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Originally Posted by meeera
If you're teaching women's self defence, or children's, you're (a) ignorant and (b) doing it wrong. Stranger attacks in public are nowhere near "90%". They're not even the majority.
As far as children and bullying goes? Blaming kids for being easy marks, and telling them to change their behaviour? Do you instruct disabled kids to stop acting disabled, non-neurotypical kids to stop acting non-neurotypical, non-white kids to act more white, Muslim kids to act more Christian, LGBTQ kids to go back in the closet? Because bigotry is a huge part of schoolyard bullying.
I'm a huge fan of karate and come from a martial arts background and family, but I'm side-eyeing the hell out of your attitude. Karate is technique, about self-management, about resilience, about being fit enough to run away from a situation if you can, or to defend yourself if you're cornered and have no other way out. It's not about telling yourself to never have hurt feelings and to interiorise blame for the terrible actions of others.
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For a librarian, your reading skills stink. I said that 90% of self defense situations are avoidable. That is completely true and not something I made up. Self defense is defending yourself from being physically attacked, not what to do if someone is mean to you in the office. It actually is rare for the vast majority of people (when was the last time you were punched or someone pulled a gun or knife on you?) and for most people happens because they were either looking for a fight or were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Self defense teaches you how to recognize that you are somewhere you shouldn't be and how to get out of the situation and hopefully how not to get in the situation in the first place.
Being bullied isn't a self defense situation. It requires a different set of skills and a different approach. There is a lot of research on bullying. Why kids bully and who they bully. While kids books might focus on the minority de jour, in most situations, that's not what bullying is about. It's more about a kid whose role models are bullies.
Most kids are incredibly accepting of people different than they are. One of my students for the past six years has down syndrome. The other kids are very accepting of him and work with him. The older kids are very protective of him. That's what we teach, look out after your friends.
We have Jews, Muslims, Hindi, blacks, whites, and most Asian groups in class. We have kids who when they are older, come out as gay. No issues. Kids have to be taught to pick on people different than they are. They can be cruel because they don't understand how what they do effects other kids, but as adults we have to explain the idea of putting yourself in the other kid's place and how would you feel if someone said that to you. Kids understand that pretty well.
Karate is a specific martial art. It's a fighting skill and depending on the style of Karate, can include a number of various philosophies or life approaches. It was developed in a fighting culture and really has little to do with self defense in modern America. Some systems are very focus on fighting, others are more focused on the philosophical aspects of the martial arts. Being a 20 year black belt simply means that if I were to get into an actual fight, I would likely be more skilled than the other guy.
Real story. Several years ago, I was threatened by a guy with a tire iron at a traffic light. No idea what his issue was, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. While he was posturing and yelling, I stayed in my car, pulled out my iPhone, took his picture, punched in 911 and showed it to him. He ran. That is what self defense is really about. Not getting out of the car and using defense against club attack number 15. It means listen to your instincts and don't get in the elevator with the guy who creeps you out. That is what self defense really means.