Boxing may be about to make a return in schools according to this article
My personal view is: Why should the teachers miss out on this?
Who hasn't wanted to beat the hell out of some cheeky parent who is happy to dole out abuse on the phone but might get their comeuppance in the Staffring?
I can just see it now. Mr Blunt is the compere:
"Ladies, Gentlemen and Parents! Welcome to a packed staffroom tonight. In the near corner we've got Mr. Chalk, looking wiry and nimble in those fetching red trunks...(cheers)
His opponent in the far corner; the alleged father of Wayne Scroggins! (Boos) He looks like he's put in plenty of training at the Dog and Partridge."
Seconds away, Round One! Ding-a-ling-a-ling..."
What Head of Department hasn't wanted five minutes in the ring with some whining, useless teacher who is forever pestering them with complaints about Kyle and Shane, but never does anything to help themselves?
Wouldn't you like to let that Supply Teacher know that actually a vague 'sorry' and a shrug of the shoulders before leaving promptly at three pm really wasn't good enough, when they'd left your classroom looking like a Council Refuse Tip and allowed the brats to steal half your equipment?
Boxing in Schools? Bring it on! (But only for the over 18s)
10 comments:
I'm not sure i'd want to step in the ring with some of the parents i've seen. I don't have, well, any fighting experience thanks, and i've met parents who regularly batter people in pubs/their wives/their kids. One of the ones i'm thinking of right now was from a family of travellers and built like an orangutan.
I'm all for it.It's about time we had another Frank Bruno.
I don't want to punch them. I want to take them out with a sniper rifle.
Will you have to delete that?
I'm not sure I like the sound of this. Self-defence classes are one thing; things like how to break a hold, disarm someone who's coming at you with a knife, things that could help you avoid becoming a victim of crime. I could even live with martial-arts as an alternative to team sports in PE, but boxing doesn't have enough rules for my liking.
I have a book entitled Kill or Get Killed by a Lt. Col. Rex Applegate of the US Special Forces, who trained American GIs in unarmed - and armed - combat for WW2 and Korea.
(He has one section on The House of Horrors, a purpose-built establishment for training soldiers and law-enforcement officers in taking out a variety of potentially vicious opponents lurking in particular niches of the building or waiting in ambush. Sounds a bit like St Jude's, actually.)
The Publisher's Foreward says this, remember, this was written during the 1950s.
"The American soldier who meets [a Communist enemy} is forced to adapt himself to a pattern of behaviour that is foreign to his education and his religious beliefs. If he would win the fight - indeed, if he himself would survive - he must know all the dirty tricks of close combat, even as the enemy knows them. He must match them trick for trick."
The last bit is important. As Applegate himself warns, "Being able...is much different from knowing how."
Although Applegate's book is written essentially for young, fit men-at-arms and their civilian police counterparts, he does say of the style of fighting described in his book, "Experience has shown that such techniques can also be developed in the trainee who has had no previous athletic experience. His progress may be slower, but practice and a desire to learn can develop the average trainee, who possesses normal courage, physique and the will to fight, into a dangerous antagonist at close quarters."
If such instructors could be found, the above could be just the job - provided, for fairly obvious reasons, the instruction is done without the knowledge of pupils, parents, heads and assorted teaching professionals.
(The first piece of instruction is the time-honoured knee in the groin. I believe this method was taught as part of self-defence for British Army Nursing Sisters, and possibly other female service personnel, in WW2. Although more likely designed to repel advances from 'friendly' rather than enemy forces, it is no doubt effective.)
I can vouch for its effectiveness.
James: Boxing presupposes that a certain code of conduct will be observed - the wearing of gloves, the not kicking one's opponent when he's down, the below-the-belt rule. Do you have some particular reason for thinking that an opponent who is about to cause permanent nerve damage or come at you with a knife is going to consult the rule book?
Boxing is by far the best regulated of the various combat sports. A doctor has to be present at all ABA sanctioned bouts as well as a referee who has passed a proper qualification.
Some of the more fashionable martial arts have none of these precautions.
I think it's fine for kids as long as sparring helmets are worn.
I once whacked a notorious parent who came into school uninvited and started gobbing off at me. He went on and on and became more and more abusive, pointing his finger and threatening what he was going to do.
Eventually I just flipped, punched him in the guts and wellied him on the jaw with my knee as he folded up.
I managed to get away with it (despite several witnesses and total lack of Union or SMT support.) I told the Police that he'd attacked me and the CPS wouldn't prosecute.
I wouldn't do it again as it was pretty stressful waiting to find out what was going to happen to me. I certainly learnt who my friends were.
I clobbered a parent once but it was outside school. He had had a couple of drinks and got leery, (I'd had loads of problems with his awful son)
He'd made a few comments which I'd ignored and I'd decided to leave but he pushed me just as I went through the door.
I just snapped I'm afraid to say and punched him twice. I was a bit lucky and he went down like a sack of spuds. I s**t myself for about a week thinking the Police were going to turn up on my doorstep or even worse, at school, but nothing ever happened. (His horrible child never got any better though)
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