by origami_itto on Wed Mar 30, 2022 6:26 am
Ray knows the score. People can get away with too much disrespect.
I'm not a violent person, per se. I enjoy the game of fighting, don't like hurting people.
Currently I'm sort of insulated from problems I don't cause myself. I have to go out of my way looking for trouble to find it. That wasn't always the case.
When I was getting by on whatever I could scrape together driving around drug dealers and romancing strippers, it was a different situation.
In poverty you live on top of each other and the most common way to pass the time is getting drunk, plus there's a lot of assault and crime in general you have to look out for. And to say that average citizen in poverty could use a little enlightenment is an understatement.
The police are worthless. A neighbor once chased another neighbor across the courtyard and up a flight of stairs with a butcher knife and when we called the cops all they said was "he didn't actually touch him with the knife so no crime was committed, we can't do anything."
So when it comes to protecting yourself and your loved ones it's not just a matter of responding to direct threats, you can't even appear to be a possible target or some goofball is going to take a shot. If they get away with it, it's open season, you need to move.
The precision application of violence by responsible and capable citizens helps keep certain people in line. It becomes known not to try any foolishness on them or in front of them or you will face the consequences.
Try Jesus, the song goes, but please please don't try me. Because I fight. And you will catch these hands.
One time I dropped by the club to visit my girlfriend and she was distraught. The bouncers told me some jackass bit her on the ass about five minutes ago so they kicked him out and he started walking North on A1A.
I tracked him down, made sure it was the right guy by asking a couple questions to confirm he had just bit a stripper on the ass because it was just so juicy he couldn't help himself.
I explained to him that his behavior was not acceptable and that if I found out he ever did anything like that to any of the girls in any of the clubs on the beach again there would be absolute hell to pay.
I punctuated my statement by putting two fingers on his temple and drawing a line to his back foot, which essentially crushed his structure and put him to the ground like a dropped sack of potatoes.
He jumped back up and for a second it looked like he wanted to fight but you could see him consider things and he straightened up and apologized and told me he would never do that kind of thing again. Don't know if he kept the promise.
Another time when I was "in recovery" living in supportive sober housing for veterans a couple residents were having a tussle in the courtyard. No big deal. Whatever. People argue.
It started escalating and the one white dude started throwing around the N-word at the other guy.
That had the potential to start spiraling out into the neighborhood, again we're living on top of each other. I could throw a rock and hit a door in the projects the swat team busted through and here he is dropping n bombs loud enough for me to hear it over the TV.
So I went down and got between them. The white guy was clearly the aggressor and there was another black guy talking sense into the other guy so I faced whitey.
"Hey man chill out"
"Fuck you I'm gonna kill that N----r!"
"Not tonight, man. Just go back to your place. You're gonna get kicked out like this."
And then the starts throwing these weak little, slow, telegraphed punches that I can just bat away with cat washes his face and I tell him calmly to stop before I make him stop.
He persists.
So I step behind, throw an arm across his chest and take him down in a gentle but punishing hip throw on the asphalt parking lot.
Like not hard enough to break anything, but hard enough to knock the wind and fight out of him.
Everybody went back to their own apartment, the staff never followed up and nobody got kicked out. I saw the two of them talking friendly a few days later so I guess they worked out their differences.
The last incident I want to share is the most involved.
I was living with my girlfriend and her 17 year old daughter in a block of apartments where the parking was about two feet from the doors, and hardly anybody had a car so they hung out in the parking lot.
One night one of the neighbors was drunk and started hitting on her daughter, she turned him down, he started getting rude, she got rude, I yelled down from the second floor for him to chill out and he told me to shut the fuck up before he kicked my ass. This was about three weeks or so after my ACL was severed in a BJJ match and my only medicine was pain pills and Taijiquan so I was still limping around and in a bit of pain.
I told him we would talk about that when he was sober.
So the next day with a clear head I walked up on him and told him now was his chance to kick my ass.
He started throwing punches, just knocked them aside and grabbed his head and put him in a headlock and gave him a gentle noogie. Let him go, he shoots and grabs my waist for a sloppy attempt at a double leg takedown so I gave it to him and made sure he wound up on bottom. In mount I started smacking his face around a little bit while he's bucking and struggling to try to hit me or throw me off. We wind up next to a cement column so he tried to buck my head into it so I asked him "are you trying to do this" and pressed his head gently against it.
Long story short I spent about five minutes just dominating him without harming him and preventing him from doing any sort of damage to me until I broke his spirit.
He gave up, I let him go and let him catch his breath. He apologized for getting out of line and I never had any trouble out of him again. He was the very model of politeness towards the ladies moving forward.
My point here isn't look at me I'm such a badass. Beating on undisciplined drunks, even when they're sober is hardly my idea of honorable combat.
My point is that one of the reasons I study this stuff is so I can try to be the person I wanted to have around in my life growing up. The police are only interested in protecting the interests of the upper class and punishing the poor. They could care less if we eat ourselves alive, less to deal with.
The tao te ching talks about cultivating the self, then the family, then the community, then the nation, or something like that.
I see these as somewhat related, we have a duty to cultivate our community. Sometimes that is through service in social organizations, sometimes it's in a little percussive recalibration of antisocial attitudes.
Sometimes you have to communicate your boundaries and let people know what happens when you cross them.