Listening to the radio in the car the other day, an ad came on. It was an ad talking about domestic violence and a support group for it, I have to say I really wasn’t paying attention, until the tag line came out….

Now I admit I read a few articles on marketing and the like and I realise the importance of a snappy tag line to capture your audience’s attention, I was impressed at this one, but not for the reasons the company wanted (I can’t remember the name of the company or what they’re actual message was, only this line)

The line was this:

“Violence is a learned behaviour, it can be unlearned.”

How very true.

We can learn to be violent, we could it learn from our peers, our parents, the telly or even head down the martial arts club to learn it.
Some people grow up knowing it, others learn it later in life, often as a result of something external.
Unlearning it is not something we at Wild Geese are really into, after all we’ve made a name by being damn good at violence. Our particular brand of violence is being taught to security forces in Mexico, the Gambia and Paul is currently in Cuba checking on our instructors there.

But what really separates our approach to violence is that it is controlled, it is directed, it is taught to be used as a tool.
It’s not violence for violence sake. We’ve had students who have wanted to become more efficient at hurting people for the wrong reasons, people who just wanted to fight other people, these never last long in our school, they are encouraged to leave pretty quickly using whatever methods are most appropriate at the time.

However most of our regular students are just people who want to learn to defend themselves or wish to get fitter and stronger while also learning a useful skill set.
May abhor the thought of actually hurting another human being, but will happily spend hours developing a powerful punch on the bags and study the intricacies of a joint manipulations to be able to dislocate arms.

They are learning violence.

Yet in doing so they are doing something more.
They are facing the thing that most of us fear most, the fear of attack, being helpless against an aggressor. They are learning things that just may save their skins,
In doing so they develop as a human being, knowledge is power and this power shows through.

If you’ve spent multiple hours every week hitting and being hit, locking and being locked, grabbing and escaping in the martial arts classes, do you really have much to fear in the outside world?
You’ve willingly stood in front of another person and allowed them to attack you over and over so that you may practice your defences. And you’ve been the person doing the attacks and have received the defences, which often times hurts.

This power, this knowledge breeds confidence. You know you can defend yourself, you know you can take a hit and keep fighting. This confidence shines through, others especially the people most prone to violent outbursts, the bullies, can sense it.
This simple confidence can be enough to keep you safe from harm, if it doesn’t, then you at least have a punch to back it up.

Yet at the same time as learning violence, you learn respect. Having a man allow you to hit them so that you may practice technique breeds respect, especially as it’ll be your turn next.
You learn that while violence is a tool, it is a tool that should only be used when absolutely necessary, and only to the point where the job is done.
This video was passed onto me by a friend, it demonstrates my point exactly:

Violence is a learned behaviour, as is respect, come to Wild Geese and learn it.

Regards

Wild Geese
every cause but our own
http://www.wildgeesema.com/
+353 87 672 6090
info@wildgeesema.com
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