Fights that played roles in your development, be it fighting style or growing up?

[Alixen]

Over the (16)years( of my life) iv noticed ALL my fights have shaped me to be who i am in some way.

When i entered school at 4 i was a happy Social kid who wanted to make friends.

Enter years of being bullied by a gang of 3 other kids who used to push me down a big hill, with me simply wondering why they were doing it and what i had done wrong.

At about seven we have the cartoon esqu fight, guy chases me around, swings me around my my coat, pushes me a bit, i get pee'd off, my Mother is encouraging me to hit him, so his kicks and i spin him around by the leg and toss him, he had scraped and bruised knees and starts crying.

Here i start getting antisocial lol

A few weeks later i annoy the 'toughest' and 'coolest' guy in school, by something i forgot, he chases me, i chase him after getting anoyed, i kick him once in the leg and he starts balling.

Now about nine i have one of my main decisive fights.
3 kids invite me to 'play' 'power rangers'.
I soon find out they wernt really 'playing' so i got annoyed.
One of them made the mistake of sending a kick at me, that is a mistake as i always use my old favorite move, i spun his around by the leg and let go.

What i didnt figure on was were were on the edge of a ditch, with a 70% incline.
Lucly it was fairly damp from rain, or he could have been seriously hurt, even if he had deserved it.
He didnt even touch the hill on his way down, and it streched for about 8 foot wide and deep, he bounced as he hit the floor and miraculasly didnt break anything, if it had been summer he would probobly have had a broken back.

Afterwards, my father, instead of praising me for effectivly defending myself with everyday stuff he taught me, yelled at me for 'starting fights' in a friends house he happened to be visiting at the same time i did (he didnt live with us).
This needless to say battered my confidence and will to defend myself, add Nerve and insectuirity problems to my anti-socialness

I had no more 'real' situations til i was older again.

Me and another buy were facing off in the street and once again i ran for a while and got annoyed, after a series of punches he fell on the floor, so i added a kick, which i now realise was over the top, to make sure he didnt continue the fight.

Give a little confidence back and also sprinkle a little enjoyment of fighting.


Now this guy had a big brother, who later chanlanged me on a BMX, saying he was gunna kick my butt,he had two frineds with him, he also said he would hurt my friend who was with me at the time.
Big mistake, i defend others more willingly than just myself.
I attacked first, an unusual thing for me, and kicked his leg that he was using to suport himself on a peddle, he fell right onto the bikes bar, crotch first, and rid away crying.

Add a little more confidence and a little more of the above.

But he was more stubborn than id thought, and just my look he chalanged me again on a day i had a cold and my muscles were slugish and achy.
This time, he won.
I was too slugish to use my Karate blocks i had recently learned and ended up taking quite a few kicks and punches, we ended up on the floor at one point, me being unable to summon the streagth to swing him when i cought him leg, colapsed taking him down with me.
Luckily he didnt take advantage of the problems i was having with my muscles, he walked off assuming he had taken me down with his attacks.

Add even more Anti-socialness and the bit of knolage, know when its best not to fight mainly when you havent got a cold .


Now another fight (or two) that shaped me to be who i was, when i was about 11 i got into an argument with a kid who had a a small protruding blood vessal on his head, i had seen him hitting someone who i had later found out to be a bully who had tried busting the blood-spot as i called it.
We came to blows, and he was STRONG for his size, shorter than me but he was bulky, he threw me around a lot, and i coudnt use my fight winning throws.
So i started just punching and kicking, after 2 hits he stated crying.

Enter the guilty feelings and realisation that this guy was definatly no bully, he was too... Nice.
After calming him down and him explaining about defending himself from the bully, who was conveineantly gone, i apologised and we became good friends.

The bully, his pride damaged, didnt seem to see any cowardlyness in ganging his friends up on Graig, my new, and only, friend, thiswas the first time i was truly scared in a fight.
This guy was more popular than id thought, he and around 6/7/ others ended up chasing me and Graig though the first school yard and into the older students, problem was, Graig was unfit so i foolishly took up role of 'protector' while he ran.
As one tried passing me i kicked him in the chest.

Needless to say they wernt after Graig anymore, they chased me
so i did the single out and strike monuver, running till one was ahead of the other then taking him down and so on.
Til they cornered me by getting me in a circle of them, or square considering ter were 4 of them still after me.
Hewe all started trading blows, lucky for me i knew basic blocks from karate, i got a few good hits on a few of them, but i wasnt doing well, one, mabye two, i could handle, i had SOME training, they didnt but they didnt like me at this point
Luckily Graig wasnt the coward i suddenly thought he was, he came and helped, being bulky they had the same problem id had earlier so one ran away streight away, and the other after Graig and i hurt them a bit.
I came away from this with a few nasty bruises and a strained shoulder.

