This article is part of a larger effort by mixedmartialarts.com to understand what martial arts work best, not by looking at bouts in the arena, but by examining what happens outside the arena, on the street. Check out more stories on:
•Stop Bullying
•Martial Arts on The Street
•Style vs. Style
You have probably watched street fights online, maybe seen a few for real too. They virtually always unfold in the same way; it’s characteristically painful to watch if you know what you’re doing, as they are messy, with technique near non-existent. The following altercation, though, is different … this time someone tried to bully The MMA Kid.
A young man wearing a black t-shirt can be seen walking towards a kid in red and shoving him, twice. The fact that the kid in black asked his friends to record the altercation beforehand clearly demonstrates that it’s a bullying situation. Fortunately for the universe, and unfortunately for the bully, the kid in the red t-shirt is having none of it.
MMA welterweight GOAT Georges St-Pierre has been open about how he was subject to terrible bullying, until he began to study Kyokushin karate. This is what it might have looked like if GSP had known MMA back then.
What Happened
The two square off, and the kid in red throws a straight right hand that lands, and follows up with a textbook switch head kick that lands, too. The sequence that follows is INSANE …
The MMA-trained kid lands a straight, takes the bully down with a body-lock/scissor sweep combo, and mounts him. He then unleashes a BARRAGE of hard punches that stun the bully, before taking his back and going for a beautiful armbar! All of that in mere seconds.
The bully doesn’t tap but can’t move either; he’s done. Two nearby kids eventually break up the altercation.
LINK
The student, a 12-year-old, had been training for about three years, and was a member of the kids’ competition team at Miami WMB Training Center under brilliant, brilliant coach Javill Byron. The bullying had been going on for an extended period of time. The coach had been informed about the bullying beforehand, and trains his students in how to deal with it, as he detailed in an interview with Ruben Alvarez for We Love BJJ.
What to do if You Are Being Bullied
1. Confidently communicate with the person doing the bullying (the coach doesn’t use the term “bully” for children) that you don’t like what’s going on and please stop.
2. Tell a trusted adult what is going on. Examples are a fight coach, a police officer, a principal, a teacher, etc.
3. Once you have exhausted the options of communication with the person doing the bullying, and have communication with a trusted adult about what is happening, then you have to:
A. Defend yourself;
B. Get yourself to safety; and,
C. Tell someone what you’ve done.
That is exactly what the young man did. He got his back against the wall so no one could attack him from behind, and then went home and told his parents, who told his coach.
While the coach was not proud that his student was forced to fight, he was proud at the restraint he showed, in holding the aggressor with the armbar, but not breaking the limb, which could have happened in a split second.
The coach also expressed concern that the video went viral, and said that the young man wanted to shake hands with the aggressor, and talk it out, figure out what went wrong, so there are no further issues. He even hopes they can become friends.
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