dragontooth73
Moderator
I'm one of the gentlest guys I know. I put moths and spiders in glass jars and let them loose outside rather than kill them. I shed tears over all kinds of movies, am a sucker for donations to charities, and basically let people walk all over me on a daily basis. Being raised strictly Asian in the midst of a Western-oriented society, people tend to mistake my politeness for a complete lack of backbone, and tend to walk on me.
At my workplace I had a run-in today with a racist employee (black) who made a number of severe epithets in public. The matter was taken up by a manager (white) who took the view I was at fault even though the entire scene was witnessed by about 20 people who sided with me throughout the whole episode.
Just as I was about to go home the employee made it a point to seek me out and crank up the abuse. The body language got to the point where I knew it was just about to go physical. The thing is, I felt no fear. I just had a massive weight of exasperation on me. I was prepared if need be to dole out a rapid elbow strike and do a clean push takedown, followed by repeated stomping. Instead I just let the harangue continue til the culprit was taken away.
The thing is tonight while I was walking back to where I live in Chicago, I thought about home (Honolulu) and also about my good ol' Aikido dojo in Tokyo. I thought about all the good people there, all the wonderful people who taught me and learned with me, and how that wonderful, serene environment didn't prepare me one bit to beat down someone who would had no compunction about taking me down.
Maybe I should have gone to Shoot Wrestling or something like Krav Maga. I do know that I chose Aikido because I wanted to find peace, not learn how to be a killer like my uncles. Maybe I was wrong, but as I type this in Chicago all I'm doing is missing home and the good ol' ohana (family) back in Hawai'i I never knew the mainland could be so cold.
I'm also thinking, if this is what LEOs do every day - get spat on and just have to take it - then I think I understand that better. My respect goes out to these people. Maybe I should change and become harder. Learn a much more combative martial art. Learn how to be brutal in the face of thuggery. Adjust for conditions, I guess. And all I want to do is see the beach again
Sorry about the rant. What do you guys think?
At my workplace I had a run-in today with a racist employee (black) who made a number of severe epithets in public. The matter was taken up by a manager (white) who took the view I was at fault even though the entire scene was witnessed by about 20 people who sided with me throughout the whole episode.
Just as I was about to go home the employee made it a point to seek me out and crank up the abuse. The body language got to the point where I knew it was just about to go physical. The thing is, I felt no fear. I just had a massive weight of exasperation on me. I was prepared if need be to dole out a rapid elbow strike and do a clean push takedown, followed by repeated stomping. Instead I just let the harangue continue til the culprit was taken away.
The thing is tonight while I was walking back to where I live in Chicago, I thought about home (Honolulu) and also about my good ol' Aikido dojo in Tokyo. I thought about all the good people there, all the wonderful people who taught me and learned with me, and how that wonderful, serene environment didn't prepare me one bit to beat down someone who would had no compunction about taking me down.
Maybe I should have gone to Shoot Wrestling or something like Krav Maga. I do know that I chose Aikido because I wanted to find peace, not learn how to be a killer like my uncles. Maybe I was wrong, but as I type this in Chicago all I'm doing is missing home and the good ol' ohana (family) back in Hawai'i I never knew the mainland could be so cold.
I'm also thinking, if this is what LEOs do every day - get spat on and just have to take it - then I think I understand that better. My respect goes out to these people. Maybe I should change and become harder. Learn a much more combative martial art. Learn how to be brutal in the face of thuggery. Adjust for conditions, I guess. And all I want to do is see the beach again
Sorry about the rant. What do you guys think?