What i gained from this was the knolage that if we had all been highschool this could have been bloody, the knolage to always asses a situation before starting a fight, even if it feels justified, and that bullies tend to be wimps and a good friend.


At this point im someone to be avoided aparantly and dont get bothered til iv left primary school and entered High School, Graig doesnt go to the same one.

At 13 i get my first new bully, and it isnt pretty, he was special needs, and unfortuantly was easily influeced by a gang of kids from the old school.
They told him id called his mother something and that he could join them if he bullied me.

So i took months of verbal abuse, i wasnt willing to hurt him...
A: because i didnt know if he could help it, i wasnt sure what kind of dysabilty he had, but it wasnt phsical.
B: It would have been my first highschool fight and this guy was violent and unpredictable for your first 'adult' scrap.
C: i had no ill feelings to him, he had never done anything to me other than retort to something he had been told ID done.

But eventually i didnt have a choice, the crowd that had 'accepted' him wernt the best, he grew increasingly violent and told me he was going to get me at the end of school, knowing the kind of guys he was with and the area we lived in i wasnt neive enough to believe they would leave me with a few bruises.

So in class i simply replied to his verbal attack and when he put his face close to mine i punched him in the nose, he looked shocked for a while, then punched me back, everyone gasped because it knocked me back, but i rolled with the blow and was already off balance so it didnt hurt much.
Luckily i had a lot of adrenaline pumping, as i had been anticpating and getting my courage up for ten minutes before hand.
I managed to recover without making a sound and glared at him, we jumped at eachother just as the teacher seperated us.

I felt really guilty, id just hit a kid with special needs, and from his puncg he wasnt a good fighter either.
I tried to catch up with him to apologize, but he was rushing ahead, havent seen him since and i happened to move schools a few weeks later, the verbal abuse of other students was too much for me.

Thought iv had a LOT of verbal abuse since, i still have no idea why people single me out, but the last three fights iv had were also minor, not really even fights, because iv managed to scare them out of fighting me.

The first was ANOTHER speacial needs kid when i was 14 who had been convinced id caled HIM something, so he threw a punch, i took t and rolled my head to the side before looking at him calmly and asking if he had let his anger out, and for the record that i hadnt called him a thing, i walked away.
But i could help tears of frustration well up, i was getting bullied constantly at that point.
Though he didnt bother me after that.

The next was another 'not-really-a-fight', a small/short kid with anger managment problems decided he didnt like me and wanted to prove himself 'tough' by beating up the tallest guy in his year, me.
i refused a fight after school, and turned my back on him, big mistake when the kid has anger managment problems, what ifhe'd had a knife? i was careless.
Next thing i know i was on the floor him on my back pumling my head with suprisingly soft blows for for someone so angry.
I grabbed him around the neck, stood crouched,then pulled him over my shoulder and dropped/threw him onto the ground, and if i recolect punched him twice in the skull before simply walking away, he took about a mnute to recover, i dont know f it was dropping him or the punches that caused this.
After that we had a grudging aquaintence and he never attacked me again

The last wasnt a fight at all, just me taking a beating and having a back covered with bruises.
My Ex-Girlfriend was the 'Bunny Boiler' from the films about the obbsesive girlfriends/mistresses/wifes, so she didnt take well to me accepting it when she 'dramatized' a breakup.

On the way out of school she came up to me and started saying she hated me, i shrugged considering the fact she had caused tons of problems over the course of the week since we ended it.
Then she started punching and kicking me as i gritted my teeth and walked away, i learned a valuable lession that day, the 'dont-hit-girls' rule only apliies to primary school.
She was the hardest puncher and kicker iv ever felt.
I eventually had to warn her that id knock her on her back if she didnt stop.

I then did sword fighting for 2 years, and have just started Jujitsu (just had 2nd session) and am thinking of getting back into Karate.


But i feel those fights have changed me, mostly for the better, though im still angry at my father over how he acted to this day.

If id never fought Graig wrongly id never have had my first best friend, which may have made me a crule and/or nasty person.

If i hadnt had those fights id have never learned the valuable lessons i have.

What of you guys?

Anyone else feel like shareing how fighting shaped them, or caused events that shaped them?

[munkiejunkie]

the only fights that have helped me are the ones i have lost. Finding out what DOESN'T work

[gedhab]

hey alixen, have you had any fights recently in the past year or so?

[Alixen]

Gedhab

Nope, because of the verbal abuse i ended up going to a building were students who have trounble attanding for various get taught on a 2/3 to 4/5 basis, so the problem students can be properly attaended and so that bullying of any kind is basicly impossible, the groups are carfully aranged.

