for posting those videos. That guy is doing some great work. I will be showing those to students and parents during my classes with kids this week. It will ultimately be more beneficial than one hour of kicking and punching. We will then drill the heck out of scenarios like the one demonstrated (my only complaint with that awesome girl’s technique was that she didn’t kick to the groin early and often!).
We have a policy with our km-X program of specifically discussing the realities of dealing with bullies / idiotic school policies with the parents of our students. We want to make certain that the parents know how real a situation this is and how trapped that good kids can feel. We want them to think about how they will react if / when their child must use the skills we teach to defend themselves and get suspended for it. I’ve already told my daughters that as long as they are in the right, then I’ll support them to the end of the earth.
Sad to say, but the only way to break through this level of stupidity with school administrators is through litigation. I’m no lawyer, but I have to believe that a school system would have a significant problem if a long, documented history of abuse that is ignored by the school results in a child’s serious injury or death. It’s how domestic violence laws finally got real, for example.
Zero-tolerance policies are like gun-free zones – They make the sheep feel good while actually being good only for the bad guys.
Great topic. Thanks.
Re: Bullies
quote stevetuna:Mike – thanks for posting those videos. That guy is doing some great work. I will be showing those to students and parents during my classes with kids this week. It will ultimately be more beneficial than one hour of kicking and punching. We will then drill the heck out of scenarios like the one demonstrated (my only complaint with that awesome girl’s technique was that she didn’t kick to the groin early and often!).We have a policy with our km-X program of specifically discussing the realities of dealing with bullies / idiotic school policies with the parents of our students. We want to make certain that the parents know how real a situation this is and how trapped that good kids can feel. We want them to think about how they will react if / when their child must use the skills we teach to defend themselves and get suspended for it. I’ve already told my daughters that as long as they are in the right, then I’ll support them to the end of the earth.
Sad to say, but the only way to break through this level of stupidity with school administrators is through litigation. I’m no lawyer, but I have to believe that a school system would have a significant problem if a long, documented history of abuse that is ignored by the school results in a child’s serious injury or death. It’s how domestic violence laws finally got real, for example.
Zero-tolerance policies are like gun-free zones – They make the sheep feel good while actually being good only for the bad guys.
Great topic. Thanks.
Was writing the other post while you were here. Glad you saw it and saw the value. I thought the demo was really good. I liked how David slapped her up a bit to try to show the reality of it. mellisa was tough.I got the feeling that in that setting going for vital areas may have been a no-no. That system targets throats, groins and breaks, but I think he watered it down for those who don’t quite get it, like the host. I don’t think she was comfortable with it at all. She even used the it takes a villiage line. I can ask but I’m sure they didn’t want the your training to maim bs or not fair play bs
Re: Bullies
I don’t have kids yet, but it is very upsetting to know that kids cannot defend themselves without harming their school record. I remember clearly bullying was present when i attended school and had to get involved many times due to friends getting pounded by them, there was talking to admins/teachers which knew the bullies and we were not suspended.
I am pretty sure bullying now has been multiplied by couple of things, * violence seems almost synthesized in our current teen culture, *Internet has made bullying much faster and effective think social networking sites(facebook,myspace).
Anybody remember this Florida case, which i believe some aspects involved Internet Social Networking sites.. VIDEO
This case wasn’t in a school site but it definitely carried over from there. The girl did what the Zero Tolerance rule allows (nothing) and ended up with permanent damage to one of her eyes.Beatings like this and worse happen weekly if not daily across our schools in bathrooms, lockers, halls ect… and are many times recorded on phones to make the bullying even more damaging.
Does it take that bullied child bringing weapons to school in order to get bullying taken serious? The answer has already manifested itself sadly before. School boards and administrators cannot ignore this problem.
Re: Bullies
One has to think of ways this problem was handled in yesteryears. Classes being smaller and often private school, teachers had more situational awareness. Identifying the bully was probably much easier and dispatching punishment at the business end of a paddle in front of class must have been so much easier.
I grew up in the U.S. government school system during it manifestation to overwhelming neglect. In elementary I had been spanked in front of my mother, who whole heartedly endorsed the spanking. In middle school (secondary school) I was no longer able to be spanked but instead talked to sternly and often was sent to detention hall (some times on the weekends).
High school was a total joke in terms of discipline. I don’t think they knew what to do anymore and they pretty successfully separated my mother from the decisions. She only heard about it post-facto. It is strictly my opinion that the government school system is flawed from its basic principle. Allowing the controls of education to depart the parent and empower itself in politics.
Re: Bullies
The zero tolerance policy regarding violence is a good one in theory. The problem is that both parties are usually punished equally regardless of who the instigator was.
I received a phone call from the principal last week telling me that she had my 5 year old son in her office for fighting. I almost had to laugh before I heard the story because my son is 3 feet tall, weighs about 32 pounds, is in kindergarten and is a really little guy. I asked her what happened and she said that he had beat up a 3rd grader. Yes! was my initial thought, but I had to be the concerned parent and get the details. Turns out that the kid (a giant compared to my munchkin), had picked up my son and when my son told him to put him down the other kid basically dropped him so my son punched him in the groin. When the kid doubled over my son front kicked him, which knocked the kid down and then it was ground and pound time. Hmmm. Sound familiar to anyone?
He got in trouble because violence was his first reaction rather than telling a school official. He didn’t get suspended because he’s only in kindergarten, instead he and the other kid had to pick up trash from around the school.
I told him that, while I applaude his superior KM skills, he needs to try to resolve conflict without violence in the future. Because of his size he gets picked on a fair bit, but he’s learned how to hold his own. Now we just need to find his off switch.
The schools don’t care if the kids are just defending themselves. Fighting is fighting and therefore unacceptable. Unfortunately, I don’t think they can change their policies either.
Re: Bullies
My 15 year old son has been the brunt of some bullying and we had to go to the school they were not happy when i told them that my policy is that if you need to defend yourself don’t stop until the attacker cannot get up or an athority figure intervienes and controls the attacker. My son has been helping me as i train in Krav as a partner and has picked up some techniques and the idea of the agresive approach to self defense.
i told the principle that my son was willing to accept whatever consequence befalls him and as long as the bully (punk) can handle the consequence of pushing my son to far i guess all will be good.
The policy of schools not allowing students to defend themself borders negligence and puts the kids in a dangerous situation, when will they get a clue.Thanks to Krav my son is not afraid of the bully and the bully may be afraid to continue bullying. thats more than the policies in place can do.
Re: Bullies
Zero Tolerance for violence is a terrible policy. Its just another process of identifying the symptom without any concern for the problem.
Sounds weird but all violence is not all bad. Violence is rough and damaging, typically physical, acts against another person. Its a tool and like other tools how it is used determines it moral standing. Zero Tolerance for a tool is a baffling example of social degeneration. It seems that we (society) are completely loosing grasp on critical thinking skills.
We of all people know that all violence is not bad violence. When I get attack (violence) and defend myself (violence), I’m I also bad?
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