I don't trust

[Som-Pong]

men who don't drink or men who have never been in a fight.

(I stole this thread from the OG)

[Benwahwah]

Since I became an adult I've never been in a real fight.

I've never really seen the benefit in fighting with people, I much prefer to argue my point, and have someone come round to my way of thinking rather than getting physical. If you win a physical fight you have exerted only a brief dominance over them. Getting them to alter their views is much more satisfying if you ask me.

[Masato]

I'm with ya Ben... I am almost 100% pacifist now

- But I think the key term here is 'never'. Right or wrong, I think its good to get that out of your system at least just once. Just to know what it feels like - if anything, to avoid for later in life.

I've been a few dumb scraps and kind of glad I did. It woke me up to the reality of fighting, and how bad you suck if you have never trained anything, lol

A man who has NEVER felt this I think is not someone you want with you if shit goes down.


The drinking perhaps I can also agree with, or at least weed or something that alters the perceptions. A man who has been sober his whole life only knows one perspective

[Som-Pong]

I make sure to at least semi-regularly get into some good fisticuffs. And once again Masato is correct, key word is NEVER. Most people my age (30) who get into fights are assholes, I look for the assholes and make sure they fight me.

[Benwahwah]

You remind me of one of my IRL friends Som, if he was having a bad night he would up to town at kicking out time. He wait for someone to start on him (he used to get bullied as a kid) and then he'd mop the fucking floor with.

He'd NEVER fight a friend, and he'd NEVER start trouble himself. But if someone was stupid enough to start something with him he'd happily finish it. If I was to ever get in trouble he would be the one I would want backing me up.

[Som-Pong]

For some reason the rep button is gone. Cheers Chris!

[Masato]

That is terrifying, Ben lol

I never saw violence until my folks moved me away from the city (Vancouver) to a hick logging town up in northern BC in Grade 7.

Very first day, I go biking around to explore the neighborhood. I find the school I will go to (moved in Aug, grade 7 was to start in sept)... and there are a bunch of kids gathered around. I go up and ask what's going on, and they tell me there is gonna be a fight at 4pm. (about 5-10 minutes)

I don't understand, as I had never seen a fight in my life at this point, my brain could not comprehend. I asked them over and over, "What are you talking about" lol

One of the kids in the group was scheduled to fight someone at 4, right here, so here he was with his buddies waiting to see if his opponent shows up.

I assume 100% that this is all a chest-puffing charade, and that obviously no one is coming to actually fight.

And yet, just as I was about to leave, here comes buddy with about 5-6 of his friends, and he is marching right towards us. Kid takes off his shirt, and BAM they start fighting. HARD. On fucking gravel. (or was it blacktop? I can't remember. I do remember thinking why the fuck aren't they fighting on the grassy soccer field right over there?)

Anyways these 2 kids busted each other up pretty good. One didn't get up for a while, some blood/ripped clothes etc.

I was traumatized, lol This was normal culture here. We also had a place I learned of later, famously known as the 'Truck Scales'. It was a real truck scale, like on the side of a highway, but behind it was this obscured area where teens/youth would make a bonfire on weekends and get drunk. It was also the place where if any 2 wanted to fight this is where they would do it. Every Friday night (or so I'm told) there was at least 2-3 fights lined up. I had a friend who was known around town as a great fighter, I used to try to pick his brain to understand why he did it, I could never understand

This continued on through to Grade 12, after which I got the fuck outta Dodge.

In retrospect, it was actually a pretty honorable system; I never saw 2+ guys beat up 1... I never saw a fight go too long where anyone was seriously mangled (usually verbal tapouts). When they were done they were done, and I never saw any problems continue between the participants.

I used to think it was barbaric and dumb (this was a really hick fuckin town, lol), but its interesting how much I surprisingly fell in love with concepts of Martial Arts later in life. Now I can understand my friend better, and perhaps the need for these guys to get it out sometimes. I wonder if they thought about technique at all? I always assumed it was just pure animalism, I knew very little of Martial Arts at that time of my life.

I will never go back to that godforsaken town.

[Canuckster]

That's a cool story.

[Winnson]

I'm the opposite. I went from hick towns to cities and before moving to Winnipeg with a population of over 600000, wondering how many fights I'd need to have to establish myself in the pecking order. A scary amount I figured.

I'd been in Winnipeg about 2 weeks when some kid got in my face about something. He started poking me in the chest telling me how he was going to kick my ass so POW I flattened him.

Everybody there was like 'WTF are you doing?!' and thought I was a psysho for hitting the kid.

Where I came from, if you didn't hit a kid doing that to you, you'd get your ass kicked plain and simple.

I'm completely gentrified now.

[Som-Pong]

Hah, I am 100% percent with Winnson here. Grow up in Ostersund, 60k people. We foughtnfornfun. First day in school another kid my age started fucking with me. I clocked him. Ended up having to fight his big brother who was the schools feared TKD bbc belt. At that time I had boxed, wrestled and sodomized reindeer for like 9 000 thousand years. Mostly sodomized Reindeer, and Floridians.