As seen in the film Wargames.
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The main advantage of aikido over boxing is it doesn’t leave the student with a reflexive impulse to punch somebody in a real or imagined crisis
Once there is punching going on, it can be hard to sort out who started it or who deserved it 
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I thought so too, which is why I was sad there were no aikido instructors in the area.
To my pleasant surprise, I’m impressed with the level of training the instructor is putting into ducking, weaving, slipping, and blocking. He has also been consistently and utterly clear: outside the ring, none of his students are allowed to throw the first punch.
ETA: I’m also pretty impressed with the instructor’s temperament. He’s a middle-aged guy who looks tough as nails, and exudes a solid presence. You’re not afraid of him, but you know you’re not going to mess with him. But with the boy, he’s gentle and patient, and makes sure to give at least four or five compliments before any criticism or correction.
So it might not be ideal, but I’m impressed with how it’s going so far.
edit: fix brain autocorrect. slip, not slide. 
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I learned all this from The Maltese Falcon. Wish I had seen it in high school, although it’s been useful in workplace bullying. see also: Rockford files.
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“The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.” Would that more people knew that back in 2016.
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He sounds like a really good teacher, which is often much more important than the style. For me, learning how to take a punch in a supportive safe social environment was a helpful way of inoculating myself from a fear of being beat up. Boxing typically has more ingrained physical conditioning than aikido, which is an excellent lifelong habit to get into for a young one. I think you made a good call.
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Yeah… I used to reply to my bullies when they would call me a freak, etc., with, “What is your basis for comparison?” Because they didn’t understand this, they would become angrier and bully further, so I did not continue with that reasoning.
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That’s entirely down to the trainer/school. God knows I’ve met my share of assholes who had trained in this or that, and it was always about who had trained them initially. Not whatever martial art or sport they were trained in.
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It really has nothing to do with anyone’s philosophy
Actions and behaviors that we practice are actions and behaviors we repeat, and they do not only come out at appropriate moments where we’ll look like the good guy afterwards
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This was my experience as well. My strategy had always been to ignore them. Then one day, surprising me as much as him, I snapped and threw the bully up against a locker with my arm on his neck. It happened so fast we both mostly walked away in embarrassment but he and his cronies never went near me again. I don’t condone escalating to violence, but it did work once.
I honestly felt bad about the encounter and doubled down on my strategy of ignoring bullies after that. Not giving them the reaction they want does dampen it a lot, but you have to do an awful lot of emotional labour to keep that going. Some are very persistent and I’m probably still scarred from it.
I learned many years later that the trauma also manifested as me bullying others lower on the pole. I didn’t even remember doing that, but as a young adult, I worked at a pizza place with someone who went to elementary school with me. Turns out I had bullied her quite badly. 
I did my best to make amends with her but she was rightfully upset.
I’m very grateful that schools now (at least where I live) take bullying extremely seriously. My 15yo nephew is the same flavour of weird kid that I was, and he’s never been bullied that we know of.
Yah, I tried that one too, with similar results. I’ve always been quick witted and had no trouble tying them in verbal knots, usually with vocabulary they didn’t know. A sort of verbal reverse bullying. It only ever made things worse so I gave up pretty quickly on that tactic. Six dollar words don’t mean much while you’re getting your face pushed into dirty snow.
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If anyone can help me with my bullies problem. Or my children’s same difficulty I would gladly give you a reward.
Real world bullies are not just disenchanted school kids, the applicability is much much wider.
The Reddit blackouts seem like a good case study for this, with Reddit in the role of the bully.
I saw quite some debate about lifting the blackouts on the subreddits, and often there were many subreddit users in favour of lifting the blackout or not having had it in the first place.
The conclusions of this study seem to suggest everyone not yielding to Reddit and sticking to the blackout might be the better strategy in the long run, causing Reddit to lose enough to diminish the bullying.
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Yep. When I was thirteen or so, I was a die-hard pacifist, and I admired people like Gandhi. What I didn’t understand about peaceful resistance is: on its own, it’s insufficient. Effective protest (peaceful or otherwise) has to disrupt business-as-usual. Gandhi didn’t just lead peaceful protests - he found ways to peacefully jam up the economics of the colonial empire, e.g. teaching striking workers how to make their own salt.
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And more applicability : this seems to me like a good underpinning for some basic educational principles for children : when they refuse to listen, and start to cry / argue / … they are in effect trying to bully or extorting you (the crying is meant to try to get you to compromise or give up). The temptation to give in as parent, is high. This seems to suggest giving in is a bad option.
Nothing really new I suppose, but for me it’s the first time I see mathematical underpinnings for this.
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More like negotiating and trying to assert what identity they can. They won’t have the development needed to make a good logical argument until they’re 12-ish, so they make use of what they have on hand.
Bullying and extortion is pretty specific, and doesn’t really apply here.
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Don’t take it too far, though, will you.
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I let it be known that TNT comes in small packages
and you better kill me if you attack me,
Bc you WILL get a package, later.
First of all, people would go look up what TNT was
and how much more boom there is than dynamite.
Twice, other people have intervened to stop the bully.
Very true, and you have to be aware that in the short term, it’s going to hurt. But bullies hate the escalation. They hate being forced to follow through, and it scares them. But I also recall that most bullies are irrational, too invested in having to prove their place in the pecking order. And it depends upon them abandoning you for easier prey.
Yeah, even at 56 I still remember being bullied on the school bus, or waiting for the school bus. I had to learn to ignore the taunts and just turn my back, accept the short-term pain of getting hit, but I was lucky enough to force them to do it in front of teachers. Or is that just the past looking prettier than it was?
I suspect it is me being too nostalgic, as I still remember my promise to myself to remember just how awful junior high and high school was.
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