There are lots of unwritten rules in sports, and people love to debate the ones of baseball more than any. Perhaps because violation of these rules leads to bench clearing brawls, or sometimes the rules even dictate such brawls. I am curious when the knowledge of this standard of violence gets institutionalized into the game. The Little League World Series is serious stuff, but unlike the big league, I have never seen someone get beaned in retaliation for a home run trot. Based on my own experiences in soccer, my guess is this is introduced in high school, but it is just a guess.
I can remember in high school soccer watching a player from our rival take a cheap shot on our star forward. As a keeper, I was on the other side of the field and still saw the blatant assault and still don’t know how the refs could have missed it. As one of the tougher guys on the team, I felt the overwhelming urge to play the role of enforcer and run to the other end and blindside the offender. I didn’t. First, I was strategic enough to realize it could cost my team the game. Second, it was really far away, and I don’t like running (goalie remember?), but more accurately it would have been so much later and after the fact, it would have been disjointed, a separate incident where I was the aggressor. But here’s my point—I felt a duty, an obligation, to stand up for my teammate. There were several other cases where I was the recipient of cheap shots as I was at other players’ feet. Occasionally I would spring up and posture as if I was going to do something. Nothing ever came of any of this; it was mostly just playing/pretending.
Given the subject matter of the martial arts, there are obviously rules of engagement and unwritten rules. One common example is when a new yellow belt or younger child is free sparring and their opponent falls down or otherwise has to stop for a second. Everyone knows you don’t kick the person on the ground. In SPORT, you let them get up, regroup, and after a nod or some other acknowledgement, you both start again. But we have had many overexcited newbies who will see an opportunity to land a shot before their opponent is completely up or reset. This is not cool. Similarly, BJJ is an activity where you are trying to choke your partner or tear their limbs off. There is still plenty of behavior that is considered mean but acceptable, and then there is the dirty stuff. While it is a contact sport with a lot of incidental contact, everyone knows the limits. In both cases, when you are mimicking actions that can serious harm someone in a real fight, nothing bush-league should be tolerated.
But while engaging in these activities, children are learning some very valuable lessons about conflict and broader social violence. As one of my favorite authors Marc MacYoung points out, social violence often comes with instructions on how to avoid it: shut up, leave now, etc. Sometimes it can be labelled an educational beat down, and social violence can be used to teach a lesson. Other times it is used to save face: two guys agree to “take it outside,” a scuffle ends with both sides being “held back” by their entourages. Regardless, while you are probably going to feel it in the morning, there is little real danger of permanent injury or death, and as such there are plenty of unwritten rules to minimize those dangers. Social violence is a very different thing than predatory violence, where someone may very well maim or try to kill you.
Many an older person can tell you of a time when they ran their mouth, got punched for it, and learned a lesson. The problem is that fighting has become so shunned in society today that kids have never been taught how to judiciously use violence, have no experience with those unwritten rules, what constitutes a fair fight (literally) and when enough is enough. They don’t understand when it is just a fight and when it is an assault (and legally, there isn’t a difference either). As a result, if kids can’t distinguish between social and predatory violence, then every little scuffle is suddenly a fight for their life. They don’t understand the rules and overreact, going way into the realm of “not cool.” A kid who is being bullied ruthlessly isn’t allowed to “have enough,” stand up for himself, and punch the other kid in the mouth. It just festers until he totally snaps and brings a gun to school. Maybe no one has taught them the grey area in between walking away and using deadly force.
Throughout history, societies have tried to find rules to govern violence. In Deuteronomy it states that if two men are fighting and one of their wives intervenes by grabbing somewhere she shouldn’t, to cut off her hand. Harsh, but I don’t think it is as much of a commentary on patriarchy and misogyny (as most would assert) as it is instructions on social violence. They actually wrote that rule down as not cool. I am not advocating going back to biblical times or even the days of pistols at dawn. I don’t want more violence. And I don’t have answers. I am just pointing out an unintended consequence of where society has gone. When a kid gets expelled for pointing a finger gun at someone, how do we expect them to understand scaling force? I am glad that martial arts is one place kids can still learn a little something about rules of engagement, sport or otherwise, and learn the control that comes with it.
Gentry Martial Arts--the rants of a martial arts eccentric 