Thought it might be interesting to get some experiences, kind of like "war" stories, but with a twist. What did you learn from the experience? To start the ball rolling... I was on the way to my local take-away on the evening of an England football game. Its only about 6 at night, but the pubs have been open all day. As I appraoch two guys fall out of the nearest pub, holding on, swinging around, trying to throw punches and shouting the odds. A third comes out and tries to calm his two friends (yes they were friends fighting) down, but to no avail, so he leaves. I try to do the "dutiful" thing and phone the police, but my mobile hasn't got a signal. I was going to try to phone from the take-away, whose windows were now full of the staff taking in the specticle, but then the fight started getting nastier and cars were being used. As the car happened to belong to my friend who worked at the take-away, and she was getting a little upset at this, I decided to step in. I managed to pull them away from the car, but then I found myself with a new problem. During this, one had manged to escape the grip of his friend (???) and had stormed off, the one who was left, the bigger of the two, was now focused on me. Obviously very drunk and bleeding profusley from his head and face, I tried being friendly asking "You OK mate?". He began to move towards me, obviously unimpressed, so I started backing off, raising my "fence" and still talking. "You OK?" I ask again "You're bleeding quite bad", he wipes blood from his face, appearing a little surprised by it but keeps coming towards me saying, "Yeah? So ****ing what? You want some [blood]?". Now I'm having to think about hitting this guy when he offers me, "Why don't you just walk off?" he says, gesturing for me to walk past him, a blatent set up. "It's OK, I'm walking this way" I say, nodding my head in the opposite direction. I keep backing away and he loses interest. The moral of the story is....? 1) Think before you get involved! 2) Stay in control by staying aware
that guy probably was a good guy when sober, or he just didn't want to mess with you. yea, the greatest martial art is the art of self-preservation, a.k.a that large gray mass conveniently located on top of your neck for all to see, so others can confirm you have one, even though you probably don't.
I had a fight at school and I won't go into it but the moral of the story is they will punish the victim not the person who actually started it.
The funniest story I have is that my sons and I were leaving TKD class and were still in uniform. A guy cut us off in traffic and I beeped at him, my car isn't big enough to 'honk'. Its one of those little sissy beeps. Anyway, I pull into a store lot and he whips in and gets out of his car yelling and screaming at me for beeping at him. I step out in my black uniform (I do look kind of intimidating in it) and he stops in mid sentence, yells at me that I'm lucky I'm in uniform because if I wasn't he'd kick my butt. I'm using the non-censorable words here folks. After I got back in my car, my sons were rolling around laughing about how all my power was in my uniform, not in my training... Don't flame me by saying "he coulda had a gun" and all that. I know all the risks, I was going in the store when I got out, not to fight him...
The other day, I was at "Discord", the rock night at my university. I was in the mosh pit, having a good time, and suddenly the token idiot who has to take it too far appeared. He started punching me, I told him to stop it and calm down as I had the adrenaline going and his punches weren't really hurting much; plus I thought he was just getting carried away in the pit rather than being intentionally violent. Then he took a swing at my face. He wasn't just wildly swinging his arms around now, he was standing in front of me and aiming his punches, so I grabbed him and took him down. That was the end of that. I didn't cause him any serious damage, it wasn't a particularly good takedown, but it was enough to hurt him and scare him into not hitting people anymore. When he got up, he was crying and apologising profusely. The moral of the story is: 1) Although you should always try and avoid the fight, sometimes it just ends up on top of you despite your best efforts, and when it does it's time to forget the diplomacy for a minute and concentrate on protecting yourself and others. 2) Teh grapple works!
About a year ago I had my handbag taken from me in a store. I placed it down in the cart in order to lift a heavy item into my cart. When I did, I noticed my handbag gone and a male in a hooded sweatshirt walking rather nonchalantly away from me. Without going into a long story.... I gave chase nearly catching him but he jumped into what was later found to be a stolen car and took off. Having realized after adrenaline kicked in that I was chasing him for all the wrong reasons I stopped and let him go off. After this incident, (although I was aware of him staring me down earlier in the store) .... I now do not gove anyone the benefit of a doubt. I trust my first instincts although I hate to think unkindly of people by the way they make me feel or look at me, but unfortunately my instincts always prove to be right. Well sort of..... Several months went by and I am in same store. I leave my car to enter the store and this man is standing by the entrance. As I walk by he *sniffs me as if smelling my hair and says "mmmm nice smile ... hellooooo there" or something like that. I go to the produce aisle filling a bag up with tomatoes and lo and behold I feel someone standing very close behind me. I notice from the corner of my eye that its that very same "gentleman" from outside of the store. So I very quickly turn around swinging the bag of tomatoes into the guys face and ready to follow up .... when he says "Whoa, I just wanted to tell you that you are a very atrractive woman .... I'm sorry to have scared you like that". I told him that he already made his comments to me clear earlier and that he was lucky that I didn't "hurt" him. Okay so not sure if there is a moral.... the guy was definitely "in my space" and I don't think I was really wrong in acting defensely even though it was in public. Perhaps he learned a moral
lol....mine totally not MA related, but extremely amusing ..... About 3 years ago I was walking down the town after school with my mates, saw my sister up ahead with a bunch of girls.... they 5-6 years older than me, but I was never bothered by age gaps in social occassions .... so anyhow I runs up slaps my sister on the ass hard to surprise her ....... she turns round: Its NOT my sister! Ive no idea who she is, a complete stranger, and I know none of the other girls ...... so I starts apologising profusely " Im sooooo sorry, I thought you were my sister!" Which the eyebrows went up at, and I realise what Ive just insinuated ... So again the mouth runs on "no, no , no, not like THAT! I just was surprising her" so the eyebrows climb higher still (tho I never thought that was possible!) At this point I realise Im fighting a losing battle and just drop my head and walk away to the giggles of the girls .... and my mates all wetting themselves laughing at me! Moral: Be VERY sure you know whose ass you slappin!!! lol...
