Fighting
I felt I should blog about this, because it's one of my more unusual expierences. At Baird's 18th party (which I got home from a few hours ago, Happy Birthday Baird!) some very interesting stuff happened. Firstly, he gave me an eighteenth birthday present (yes, gave me) for my birthday in February, which I was geuniuenly touched by, it was an amazing act of kindess and I can't thank Baird enough!
But then, secondly, and more interestingly, this story occured. Laura was going to walk home, and we all suggested that she waited for everybody else, but she had to get home early, so I agreed to walk with her (in case something happened, I always dread that so make sure somebody always walks with somebody else). Jon, needing to sober up, decided to tag along also, and me and him agreed to meet the others at the Bluebird.
Now, my habit of always making sure somebody walks with somebody else has just been for safety. This is the first ever time it's been dammed lucky I did. To cut a long story short, we were attacked. A groupd of chavs/swills came down, and tried to start a fight. And I don't mean just taunting. They physically attacked us, throwing punches, hitting me quite a few times before I started blocking their punches away. I was actually suprised that they didn't hurt, I got hit square in the bicep and it didn't even go dead, and got hit in the gut and wasn't even winded. Anyway, we didn't take the bait, knowing we could walk away, since the hits didn't hurt us. And we did so.
They left for a bit, but soon showed up again, running after us, trying to track us down for, and I kid you not, 'hitting their mate'. I was under the impression we were the ones who got hit! Anyway, one of them, the obvious leader of the group, ran up, pushing Jon quite violently and headbutting him in the back. Yes, the back. An obvious area for a headbutt, clearly! After doing that twice, to which Jon didn't respond, he gave up. I think he may have hurt his head. Anyway, they chased us for quite a while (deciding to call us goths, I can see that, in my white shorts and green t-shirt), but we ignored them, despite how viciously they behaved. We could walk, so we did walk. Sure, maybe somebody thinks it's cowardly, but I don't care. I don't try to act macho, I try to act like me, and I believe if you can walk away from a fight, do walk away from a fight, and only fight as a last resort. Of course, this is supposed to be the philosphy of Ju Jitsu anyway, so I can just claim I was 'following my martial arts code' instead of 'being a coward'. We didn't totally give in, Jon did turn around at one point, very tempted to fight I could see, and I moved him on. I think it may have been him issueing a warning, I don't think he was actually going to fight. And at one point I turned around, saying "If we hit your mate, it was defending ourselves while you were trying to hit us!" which I probably shouldn't have, and stayed quite, but luckily it didn't provoke them much more. Anyway, we got lucky and passed a group of people sat outside on their lawn, and so the chavs retreated, knowing that witnesses were about.
I've never been in a situation like that before, and was very suprised. To be honest, I was worried. I wouldn't say 'scared', because I wasn't, but I was worried we'd have to fight. Luckily we didn't. And luckily we all got away unhurt. It was also a reminder that there is that kind of violence in the world, and making sure somebody always has somebody else to walk home with is dammed important. I mean, we got lucky, somebody might not. Pete even raised the issue 'they might do that to the next group of people who pass, and they might not be so lucky'. As it turns out, apparently Baird and co WERE the next group, but I don't know their story. But it did make me kind of guilty about walking away. I mean, I thought 'as long as I can avoid a fight, then that's okay', which was remarkably selfish. I never thought that they might do it to somebody else. But in the same thread, I couldn't fight back and be a vigilante. That, and I would have lost! But I do hope something is done about them before either they hurt somebody, or they pick on the wrong people and are hurt themselves.
You have to think what state the world is in when you have people doing things like that in a country where we have it as good as this one. We're rich, we're peaceful, we can buy pretty much anything we want, it's great. Yet there's still random violence. It's quite disappointing.
And shocking to see for real.
But then, secondly, and more interestingly, this story occured. Laura was going to walk home, and we all suggested that she waited for everybody else, but she had to get home early, so I agreed to walk with her (in case something happened, I always dread that so make sure somebody always walks with somebody else). Jon, needing to sober up, decided to tag along also, and me and him agreed to meet the others at the Bluebird.
Now, my habit of always making sure somebody walks with somebody else has just been for safety. This is the first ever time it's been dammed lucky I did. To cut a long story short, we were attacked. A groupd of chavs/swills came down, and tried to start a fight. And I don't mean just taunting. They physically attacked us, throwing punches, hitting me quite a few times before I started blocking their punches away. I was actually suprised that they didn't hurt, I got hit square in the bicep and it didn't even go dead, and got hit in the gut and wasn't even winded. Anyway, we didn't take the bait, knowing we could walk away, since the hits didn't hurt us. And we did so.
They left for a bit, but soon showed up again, running after us, trying to track us down for, and I kid you not, 'hitting their mate'. I was under the impression we were the ones who got hit! Anyway, one of them, the obvious leader of the group, ran up, pushing Jon quite violently and headbutting him in the back. Yes, the back. An obvious area for a headbutt, clearly! After doing that twice, to which Jon didn't respond, he gave up. I think he may have hurt his head. Anyway, they chased us for quite a while (deciding to call us goths, I can see that, in my white shorts and green t-shirt), but we ignored them, despite how viciously they behaved. We could walk, so we did walk. Sure, maybe somebody thinks it's cowardly, but I don't care. I don't try to act macho, I try to act like me, and I believe if you can walk away from a fight, do walk away from a fight, and only fight as a last resort. Of course, this is supposed to be the philosphy of Ju Jitsu anyway, so I can just claim I was 'following my martial arts code' instead of 'being a coward'. We didn't totally give in, Jon did turn around at one point, very tempted to fight I could see, and I moved him on. I think it may have been him issueing a warning, I don't think he was actually going to fight. And at one point I turned around, saying "If we hit your mate, it was defending ourselves while you were trying to hit us!" which I probably shouldn't have, and stayed quite, but luckily it didn't provoke them much more. Anyway, we got lucky and passed a group of people sat outside on their lawn, and so the chavs retreated, knowing that witnesses were about.
I've never been in a situation like that before, and was very suprised. To be honest, I was worried. I wouldn't say 'scared', because I wasn't, but I was worried we'd have to fight. Luckily we didn't. And luckily we all got away unhurt. It was also a reminder that there is that kind of violence in the world, and making sure somebody always has somebody else to walk home with is dammed important. I mean, we got lucky, somebody might not. Pete even raised the issue 'they might do that to the next group of people who pass, and they might not be so lucky'. As it turns out, apparently Baird and co WERE the next group, but I don't know their story. But it did make me kind of guilty about walking away. I mean, I thought 'as long as I can avoid a fight, then that's okay', which was remarkably selfish. I never thought that they might do it to somebody else. But in the same thread, I couldn't fight back and be a vigilante. That, and I would have lost! But I do hope something is done about them before either they hurt somebody, or they pick on the wrong people and are hurt themselves.
You have to think what state the world is in when you have people doing things like that in a country where we have it as good as this one. We're rich, we're peaceful, we can buy pretty much anything we want, it's great. Yet there's still random violence. It's quite disappointing.
And shocking to see for real.
posted by Li at 1:31 AM
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