ASHI GURUMA----TO TAME A BULLY

Reader Wil, a favorite blogger of mine from the Netherlands, recently did an interesting post on Judo. Funny how one word will open the closed doors of our memory banks. I haven't thought of Judo in over 50 years. Thanks Wil for the memory jog.

My father had studied Judo when he was in college. He was not a runt but he wasn't a large man either. Judo is excellent for the not particularly burly person as a means of self defense.

With Judo's principals, a weaker person can prevail over a stronger and larger opponent. Instead of trying to out muscle the attacker, you use his own strength and aggression to put him in an unbalanced position where your balance and quickness can subdue him. The theory and practice can be managed by anyone.

We kids never took classes, Dad just taught us what he knew. Being with out TV in those days, occasionally our evenings entertainment was to pile on Dad in a wild wrestle mania. Mom was always the first to back out of the pile as she had always been in poor health but she still gave it a try.

As she withdrew to the couch to watch, she would then subdue our toy Fox Terrier Susie, who took any battle seriously and bit who ever was on top. Have no idea why we never penned her up in another room before starting, maybe it was because she would bark nonstop regardless.

I was the baby so I pretty soon joined my mom and Susie on the couch and rooted on my two brothers. Jim was three years older than I and usually next to leave the fray. Finally the last combatant would be my older brother Jack who was 10 years older than I. Jack had most male children's desire to best their father and hung in the longest. Of course he never won.

When it was over, Dad would have us practice Judo moves. See what you miss by sitting on the couch watching TV? We weren't always this scrappy. Most often we played parlor games but sometimes it was fun to let lose.

The Judo move in which I was most proficient was Ashi Guruma. Actually I just learned what it was called. Here is a link that describes the move. Basically you pulled the opponent off balance into you, cock your leg behind his knee, twist and throw him to the ground. Sorry to say, my brother Jim fell for it quite often. The playing field for Jim and I was finally level.


Sorry that is as big as I could make it.
I had a neighbor named Alan who was a year younger than I but since we went to a small school that had two grades in each room, we shared a classroom.
Alan was brilliant but not very likable. He tended to be quite arrogant about his intelligence thus he was not popular with the anyone, particularly the boys. They in turn gave him a pretty rough time. Not physically, though he was sometimes teased, but even worse than the teasing, he was often blatantly ignored come recess. He had no friends.
To compensate, when Alan came home from school, he would torment and dominate a much younger neighbor boy who lived on the other side of me. Tommy was small and a perfect foil to boost Alan's ego.

I saw Alan one day pushing Tommy to the ground, stepping on his hand and making him cry. I yelled at Alan, stopped the attack and walked Tommy home. He was still crying as he told me that he was afraid to come out of the house any more and was too ashamed to tell his parents.
Over confident little me said I could help and I made Tommy my Judo disciple. We practiced daily till he mastered Ashi Guruma with confidence and ease. That was all we worked on since it was my speciality and I thought that would be enough to tame Alan.

Actually, it turned out to be exactly enough. The next time Alan approached Tommy to push him around, Alan was quite surprised to find himself suddenly on his back with an equally surprised but grinning Tommy standing over him. Tommy was no longer afraid to leave his house.

Sadly I wasn't smart enough then to realize what the progression might be for Tommy. Alan had become a bully to a weaker child because he was being ostracised at school. Tommy was to soon take a similar path as he gloried in his new advantage and power.
It wasn't long before I saw Tommy pitching his play mates on the ground at school and standing smugly over the fallen former friend. The bullied had become the bully. I was feeling quite Dr. Frankenstein'ish. What had I done? By taming one bully I had helped to created another.
It took a lot of talking to bring Tommy down off his power high but he eventually settled down. Think my best selling point against his being a bully was that as long as he kept pushing kids around, he would eventually have no one to play with. He was basically a good kid, he just got caught up with the power.
I saw him again in 2009, almost 50 years after the fact, and he had no recollection of the events. Strange what we remember but also forget. 
Bullying is becoming epidemic these days. Movies like “Mean Girl” almost glorify the act. Though I was never bullied as a youngster myself, I did have the misfortune of marrying a proud, self proclaimed, childhood bully. They do age but don't necessarily grow up.
I do hope we can stop this growing trend. Surely we are better than this.

Were you or your kids ever bullied??