Then earlier this year i started Collage doing Art and Design, and there is still verbal stuff, but iv matured, and hardened, enugh to ignore it more, it has been going on over 10 years

Plus those fights tended to usually be unavoidable or ones that needed to be done.
If i foughteveryone who said anything nasty or looked at me wrong my fight number would be in the 100s, if noth 1000s.
Now i mostly avoid potential fights, as the greatest fights are the ones that you avoid, as is quoted around here a lot

Hopefully i wont have to fight again, not a very realistic thought, but with the training i hopefully will be ready when, or if, the time comes.

You got any experiances man?


munkiejunkie

True, but as i said, other than the fight when i was ill i havent lost a fight, and all i learned from that was even the common cold can slow you down significantly during a fight.

[gedhab]

I mainly got into fights when i was younger, but now i tend to ignore people or just give them some verbal abuse and then they leave off.

i prefer to avoid any confrontation as its not worth it at this age (or any age really).

keep up your trianing and it will help you alot.

self-confidence and awareness help alot and are all part of avoiding confrontations.

[Alixen]

Yea i completly agree

The things you just started are exacly how i feel about things

[gedhab]

so what training have you done what styles etc and for how long?

[Alixen]

Hmmm, let me think...

My dad, who was homeless at one point, taught me to fight from a fairly young age, and im assuming he learned the stuff in either barfights or on the street.
But he wasnt a good kid so he could have learned it anywere, and to this day i dont beleive he's the wimp he seems to be.

So...

Basics from 3 to 6- Punches, Kicks, getting out of painful holds, that sort of stuff.

About age 7: I did two weeks of Karate, so i learned some blocks and punches, but the Instructer was abusive, when i couldnt do the splits in my 2nd week he pushed down on my shoulders, damaging the muscles between my legs, i still cant spread my legs too wide without pain, if im gunna learn to do heigh kicks i'll have to get myself more flexable.

About 8: tried another 2 weeks of Karate, learned the same stuff as before, but at this point i had Nervous problems so i couldnt hack the room ful of students.

14-to today- I did swordfighting, a mix of Rapier, Broadsword, and Katana styles mixed into one to be usable, i thought i was bad, but according to some guy i was fighting at a historical event i was the best he had fought all day, and he was in a class, i was mostly patchwork
I still practice, though not as often as a few months ago.

I started Jujitsu 2 weeks ago and have learned some usful stuff, though iv badly sprained my right middle finger this week, i'll be doing this for a long time i think, and hope

Edit: Wups, what about you man? what age and what did you learn?

[Ikken Hisatsu]

heh, i was always the kid who started it when I was younger.... I was a little bastid back then. first day of high school I made friends with the 3 biggest guys in my year, and have never had any trouble from anyone. funny that.

oh except for one fight i had at a party, no friends around to "protect" me so I had to beat his ass all on my own

[Alixen]

Ikken Hisatsu

LOL! i was never one to make friends easily after my first 3 years at school

We probobly would have fought at some point if we had been in the same school then
When again we might have been friends, doubt it though if you hung out with the bullies

[Timmy Boy]

For me it wasn't one fight but the constant attacks and challenges from other guys at school, mainly in the year below. The resentment at its lack of justification and they way they refused to fight me one-on-one infuriated me to the point where I am probably a more aggressive person now than I would otherwise had been.

[Alixen]

Yea, i can see how that would be extremly irritating.
Due to being taller than the rest of my class almost all my ife, and being fairly broad shouldered, i didt get that sort of thing happening to often, just verbal.

[Timmy Boy]

Originally Posted by Alixen

Yea, i can see how that would be extremly irritating.
Due to being taller than the rest of my class almost all my ife, and being fairly broad shouldered, i didt get that sort of thing happening to often, just verbal.

I was bigger than all of them, I just didn't have the backup to go up against a huge group of them.

[Alixen]

What age are we talking here? and did you have any training?

Only the stuff my father taught me, and Graigs rather late introduction, helped me in the fight i had against more than two untrained guys, but we were all very young, practicing with a grown man(my dad) is proboly all that stopped me bawling at the first punches.

I honestly dont know anything you really could have done, did you ever get any of them back?

[Yukimushu]

Only fights i got in as a kid was with 2 brothers, i was busy ontop of 1 of them when his other brother came along with a soccer kick to the jaw lol. Luckly didn't cause any damage or anything so i kept punching the kid i was ontop of whilst my friend descided he'd had enough watching and wanted to get stuck in. So he took care of the other lad.

Then when a school bully thought i'd be a wise idea to give me some greif when i was leaving school to go home. He kept kicking my bag, so it ended with me having to turn around and punch him in the temple.

I wouldn't really say they made me who i am... Because they were only school fights; i dont know one person who's not been involved in some fight at school.

Other than that, i havent been in any fights since i left school. Spend most my time training than going out at night!