Student knocking out a bully?

[Groinstrike]

I agree with masterpain, if he or she had exhausted all other avenues of deescalation and escape, then good on the student.

[joesteph]

Knocking someone out is dangerous. It likely means that your student has gone too far. The bully came at your student, who kicked him in the solar plexus? Knocked the wind right out of him, and he might have lost his lunch where he went down. The bully threw--or telegraphed--a punch, and your student popped him right in the nose? Might be bloodied, might even be broken, but I doubt there's a concussion.

Mine avoids punching range like the plague, because hanging out in punching range, in the context of where it was developed, is an open invitation to be stabbed by a blade you never knew they had . . .

Dodging to the side, and using the momentum to power a spin kick might be a more probable response. If the attacker were to move in a way that put their head into such a kick, a knockout is actually not unlikely.

We have a couple of takedown/throws, too. Ours tend to have a very high probability of slamming the attacker down in such a way that the back of their skull takes the brunt of the impact with the ground. . . .

This sounds more like the student isn't being attacked on school grounds, Justice, so I would put this in with being attacked in a bar, parking lot, or some other place where Neanderthals prey on Homo Sapiens. I'm not against it if it's against that kind of creature, but it doesn't fit the 13-yr-olds presented for discussion, the bully resorting to words and pushing.

But that example isn't even unique. What if the kid is learning Judo or Aikido? The bully gives him trouble, and the kid throws him. The bully doesn't know how to breakfall and goes "splat" onto his back instead and spends the next few minutes trying to get his ability to breathe back. That can be an effective knockout, and the kid was using a "peaceful" technique.

I was thinking of it much more literally, Justice, as that the bully's knocked unconscious. If someone does hit his head in the snapping motion you're referring to, hopefully in a bullying situation between kids there's no concussion. Tossing him on his rear end and having him whack his head aren't going to be interpreted equally.

[JusticeZero]

I was thinking of it much more literally as that the bully's knocked unconscious.

And we don't necessarily have that information. The common usage of "knocked out" seems to tend to be a pretty broad definition of pretty much anything that would keep someone down past a ten count.

And you gave a couple of scenarios, which included responses that were relatively specific to your curriculum. Honestly, my first thought of how to respond to being given a hard shove from the front involves a low flexibility spinning roundhouse kick to the side of the neck, and it's a pretty basic response that isn't even especially combative.

[Lupin1]

I'm not a martial arts instructor, but I am a 2nd grade teacher, and if one of my students was being severely bullied by another student and defended himself, I'd be proud of him. I'd say "you shouldn't have responded with violence" mostly to be politically correct and because that's what's expected of teachers nowerdays, but I'd give him a pat on the back, as well. Then again, I tend to be more from the old-fashioned school of thought that says kids should climb trees and skin their knees and get into scuffles.

[bushido_man96]

I chose "other," and here is why. Every situation is different, and I would need to know the circumstances that led up to the "knockout" before passing judgement on the kid.

Now, I've been bullied in the past, and I wouldn't want anyone else to go through that. I also plan to teach my children that if they have to fight, and it has to be a good reason, then they should do so, and I would take care of any reprimand from the teachers or school. No one should put with a bully. And by trying to ignore the behavior, or avoid it, then I think we end up enabling the behavior in the end.

I don't condone fighting, and will tell my students, and children, such. However, there are times when it can't be avoided, and it must be dealt with. At that time, it becomes a learning experience for all involved.

[mal103]

Reasonable force should be the key thing here, a bit of messing about should not be met with a knockout.

There are plenty of people that have been killed by falling after a knockout punch.

On the other hand I know what it's like to be bullied, even though most of it is verbal it can be viewed as a type of attack so a self defence response should be justified - so long as it was proportionate to the attack.

Depending on the level of the student then maybe an arm lock and "gentle" take down would have been more appropriate. All that needed to happen was a message to the bully to not mess with him anymore - hopefully they may have seen it as a message to stop bullying.

[bushido_man96]

When was the last time you tried to be "gentle" in a fight or confrontation? Did it work well?

[mal103]

When was the last time you tried to be "gentle" in a fight or confrontation? Did it work well?

I was trying to mean "not smashing their head on the ground", I was thinking that if the student was skilled then they could grab/twist/control but then using the control to not inflict serious damage.

The last fight that I was caught up in was before I started Karate, it ended up 3 on 3, one of my mates got knocked to the ground, another met his match so they just exchanged punches until giving up, the chap that squared up to me was twisted around onto his knees before he knew what happened, but not hurt.

[JusticeZero]

it ended up 3 on 3,

one of my mates got knocked to the ground,

another met his match so they just exchanged punches until giving up,

the chap that squared up to me was twisted around onto his knees before he knew what happened, but not hurt.

Which meant that you were tied up and unable to help keep your two mates out of trouble. Not an unreasonable response I know, but if your friend who got knocked down started getting punted like a football, what would you have done with the guy you were holding?

It was a pretty good response, but if you came in throttling yourself back to only doing something gentle, that could have been easily used against you, and things could have gone very badly, very fast. An opening comes up to win the fight decisively, but you don't take it because you don't want to hurt him.. alas, you might not get another good opening for anything effective.

Do people in the UK consider fighting to be a socially acceptable form of recreation or something? I regularly hear statements expressed from that part of the world which seem exceedingly bizarre; they conflict with the core fundamentals of what I train as regards the entire purpose and role of combat.

[bushido_man96]

JusticeZero hits on the points I am getting at. Fighting is so random and chaotic that its tough to go in with the mindset to just control someone and not hurt them, when that same person probably has his sights set on hurting you badly.