Mark_Campbell
23-Mar-2005, 11:51 AM
Im going to go over something that happened about a year ago, I started thinking about the event today and just wanted to get my thoughts down in writing on this one, to be honest its been knowing away at me for some time, so this is for my benefit as much as your
I’m 18 years old; I have a 1stkup in ITF, not long now until I go for my black belt, September. I’ve been training for 4 years; I’ll go into the nuances of my tkd past some other time. Last year I was out on a typical Saturday night with my mates, 17year olds sneaking into pubs and clubs, I had known my mates for a long time, some of them since the beginning and this was the last year we’d all be in the same place. Now im not quiet or shy, but I always took a pretty passive role in my group of friends. If you can imagine there were people louder and more opinionated than me, who took a more active role in the group. This was fine by me; I was content to have a laugh and a good time with little effort on my own part. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t do a lot of texting or organising, don’t mistake this for spinelessness, but I simply wasn’t the mouth of the organism, I was more the funny bone. I didn’t (and still hate) get involved in the bickering or backstabbing of any social group. The inevitable scuffles and argument a group of 17yr olds at the pubs was again a spectator sport for me, as long as no one got hurt I was perfectly content to let people shoot their mouths off, or get into wrestling matches on dance floors and then get chucked out by bouncers. I wasn’t considered by any to be a threat; I don’t look threatening, im 6ft, 11st and usually have a grin on my face. In my group of mates there were people bigger and more intimidating, there were people smaller and more outspoken. Fact was in a tight spot it could be expected that these fellas would wade right in far before I was needed.
Now ive been doing TKD under Mark Davies for 4 years now and he’s been simply the best instructor and mate I could have hoped to have found. People who demand enormous respect themselves give him enormous respect. He specializes in self-defence, he is head of the UKTF technical committee for it, he is essentially writing the book for it, and I get to read the chapters earlier than most. Despite this esteemed training, I have always in the back of my mind feared what could happen in a fight, I suppose im at that stage in life, the lanky teenager who starts doing adult things, like nightclubs, who is quite naive and who naturally will antagonise older people there, so although ive done demonstrations on self defence at national TKD events, im still very unsure of myself.
Right enough background, last year I was out with my mates, it was about 10.30 and we were moving from our local dive to the local spoons. There were 8 of us going down the Westport, all shouting at your mate 3 feet away, laughing away, and generally having a good time. We turned towards spoons at the bottom of the west port and there off in the distance in the middle of the road were two guys fighting. First thing I thought was "same rules apply, no one gets seriously hurt and I stay out of it" so we walked towards the fight, I had the intention of just walking by. Halfway down the street we passed some bouncers who were watching from the doorway. It was then I noticed one of the guys was slashing at the other, the other guy was evading and covering his vitals but the attacker had built up momentum and was slashing away. I said "he’s got a knife" in plain earshot of the bouncers, we kept walking towards it. I was expecting at this point to hear someone say something "lets break it up" or "I’ll phone the police" but there was nothing, I was sickened. Here we were walking right up to this man fighting for his life and no-one would even acknowledge it was going on, none of these big tough guys, none of the bouncers who chew drunks up for laughs at the weekend, and no one wanted to know. We came within 10metres of it and as we were walking by it something snapped in me, I was so angry at them, you don’t need to be a hero to phone the bloody police. So I ran up to the fight and got myself between the attacker and the victim, the funny thing was I wasn’t scared, no shakes, no heavy breathing.
I talked to the attacker, he told me the victim hit his sister, the victim argued back behind me, and here I was facing down some enraged idiot with a huge kitchen knife in his hands. I didn’t go for the knife, I was ready, I could feel myself buzzing away, if he came at me he would have hobbled off with a knife in his arse, I had never been more certain, but I talked to him, I told him no matter what this guy had done he wasn’t going to knife him while I was there. The victim was bleating away about what happened and after a few seconds I told him to run down the street, I knew there would be a lot of people there, as far as I was concerned right now it was just me, the attacker and the victim, my 7 mates didn’t enter into the thought, they weren’t going to be there really. So the victim took off, the attacker was naturally enraged, but I kept talking to him, I cant really remember what I said, but I held him there for another minute before he tore off after the victim. He sprinted past me and I was about to go after him when my mates pulled me into the centre of the crowd and forced me on the way too spoons.
"How dare they?" I didn’t need their protection, they didn’t count for peanuts in that situation, I was trained to do what I did, how dare they assume I needed their protection, that man needed my protection, nothing more. I got bundled down the street, on the way I met the victim. He thanked me, I saw the cuts on his neck and hands, thankfully they were scratches, with only tiny drops of blood from them, the attacker didn’t know how to use the knife, he was slashing with a stabbing weapon, and he got off so lucky. I took him to the nearest police van, which was less than a street away from the scene of the crime, looking after some paralytic drunk on the pavement.
I can’t help thinking I was lucky too, I took far too long to get involved, it wasn’t a slashing weapon, but one wrong move and someone could have died. I sat in spoons and talked to no on. I went over the incident again and again in my head, should I have disarmed him, where did he go, and how close was I to getting hurt. The thing that racked my brain most was my friends, I had always assumed, like some unwritten code that situations like that couldn’t go unnoticed, you just waded in, no questions. I wasn’t sure anymore, could I count on them in a tight spot, could I count on anyone, why didn’t they even acknowledge it. Now I was scared when I seen it, the same insecurity I mentioned before, but I imagined this man just dropping dead as we walked by, it was moral cowardice and it would have haunted me and my martial arts development forever had I walked on, took the easy way out.
