Day 538: How to Fight

How to Fight

(http://www.violentacres.com)

The summer I turned 6 years old, some of the neighborhood boys started bullying me. Back then, I owned a pair of cabbage patch kid roller-skates and my favorite activity was skating around the block singing nursery rhymes at the top of my lungs. One day, a few boys in the 8-10 range thought it would be pretty humorous to push me around and watch me flail. I tried to run from them, but I couldn’t skate faster than they could run. They taunted me for a while and then knocked me down. Angry, humiliated, and with two freshly skinned knees, I did what any 6 year old girl would do in my position.

I went home and told my Dad.

My Father was an ex marine and always preached the benefits of learning self defense. Unlike most parents, he had no interest in calling the parents of my bullies to ‘open up a dialogue’ or some other such tripe. Instead, he planned to teach me to kick a little ass.

My Mother balked at this idea. She didn’t think little girls should be fighting. Little girls were supposed to have tea parties and then play dress up. Fighting was for little boys.

“What if someday a vicious serial killer kidnaps her?” my Father asked, “Do you want her to die weeping and begging for her life? Or would you rather she have the courage to wrench the knife from the killer’s hand and stab him in the throat?”

He paused, mid tirade, and said to me, “If that ever happens, V, stab and twist. Stab and twist.”

With my Mother temporarily mollified, My Father took me into the back yard to teach me how to fight.

Nervously, I explained to my Father that not only was I outnumbered by the boys, but they were bigger and stronger than I was. There was no way that I could beat them. My Father merely brushed my fears aside. He said that while they had the advantage of size and strength on their side, I could develop my own advantages. Here are some tips that he gave me:

1. Always Respond to Threats with Complete Confidence
Sometimes all it takes to make a bully re-think pounding you into a pulp is to make it very clear to him exactly how unafraid you are of a physical confrontation. When a bully threatens you, he is trying to invoke in you some fear in which he can feed off of. If you respond to his threats with confidence, even eagerness, it will give him a pause. If he doesn’t chicken out right then and there, he will enter the fight with a slight feeling of unease. His apprehension is your advantage.

2. Fighting Dirty is Fighting Smart
A fist fight isn’t the same as a karate tournament with judges and points. Your opponent is trying to hurt you, so don’t let some silly moral argument prevent you from kicking the little bastard in the nuts. Throw sand in his eyes, kick him in the back of the knees, bite him, or punch him in the stomach hard enough to knock the wind out of him. If he’s got you pinned down and you happen to see a rock out of the corner of your eye? Don’t be afraid to grab that rock and smash his face with it. There is no shiny trophy waiting for you at the end of this fight, so everything goes.

3. Talk Some Shit
Nothing will rattle your opponent faster than you screaming a steady stream of shit at him while you’re engaged in combat. The crazier you sound the better. If you can’t think of anything tough to yell, yell nonsense like, “I’m going to eat your eyes!” If you can’t think of any nonsense to yell, just plain scream. The second your opponent suspects that you’re a freaking lunatic he’s going to get scared. Fear causes people to make mistakes.

4. When You Lose, Claim It Didn’t Hurt
Sometimes you’re just outmatched. But even losing a fight can be used to your advantage. When it’s over, feel free to spit blood in his face and tell him that it ‘didn’t hurt.’ Laugh when he walks away. You might have just gotten your ass kicked six ways from Sunday, but I guarantee you that anyone watching that fight will think twice about ever messing with you in the future. No one wants to fuck with the crazy kid who feels no pain.

Armed with my new tips and tricks, I laced up my skates and headed out to face the jungle that is childhood. When the boys confronted me again, I dared them to mess with me. One ballsy kid lunged towards me with the intent of pushing me down. Quickly, I kicked that kid squarely between the legs with my skate. He crumpled to the ground as I hysterically screamed at his friends, “I’LL EAT YOUR EYES! I’LL EAT ALL OF YOUR EYES!” Terrified, those boys got up and ran like Hell. I’ve never felt so empowered in my entire life.

In retrospect, I think my Father was just trying to teach me a little something about fear and courage. Back then, and even more so today, it became quite popular to advise your children to: Run. Hide. Look away. Go get someone bigger. Be afraid. As a result, modern children and adults alike are easily paralyzed by fear and have no idea how to defend themselves.

