Louie has been training in my family and Junior classes for about a year. A better brought up, nicer, more polite boy you couldn’t wish to meet. He is in his second year at senior school.
Louie didn’t tell me about the following incident, his Dad did. Louie was too shy. When I approached him he did talk to me though and together with his Dad Louie wrote this short piece:
It was lunchtime when I saw one of my friends in the distance on the main field of the school playground.
He was surrounded by some bigger lads that I had seen before, but didn’t know too well.
The next thing I saw was that my friend had been pushed. Straight away I knew that he was being bullied, so I began to run over to see if I could help. Before I got there one of the bullies had punched him in the stomach and he crumpled to the ground.
I felt a combination of fear and anger. Fear because I was about to rush into a confrontation and anger that my friend had been hurt. My Systema breathing started immediately to calm and relax myself.
I shouted ‘enough!’ to them to try and get them to stop. One of them came to try and push me away but they weren’t able to get much power into their push because I had already started to soften my body just like Matt had taught me. He kept trying to push me but his pushes kept slipping off as I moved my body with the pushes.
I was still focussed on reaching my friend, so the next time he pushed, I moved my body to flow with it and stepped in and countered with a push of my own, using his push against him, which sent him off balance and out of my way.
The main bully saw this and also began to move away. My friend had begun to get back to his feet and I asked him if he was ok.
I now realised that all of the bullies had gone away and it felt great to have saved my friend thanks to Systema.
Louie aged 12.
As they say all it takes for bad to prevail is for good people to stand by and do nothing. Louie didn’t just stand by.
I thank Louie for the great example of how Systema can be used to confront bullying. Without undue damage to himself or anyone else, Louie acted in an effective and proportionate way with strength, courage and humility.
Junior classes run on Monday early evening and Family classes on Saturday mornings from 9am.
At classes children learn much more than just the physical skill of how to look after themselves or others.
The unique drills and practice of Systema teach them how to be calm, stable, strong and resilient in life, not just in an altercation.
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