Chapter 9: Nonviolent Alternatives ..................................... 60
Chapter 10: Karate Manners .................................................... 67
Chapter 11: How to Choose a Karate School. ................... 71
Chapter 12: Fighting The Invisible Enemy ........................ 73
Chapter 13: The New Warrior-Mastering The Art of Budo ............................................................ 77
A Special Note to the Young Reader From the Author ..... 81
AMessage to Parents, Teachers, and Counselors ............. 82
There's a Fight Going On
You are out on the playground after school when you hear some kids yelling. As you run over to see what is happening, Robbie, one of your classmates, and a good friend, runs past you looking scared. You reach a group of kids standing at the far edge of the school playground, out of sight of any teacher's view.
Someone is crying.
You move to the front of the group. You see Tom, your best friend, on the ground. There is blood on his face. His glasses lay broken beside him. Vinnie, the school bully, is on top of Tom holding him down. Martha, Tom's sister, is standing near them crying.
You remember at lunch earlier that day Vinnie pushed ahead of you and Tom in the food line. Tom asked him politely not to do that. Vinnie then pushed Tom and said that he would get him for "mouthing off."
You see your best friend lying there hurt and you wish you could do something to stop the fight. You feel helpless. As you start to move forward to do something, you suddenly feel a pain in your side. Eddie, Vinnie's best buddy, has just elbowed you and is now giving you a challenging glare.
You see that Vinnie is about to hit Tom again. Your stomach starts to hurt as you feel the pain Tom is experiencing. Your side aches also from where Eddie hit you. What can you do?
You can run away like Robbie. You also feel like crying, but you fight to hold back the tears of hurt, anger and frustration. If you try to stop the fight Eddie will probably beat you up. He has threatened to do so in the past and is now waiting for the chance. You feel that your choices are not so great.
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Have you ever felt like this? Have you ever been picked on by a bully and felt angry and helpless? Have you ever had to run away from a bully and felt ashamed? This happens every day at most schools and in the community. It also happens at home between brothers and sisters. Most of you don't have many choices in coping with conflict. Most young people can only run away or stand and fight, which usually means that the person getting picked on by the bully gets beaten up. This means that you can get hurt physically if you try to fight against a bully or you can feel hurt emotionally if you run away.
Either way you lose.
The title of this book, Facing the Double-Edged Sword, was chosen because a double-edged sword has two sharp sides and can cut or hurt someone either way it is used. This idea of the double-edged sword is like what can happen to you if you are picked on by a bully -
you can either fight or run away. These
two choices are not helpful in solving the problem. In "Facing the Double-Edged Sword" you will need to make more intelligent choices in dealing with conflict. This is what this book is all about- how you can learn to successfully handle conflict in nonhurtful, nonviolent ways.
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INTRODUCTION
Hello. I am Chief Instructor Sensei (sen-say) Webster-Doyle. Sensei means teacher. I teach a certain kind of Karate called Take Nami Do (tah-kay na-me doe). I want to show you how you can handle a situation like the one you just read about in more creative ways than running away or getting beat up by someone like Vinnie. I have taught Karate for almost thirty years and have never forgotten what it was like when I was a kid growing up. I used to get beaten up a lot then. I was always so scared. There was one bully who used to pick on me a lot, and I teach Karate to kids now because I don't want you to be hurt like I was.
My style of Karate, Take Nami Do, is similar to most other Japanese styles in lessons about self-defense. What is different about what I do is that I teach you about yourself, and teach you how to stop a fight before it happens. I want to also teach you about violence -what it is and where it coines from -so that when you grow up, you will be a more peaceful adult.
I have written this book to offer you a chance to understand that there is more to a Martial Art like Karate than the physical self-defense skills you have seen on television, in the movies, or perhaps in your own Karate class. Studying self-defense skills can certainly help.you feel confident if someone ever wants to fight with you. But Karate is much more than this.
Karate has psychological skills. Psychology means understanding the "why" and "how" of a person. So, with regard to Karate, it means understanding why you want to take Karate and how Karate will help you feel happier about your life. I'll bet there are times in your life when you've wished you could be happier 5
about a lot of things. Well, I think that learning how to use your mind (psychology) to get out of a fight before it happens can make you happier in your life. In this book I talk about the many ways you can do this.
I am interested in helping young people stop conflict without hurting themselves or other people. I think it is important to help you understand your mind, so that you can see how it works, how sometimes people's minds make them feel unhappy, and even violent. The truth is that the mind is far more powerful than the fist or the foot.
This book will not teach you the self-defense skills of blocking, punching, kicking, and striking. These should be learned at a proper Karate school with a qualified teacher. We feel it is dangerous to show you how to fight just from a book. What we do want to show you is just as important and also lots of fun.
Learning how to defend yourself is only a small part of Karate.
Most important, Karate teaches you how not to get into a fight. It teaches you how to be gentle. I have students just like you who really don't like to fight but who have felt that fighting was their only choice. Maybe you wear glasses and a bully calls you "four eyes." Maybe your build is small, and other kids pick on you. Maybe you're not that great at sports, and you're looking for something you can feel good at. Maybe you're a girl and you have been told that you're not as strong as a boy. Maybe you're just plain tired of being scared of somebody, and you're looking for something that will give you confidence. You've come to the right place.
I have written this book to help you understand yourself, which is the most important thing Karate can do for you.
