Bullying

Every now and then this subject comes up. In the martial art community especially those who provide self-defense training need to know how to handle this type of training.  It is more than teaching our youngsters how to physically handle being bullied. Often that is just a means to teach fighting and that is illegal even with juveniles. Teaching them simply the art of hurting and damaging others is not a full and complete way to counter the bullying of others. Do you teach them to apply the physical?” Do you teach them how to use purposeful compliance, i.e. other avoidance tactics such as “Just walking away?

It will be easy and it will be the first thought that runs through your mind that teaching kids about conflict and violence will lead to conflict and violence. Do you just reach the age of sixteen, jump in the family car and drive or do you have to learn about the rules of the road, the laws governing motor vehicles and the effects of motor vehicles when misused, etc. in accidents that result in vehicular violence toward self and others? 

There are many levels and nuances of violence and conflict. It is better to accept that we humans even at such an advanced level in life are still animals who use conflict and forms of violence both good and bad to achieve life’s goals.  When you yell at one another you are committing violence. Social violence is a way of life in all its forms be it an argument of a point of view all the way up to the beating you get to enforce the rules of the group for survival. It just is and ignoring it is counter productive to changing human emotional ignorance into intelligence. 

Like self-defense, this is a very complicated topic and the following is simply a set of ideas, theories, that hopefully will lead toward the minimalism of the bullying of others especially regarding our youth.  

Bullying is, “Use superior strength or influence to intimidate (someone), typically to force him or her to do what one wants; to persecute others; to oppress others; to tyrannize others; to browbeat others; to harass others; to torment others; to intimidate others; to strong-arm others; to dominate others, etc.”

How does someone learn or train to counter a bully? First, teach the bullied how to stand up for themselves. Teach them how to cope with being bullied. Teach them about conflict, violence and defense against such violent acts as bullying. Teach Emotional Intelligence to everyone as well. Avoiding and refusing to accept bullying as a violent act and that violence is wrong when we all face conflict and violence in all forms as humans in every day life is not a way to counter bullying. 

Would it be appropriate to teach the bullied self-defense? Yes, provided it was a complete and comprehensive model of self-defense, i.e. it encompasses conflict communications, avoidance, deescalation, awareness of all kinds, the physical and its repercussions using appropriate physical teachings such as force decisions and so on then the after-effects of taking it to the physical such as legal ramifications both civil and criminal. Teach them about the repercussions toward others with emphasis on family both emotionally and economically.  Provide some sort of appropriate recourse to the bullied and the bully. 

Train everyone (I would suggest that parents of both bullies and the bullied also attend such training since research would indicate that a bully is a product of a lack of EI at the parenting levels) about EI and how to develop a balance emotional life and both the bully and bullied benefit overall but it must be connected with the above knowledge supplemented with experience that is both class training as well as real life adrenal stressed reality training that is found through appropriate SD reality based models.

Avoid making the bullied a victim. Avoid validating the bully as a strong superior individual. Set the proper societal status of the bullied for acceptance of   the individual while setting a status appropriate to discourage the bully while teaching them such EI as to promote self change toward a more acceptable behavior. 

Although this suggest some ways to handle bullying it is not comprehensive or even fully vetted by professionals yet the use of materials in the SD and EI world will go a very long way toward countering any need to be a bully and to be the recipient of bullying. 

Bibliography:

MacYoung, Marc. "In the Name of Self-Defense: What It Costs. When It’s Worth It." Marc MacYoung. 2014.

Goleman, Daniel. "Emotional Intelligence: 10th Anniversary Edition [Kindle Edition]." Bantam. January 11, 2012.

Miller, Rory. "ConCom: Conflict Communications A New Paradigm in Conscious Communication." Amazon Digital Services, Inc. 2014. 

Miller, Rory and Kane, Lawrence A. "Scaling Force: Dynamic Decision-making under Threat of Violence." YMAA Publisher. New Hampshire. 2012

Miller, Rory. "Force Decisions: A Citizen's Guide." YMAA Publications. NH. 2012.

Miller, Rory Sgt. "Meditations of Violence: A Comparison of Martial Arts Training & Real World Violence" YMAA Publishing. 2008.

Miller, Rory Sgt. "Facing Violence: Preparing for the Unexpected." YMAA Publishing. 2011.

Elgin, Suzette Haden, Ph.D. "More on the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense." Prentice Hall. New Jersey. 1983.

Elgin, Suzette. "The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense" Barnes & Noble. 1993.

Elgin, Suzette. "The Gentle Art of Written Self-Defense" MJF Books. 1997

Elgin, Suzette. "The Last Word on the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense" Barnes & Noble. 1995

Morris, Desmond. “Manwatching: A Field Guide to Human Behavior.” Harry N. Abrams. April 1979.