Am I listening or are we problem solving?
My daughter was bullied in reception. My first reaction came from my own childhood, and it showed me why martial arts teaches control first.
As a father, I am still learning.
Alessandra, my daughter, was in reception when she started telling me about girls at school who tore her down with words and physically assaulted her during lunch. Reception. Five years old. This was after it had been raised with the school. They did what they could, but it didn’t always work.
What went through my head? You can guess it. Beat and choke the b*tch3s out.
Yes. A grown man with multiple black belts, plotting the downfall of five year olds in pigtails.
I get it. Times are different. You can’t be doing that nowadays. Also, they were five.
But that anger took me straight back to my why. Why martial arts saved me.
In primary school I was called yellow, gook, whatever the best insult of the day was. Not just by other kids. By their parents too. At the time it didn’t bother me, because I didn’t know what the words meant, or the spite and hatred behind them. I probably thought gook was a type of fruit. Years later, some of the older kids who had been at my school told me the bullying was so bad they felt they had to become my bodyguards. I don’t remember any of it. I had a security detail in primary school and never knew. I only understand how serious it was through what others have told me.
To be clear, this is not a chip on my shoulder. It’s not something I think about or carry around. I hadn’t given it a thought in years. But when my daughter told me what was happening to her, it came out of nowhere. It was a reaction from history, not a grudge I’ve been holding.
So when my daughter talked, I wasn’t listening. I was fixing. I was fighting a battle from thirty years ago, against reception kids. She didn’t need that. She needed her dad to hear her. That’s mine to work on, not hers.
Why does this matter to you? Why is learning to strike, control and submit someone so important?
Because with great power comes great responsibility. When you can actually hurt someone, you learn that violence is the last choice, not the first. The untrained yell abuse, puff their chest out, act tough and speak down. The trained don’t need to. Martial arts gives you the control to sit with the anger, and the inner strength to keep on keeping on.
That is what it’s about.
Keep on keeping on.