After reading certain articles on my website, I’ve even seen people comment, “What is she going to do if she says the wrong thing to the wrong person? She’s going to end up getting hurt or killed.”

I feel sorry for those people. So paralyzed by fear of what might happen, that they lack the courage to stand up for themselves or for someone weaker. I refuse to live my life afraid to say what I feel or do what is right because there might be some mysterious villain lurking in the shadows who is bigger and stronger. Better to be dead, than to live your life afraid.

Besides, I could just as easily spend my life acting meek and compliant only to still end up with a bullet in my head. However, because my Father taught me courage, it’s not likely that I’d go down without a fight. Who knows? I may even end up wrenching a knife from some psycho’s hands and stabbing him in the throat with it.

Of course, I’ll remember to stab and twist.

Day 537.5: ROK Marines Admission I

Hey friends. It's 2:01 AM in Bangkok right as you're reading this very sentence, and here I am listening to Chopin while writing this very message to you in a desperate attempt to dispel the anxiety that holds me.


In 5 hours, I will get to know whether I will be in the ROK Marines or not.


As you may or may not know, depending on whether there was an opportunity do so, all male x citizens are required to go through physical/mental examinations and serve some national duty. Upon applying to the Marines division, I entered a competitive admissions process in mid-June, where I had to be examined, interviewed and screened (I can tell you more about this process later!).


I applied to the Marines because I want to change - for better or worse - and grow before I resume my studies back in Vermont. Now, I don't know whether I will mature/grow in the military, but what I do know is that time will help me to see things differently - again, for better or worse, but I'm just banking on better.


I also applied to the military now because I wanted to take a break from school. No, nothing is wrong with college-level education, but I just hate the people there. Or is it? Maybe I hate the majority of Americans, but it's probably because I'm unconsciously comparing them to you Kyle, Moki and Joel. Or maybe I hate the actual social structure and the way things are in the real world. Or maybe that's the result of forced transitioning out from the "fantastic" bubble we grew up in during high school. Or maybe I'm just having a hard time waking up from being so disillusioned? I really don't like how I ended up here; I want to blame something or someone, but what will I get from it? How will I benefit? Am I only debilitating myself by pointing a finger?


I don't know the answer, but I will only give an indifferent shrug. What's happened has happened, and here I am to get up and go. Even though a lot of people have advised me against it, I want to go into the Marines.


Okay thanks for reading! Got that off my chest.

Day 537: Do you belong there?

Where would I be?

(http://educationceo.wordpress.com)

As I read through emails, tweets, blogs, and Facebook statuses this morning, I came across one from @HalonaBlack that really made me stop and evaluate some things. Her post, which you better should read, discusses how some first-generation college students arrive on campus with the short-sighted goal of choosing a major that will help them earn money, in the shortest amount of time possible. Well, as soon as I retweeted it my college roommate posted the following comment on my page:

Roomie: “I can relate to this on so many levels. My Dad (even though he didn’t raise me he thought he had a voice in this) basically told me no “BS” majors (e.g. Communications,journalism, etc). I needed a “real” major so right off I felt limited in my choices. And even going to law school, it shocked me how prepared some of the well to do students were. They had outlines, knew the inside tricks, etc. Always vowed my kid would never start that far behind and would have the ability to pursue whatever she wanted.”

Whew! That hit so close to home it stopped me in my tracks. Now when I chose which college I would attend, no one in my family weighed in on majors, etc. Honestly, the only advice/words of wisdom I received came from my grandfather as he was driving me home from work one day (as we passed the University of Notre Dame):

“Don’t you let anyone tell you or make you feel like you don’t belong there, because you do. You have as much right to be there as they do.” Anyone who knows anything about Notre Dame, or any predominantly White college/university, can guess to whom he referred; it’s not rocket science. But that was the way we were raised: We were never taught that we were inferior to anyone. We are all as comfortable, if not more so, in a room where we are the only minority versus being in a room where we are in the majority. (Oh lord I get so sidetracked!) BTW: That’s not me in the pic. It’s Katie Odette Washington, Notre Dame’s first Black Valedictorian.