I am involved in a project linking county council, police & other bodies to give disabled people suffering bullying & harrassment support, advice & martial arts training. We need true stories of people with mobility problems ie wheelchair or unstable walking who have used martial arts training to good effect in a street/playground conflict situation. You don't need to have won just shown that you are a hard target and therefore left alone. Please help with authentic stories as we hope to convince the authorities of the value of disabled martial arts training in combatting bullying & harassment for the project to recieve support & funding. Once started the project will offer help to all disabled people in trial area and may go national.
email me. i have cp and hold 5th dan. briefly i took it up after being attacked in 1985; i now work with young people and when i tell them (reluctantly) what i do, they're scared out of their minds even though i've not shown them anything or had to use it. i teach both able and disabled... i also use qigong for the less mobile.
Mr Miyagi Tried to email but failed (I'm on Tiscali which is sometimes awkward) Please email me on skimpyriq@tiscali.co.uk Appologies & thanks.
Hi Rig P, I'm just a student at a school, but in our dojang, we have a Father and Son who train together and I've become friends with them. The son is in the 2nd grade and his one foot is offset at like a 90-degree angle and he moves with difficulty. Evidently, they don't want to do surgery until he's older (has something to do with growth plates and other medical stuff). The little boy was an easy target and getting bullyed by a 5th grader. One day he had enough, he put the bully in an arm-bar and took him to the ground. (Pain compliance will do that to ya) His dad says that since then the bully (coward) has left him alone and that he's already gotten his money's worth out of Martial Arts. (The rest of the story for another thread is that the school actually called the father and informed him of their zero-tolerance policy for fighting. The dad basically told them to step-off, his son is not gonna be a punching bag for anyone). Peace
When I was doing Shotokan, my understanding was that Sensei Tony Johnson in New York was doing something along these lines. I've pretty much lost touch with my karatekas and moved on to a different art, but you might be able to Google it to find out more.
Awareness While working as the assistant office manager of an automotive A/C repair shop, I was the one elected to go to the parking lot and inform a gentleman that we would be unable to fix the A/C in his truck that had been with us all day. Since he basically lived in the truck, the man was understandably upset. He was a stocky, solid guy, roughly 2 inches shorter than me. He began ranting and raving about how we were just jerking him around to up his repair bill. He slammed his fist into the hood of the car next to him. I steadied myself be leaning back against the car next to me, so that the gentleman and I were facing each other. I began to calmly explain that despite our best efforts, we were unable to get a required part delivered same day. This was not good enough, and the man continued to scream and curse at me, at times less than 4 inches from my face. I remained calm, kept up eye contact, and studied his body language. Each time he would get in my face, he would try and do the "crazy eye" thing. Well, I noticed he had a very large Adam's apple, because he had to look up to meet my eyes. His left hand was constantly grabbing at his left pant leg. His right was curled into a fist, cocked, and pumping up and down. I knew that the first punch would likely be a hay maker from his right. My first target after blocking that, was going to be that big ole apple. All the while, I was still calm and polite. This went on for about 5 minutes. Then it was as if this guy realized he was yelling at a desk jockey with a major limp. He shook my hand and apologized. I'm not certain that my planned response would have worked. I do know that knowing that I could defend myself if need be helped me to stay calm and think, rather than reacting out of fear or ego.
