Since I've returned from China three months ago I have found the experience and skills that I gained from living, studying and working in China for eleven years a tough sell and my efforts to secure a job using those skills were in vain...
Despite my reservations
but it can't be worse than driving around China on a motorbike, accepting challenges from random strangers in parks,
MaartenSFS wrote:... it can't be worse than driving around China on a motorbike, accepting challenges from random strangers in parks, eating most things offered to me and living in filthy, developing-country standards for years on end, can it?
windwalker wrote:While I wish you luck in any undertaking.
I do feel your mistaken about using this as a testing ground.
Yes it will be real,
but real to that environment which as any specialized environment will have its own rules set and context in which it operates in.
You will have to adopt a mind set that you may or may not be able to turn off....once home....Since I've returned from China three months ago I have found the experience and skills that I gained from living, studying and working in China for eleven years a tough sell and my efforts to secure a job using those skills were in vain...
It's a matter of either finding or making a niche.
The boot camp should be a good gut check.Despite my reservations
listen to your gut
I wonder how well your personality type will take to following orders and doing things you may not
feel necessary but required.but it can't be worse than driving around China on a motorbike, accepting challenges from random strangers in parks,
you might want to key in the word "accepting" which also connotes choice. As to being worse..
Consider this. They'er in a cage for 24/7, you will be in the same cage for whatever amount of time your shift requires.
Used to drive the armored trucks that carry money to and from banks. We were armed. The truck could never be turned off once we started the route
it was a moving cage....one of us always had to be in the truck at all times....
some started as a job between jobs....
They stayed after awhile for their own reasons adapting to the life style
Something I couldn't do and didn't really care to do....
Wish you well, the boot camp should be an eye opener....
oragami_itto wrote:Security is good work and it requires what I consider the most important skills of situational awareness, deescalation, group tactics, and conflict prevention. Good "come along" holds and submissions are useful. Strikes are pointless. If you reach a point where you're striking, you've fucked up big time. Control, control, and control.
Good luck, don't become a dick.
Dmitri wrote:MaartenSFS wrote:... it can't be worse than driving around China on a motorbike, accepting challenges from random strangers in parks, eating most things offered to me and living in filthy, developing-country standards for years on end, can it?
It'll be dramatically different, in principle. Before you were free to do all of those things you did; now you'll be doing things because you're told to, having to deal with the kind of people you would normally stay the hell away from -- both as subjects of your new duties and as your peers (and commanding officers).
You are doing into all that willingly, so there's that, but just wanted to point out at least that one fundamental difference. It would be a very different kind of "fun" IMHO....
Best of luck with it! Don't get hurt.
Peacedog wrote:Check out the works of Rory Miller.
He is a martial arts practitioner and former Corrections Officer.
He wrote a book entitled Meditations on Violence that should be mandatory reading for anyone who has to deal with criminals. The big take away here is that criminals actively choose to do what they do and have little desire to change. And this is the primary reason why rehabilitation doesn't work.
Best of luck. If you can do something you enjoy and make a living at it, that is best. But it is also over rated. Being able to pay your bills and honor your responsibilities is the hallmark of an adult and often results in greater opportunity and happiness in the long run versus laying about as an unemployed bum.
Stay safe.
Subitai wrote:You'll be fine Maarten,
You're in the US now? Michigan? IMO, you just have to take your time...find a few good students, keep at it and get your name out.
This is the USA...where Kung Fu sux or is useless right? haha...it was already an uphill battle for you as soon as you set foot in the country.
Just because you did allot of hard work doesn't mean everybody in the country knows it or is even interested in it. This is a country were very few would want to "Eat Bitter" whilst learning Kung Fu. There are pockets of good and bad people just like any country.
For myself personally, when I started my own school, I didn't expect or WANT to teach out of a strip mall or some commercial place. When my wife and I bought a house...it was to be a house with an attached room to teach out of. That way my overhead is low.
I can teach at my own leisure to a select few, dedicated students that are truely interested and not just because they signed contracts. ( I don't use contracts or belts) Now i'm not saying that my model is for you. But I started out with just a few students, then I taught on military bases and YMCA and local REC. programs. Before you know it...people will know about your skill if you're a good teacher and they LIKE you. I mean that...it's true that they have to like you more than you are a skillful teacher.
** IN FACT, one of the saddest realizations I came to understand was that: "all you need to be a (Kung fu/Taiji) teacher in this country...is to have students" . Think about that deeply for second. Why did some of us work so hard, for so many years to legitimize ourselves in Martial arts when all the FRAUD down the street needs to do is be a better salesman???????
I say that because remember it's "...MERICA", if it's not fun or doesn't taste good, people won't like or do it. A country where almost 1/2 the people watch too much FOX news and believe that Benedict (Russian) Drumph actually puts the interests of the people in front of his own pocket. Sorry I had to go there
My warning to you is to have a thick skin and don't let working with scum get to you. I have a few friends in corrections (almost did it myself, but glad it didn't work out that way). 2 of them are on both extreme sides of the spectrum. One friend is a Navy veteran whos able to stay the same and it doesn't seem to effect him when he's in public. Another friend who just couldn't deal with it...the job, the people he worked with, his marriage...ultimately it ended in suicide. He only had a couple years left before retirement!!!!!
Anyway... you can message me privately if you want to.
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