I was working part-time as a bouncer at a local bar/dance club and had gone in on my night off to throw some darts with a friend. The pool tables were right behind us and as I was stepping back to keep from distracting my friend while he threw,one of the pool player disgusted by losing his game, began swearing and swung his cue down like a 3yr old having a tantrum. The thin end of the cue hit me acrocc the shoulders and snapped off very loudly. We both turned to face each other, and all I saw was the sharp end of the "spear" he now had in his hands. I quickly sidestepped and got ready to clock him when we were both pulled apart by friends and his cue taken away. He was suprised he'd made contact with anyone, and shocked that it hadn't fazed me in the least. (After all, I'd been hit with the skinny end. It would have shattered if you looked at it too hard).But for the next week all anyone talked about was how "some guy broke a pool cue over Dave's head and all it did was make him mad." It made my job much much easier and reminded me of advice I'd recieved years earlier working in sales. "When things work exactly the way they're supposed to...try not to look suprised."
I went to a party with my friends at this restaurant somewhere in the suburb area. I got there early, so I decided to go check out the local games store (forgive the addiction =/ ). Anyway, there was this car parked in the handicap space. I saw the guy get out of the car. Well, I just had to open my big mouth. I went up to him, said some sly things about him. Next thing you know, the guy pushes me. He didn't try to further it, but he did scream at me. He had a pair of keys, held knifewise in his hand, so I didn't want to push it further. I backed off, he went away, and I've learned this moral: "Keep your big mouth shut. If someone parks in the handicap space, call a tow truck."
I was just talking about this with a friend this past weekend. One of her in-laws is an amputee who works out. A lot. He looks extremely healthy--wide biceps, well-defined six-pack--and he moves well on his artificial limb. Anyway, one day some total stranger started screaming at him for taking up a handicapped parking spot when he obviously (obvious to the stranger) didn't need it. He got so fed up that he literally took off his leg, handed it to the guy, and asked him to please hold it while he went into the store. He then hops off, leaving guy and leg standing there dumbfounded (yes, he got his leg back afterwards).
I was returning from MA one night. It was really frickin' cold. I was dressed in full black, because we wear black pants at the kwoon and I the only moderately thick jacket I had was black one. Also had a black hat. This cop drives pass in a squad car looking frantically at me, switching his gaze back and forth between me and the road. He then pulls over and apparently starts yelling into his radio. All of a sudden there are 3 cop cars around me, and one calls me. He asks me a few questions, then lets me go. Morals: 1) [No profanity or suggestions of it please... matt the mod] 2) Always try to make sure you talk to the black cop 3) It doesn't matter if you did anything, just that you were there and you fit the description 4) How do people who deal with this on a regular basis manage?
How about a little "perspective" Cop sees person who most probably fits a discription that "others" are looking for. Its night and the possible perp is wearing the tradition uniform of a cat burgler. They stop the person, ask a few questions, acertain that he is not any of the above, and they let him go on his way.. Why in heavens name would you have a problem with that? What if it wasn't a good guy coming from class? What is he broke into your families home, did bad things to someone you cared about? Facist? Get real guys. No where did you say anything that sounds remotely like that officer did anything wrong. I only hope you were aware enough to thank him as he left. Pete Ticali
Case study #2. Four of my dawgs rolling in a car, moving some stuff from one house to another. The po-po's pull them over and ask them all for ID, in the middle of the day. Of course, the cops have no right to ask anyone but the driver for ID. He then starts asking them all kinds of terrorist questions. Now what reason is there to stop 4 dudes rollin' in a car. Oh, they're black and they have stuff in their car, they have probably stolen it. Let's go harass them.
From what I can tell, a lot of police do do this, and I am sorry to hear that. However, you cannot stereotype a whole force. Believe it or not, there ARE good cops, and I still put my trust in them, fascist or not.
I think scarlet and shotokan are taking things way too seriously. As long as nobody was arrested or mistreated, why would you have a problem with the police asking you a few quetions and id-ing you? Perhaps I'm a little biased because both of my parents were cops, but I think a lot of teens and young people in general have this big problem with police, and it's for no reason. In the summer I usually walk my dogs very late at night. It is regular to have police pull up to the curb and ask me some questions and they're usually about why I'm out so late or if I have seen a group of other teens around the area. If you don't give them attitude, they won't mistreat you in any way (in most cases). It is their job after all.
There should probably be another thread for this but... Look at it this way, you return home one night to find that your TV and sterio have dissappeard out a broken window. You call the cops, they check their records of reports that day and find that a car full of guys were stopped and id'ed with a car full of sterio and TV. They track them down and you might get your stuff back, if not maybe justice. On the other hand if the cops were ignoring everything they thought was slightly suspicious then you'd ring up and get the "Sorry, but if they left no prints we have no way of tracing them. Then you'd be whinging that the police are ineffective. And here a cop can ask anyone, anywhere, anytime for their id.
Another example, two of my dawgs are working in a computer lab late on night, there are several other people in the lab. The campus security comes in, checks things out and then goes right to them, bypassing everyone else and asks them for ID. But maybe two black guys had broken into a computer lab one night to do their homework down the road and security was just investigating.
