Hello guys

So there's a reason why I didn't post at all yesterday.
Those on the discord already know, but I had injured my arm and my fingers in a bid to protect a kid who was about to be attacked by another person with a long aluminum rod.

Now you're probably screaming across the screen at me to hit the brakes and tell you exactly how it happened, because this obviously doesn't happen to someone everyday (if it did, you have a very concerning life)

So I went to our dojo a bit earlier to mentor/train a few younger ranked students as a part of training for the next degree black belt. Now we do work with weapons in our dojo; we use mainly things like bo staves and short sticks (tambo). However, we do use other materials from time to time, such as aluminum or PVC pipe plastic, which can cause more harm. If you are into this side of martial arts, I suggest padding these weapons with some kind of softer-impact material (duct tape and Styrofoam are pretty good at mitigating the risk with working with these weapons).

Anyways, I digress. Two of our students using the aluminum staves started getting over an argument over how a technique should've been properly done, and so they demonstrated.... against each other. Now, as you can tell, it's probably NOT the best idea, especially if you don't know the technique well enough. One kid gets hit pretty hard on his knee by accident, which led him into a frenzy. He's this pretty well-built, kinda chubby high school sophomore, so he swings pretty hard. I had to get up from my chair, push the guy being chased away, and ate the aluminum rod's attack with my elbow in order to protect it from hitting mine and the victim's face.

This is NOT a good idea. You want to ideally use the palm of your hand, since it's the most well-equipped to deal with things like these, but at the moment, I couldn't really think of much to do, since as soon as I was hit on the elbow, i had to disarm the other person, which led to my fingers being whacked a good number of times. In the end, i did the disarm, safely shoulder-pinned the angry guy, and got him a nice wet towel and a glass of water.

I couldn't really see where I was going at all, and I couldn't see the direction in which I was throwing the staff. When I go into crisis mode, normally the best thing is to NOT stand directly behind me

Anyways, there was a senior instructor who was there-- she caught the stick and helped the child calm down.


Had I not intervened in time, the other child may have ended up with severe injury. This is a warning story that you never know exactly what to expect. You must always be cool-headed, and ready for anything, so that when the time comes to act, you act FAST.

Sorry for such a serious story... hopefully I can find something more light-hearted eventually


Peace out,
RedFlame2112