So i guess what im asking here is did i do the right thing, and has anyone else came accross this situation where your mates have let you down, apart from that any thoughts?
I’m 18 years old; I have a 1stkup in ITF, not long now until I go for my black belt, September. I’ve been training for 4 years; I’ll go into the nuances of my tkd past some other time. Last year I was out on a typical Saturday night with my mates, 17year olds sneaking into pubs and clubs, I had known my mates for a long time, some of them since the beginning and this was the last year we’d all be in the same place. Now im not quiet or shy, but I always took a pretty passive role in my group of friends. If you can imagine there were people louder and more opinionated than me, who took a more active role in the group. This was fine by me; I was content to have a laugh and a good time with little effort on my own part. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t do a lot of texting or organising, don’t mistake this for spinelessness, but I simply wasn’t the mouth of the organism, I was more the funny bone. I didn’t (and still hate) get involved in the bickering or backstabbing of any social group. The inevitable scuffles and argument a group of 17yr olds at the pubs was again a spectator sport for me, as long as no one got hurt I was perfectly content to let people shoot their mouths off, or get into wrestling matches on dance floors and then get chucked out by bouncers. I wasn’t considered by any to be a threat; I don’t look threatening, im 6ft, 11st and usually have a grin on my face. In my group of mates there were people bigger and more intimidating, there were people smaller and more outspoken. Fact was in a tight spot it could be expected that these fellas would wade right in far before I was needed.
Now ive been doing TKD under Mark Davies for 4 years now and he’s been simply the best instructor and mate I could have hoped to have found. People who demand enormous respect themselves give him enormous respect. He specializes in self-defence, he is head of the UKTF technical committee for it, he is essentially writing the book for it, and I get to read the chapters earlier than most. Despite this esteemed training, I have always in the back of my mind feared what could happen in a fight, I suppose im at that stage in life, the lanky teenager who starts doing adult things, like nightclubs, who is quite naive and who naturally will antagonise older people there, so although ive done demonstrations on self defence at national TKD events, im still very unsure of myself.
Right enough background, last year I was out with my mates, it was about 10.30 and we were moving from our local dive to the local spoons. There were 8 of us going down the Westport, all shouting at your mate 3 feet away, laughing away, and generally having a good time. We turned towards spoons at the bottom of the west port and there off in the distance in the middle of the road were two guys fighting. First thing I thought was "same rules apply, no one gets seriously hurt and I stay out of it" so we walked towards the fight, I had the intention of just walking by. Halfway down the street we passed some bouncers who were watching from the doorway. It was then I noticed one of the guys was slashing at the other, the other guy was evading and covering his vitals but the attacker had built up momentum and was slashing away. I said "he’s got a knife" in plain earshot of the bouncers, we kept walking towards it. I was expecting at this point to hear someone say something "lets break it up" or "I’ll phone the police" but there was nothing, I was sickened. Here we were walking right up to this man fighting for his life and no-one would even acknowledge it was going on, none of these big tough guys, none of the bouncers who chew drunks up for laughs at the weekend, and no one wanted to know. We came within 10metres of it and as we were walking by it something snapped in me, I was so angry at them, you don’t need to be a hero to phone the bloody police. So I ran up to the fight and got myself between the attacker and the victim, the funny thing was I wasn’t scared, no shakes, no heavy breathing.
I talked to the attacker, he told me the victim hit his sister, the victim argued back behind me, and here I was facing down some enraged idiot with a huge kitchen knife in his hands. I didn’t go for the knife, I was ready, I could feel myself buzzing away, if he came at me he would have hobbled off with a knife in his arse, I had never been more certain, but I talked to him, I told him no matter what this guy had done he wasn’t going to knife him while I was there. The victim was bleating away about what happened and after a few seconds I told him to run down the street, I knew there would be a lot of people there, as far as I was concerned right now it was just me, the attacker and the victim, my 7 mates didn’t enter into the thought, they weren’t going to be there really. So the victim took off, the attacker was naturally enraged, but I kept talking to him, I cant really remember what I said, but I held him there for another minute before he tore off after the victim. He sprinted past me and I was about to go after him when my mates pulled me into the centre of the crowd and forced me on the way too spoons.
"How dare they?" I didn’t need their protection, they didn’t count for peanuts in that situation, I was trained to do what I did, how dare they assume I needed their protection, that man needed my protection, nothing more. I got bundled down the street, on the way I met the victim. He thanked me, I saw the cuts on his neck and hands, thankfully they were scratches, with only tiny drops of blood from them, the attacker didn’t know how to use the knife, he was slashing with a stabbing weapon, and he got off so lucky. I took him to the nearest police van, which was less than a street away from the scene of the crime, looking after some paralytic drunk on the pavement.
I can’t help thinking I was lucky too, I took far too long to get involved, it wasn’t a slashing weapon, but one wrong move and someone could have died. I sat in spoons and talked to no on. I went over the incident again and again in my head, should I have disarmed him, where did he go, and how close was I to getting hurt. The thing that racked my brain most was my friends, I had always assumed, like some unwritten code that situations like that couldn’t go unnoticed, you just waded in, no questions. I wasn’t sure anymore, could I count on them in a tight spot, could I count on anyone, why didn’t they even acknowledge it. Now I was scared when I seen it, the same insecurity I mentioned before, but I imagined this man just dropping dead as we walked by, it was moral cowardice and it would have haunted me and my martial arts development forever had I walked on, took the easy way out.
So i guess what im asking here is did i do the right thing, and has anyone else came accross this situation where your mates have let you down, apart from that any thoughts?