Domestic violence

[Juany118]

Whoa! You are very, very wrong. It's not an 'Islamic' thing at all. It only stopped being a separate charge which meant you could plead not guilty in Italy in 1981 however these honour killings still happen several times a years. In 2006, Bruna Morito was shot six times in the face by her brother for bearing a child outside marriage. In Brazil, men could be acquitted for murdering their wives up until 1991, and there have been 800 recorded such murders in a single year. Even in 1991, a lower court ignored the ruling of the Supreme Court and acquitted Joao Lopes for the double homicide of his wife and her lover. the It happens in Christian families, Sikh, Hindu and other non religious homes. That's why I brought it up, it's not something that is happening 'over there somewhere' it's happening around us. Fathers beating daughters up for having the 'wrong' boyfriend...think interracial or inter religious relationships, think of gay people who are beaten up. Domestic abuse under another name.
No, it's not a Muslim thing, it's not them it's us too.

I think people, especially in the US get culture and religion confused. Often religion is used as an excuse for things that are part of a culture. Example there are Orthodox Jews who follow similar rules to how a woman should dress and under what circumstances she can be in public as Muslims, it's just that the clothing style is different (more European influenced) so people don't notice it. A factor in this, I believe, is how the US news sees "Muslim" practices as a topic of interest at the moment where as they will dismiss a domestic related murder by a Christian as "simply" a domestic related incident.

 

[JowGaWolf]

On the last part I wasn't referring to you, it was said at one point by someone (paraphrase) "Islam sees..."

As for the first part, the problem is that perspective/perception (psychologically) = reality. So unless a child has an opportunity to experience different perspectives, in general, the default is what they see at home. As an example one would expect that children who grow up seeing violence in their home would say "that won't be me" because as a society we see domestic violence as wrong but the statistics show us that such children are actually more likely to grow up to perpetrate some sort of abuse (physical or psychological) or enter relationships where they themselves are abused. Yes some people can break these cycles, sometimes for good sometimes for ill. My only point is to say that seems to be the exception more than the rule.

Like you say this is true when no other perspective is presented. In high school I knew a guy whose dad was a member of the KKK. Not sure what made him talk to me, but one day he told me that that I wasn't like the black people that his dad told him amount. I don't know how much the new perspective was able to change him but it definitely changed me. That was almost 30 years ago and I still remember it. Hopefully him talking to me allowed him to gain a perspective that ended his father's ability to program hate.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I think people, especially in the US get culture and religion confused. Often religion is used as an excuse for things that are part of a culture. Example there are Orthodox Jews who follow similar rules to how a woman should dress and under what circumstances she can be in public as Muslims, it's just that the clothing style is different (more European influenced) so people don't notice it. A factor in this, I believe, is how the US news sees "Muslim" practices as a topic of interest at the moment where as they will dismiss a domestic related murder by a Christian as "simply" a domestic related incident.

US news is a business and they follow stories that get a lot of commentary. Watch old footage of news from 30 years ago and compare it to what is talked about today. You will see that Local news for the most part has kept almost the same format but CNN and FOX makes use of commentary news. Local news gets straight to the point. 24 hour news tells a story and shares perspectives which are not representative of the mixture af Americans.

Now think of what news people from overseas are shown. Local US news or US commentary news like. Many Americans probably watch more commentary news than local news.

 

[Tez3]

US news is a business and they follow stories that get a lot of commentary. Watch old footage of news from 30 years ago and compare it to what is talked about today. You will see that Local news for the most part has kept almost the same format but CNN and FOX makes use of commentary news. Local news gets straight to the point. 24 hour news tells a story and shares perspectives which are not representative of the mixture af Americans.

Now think of what news people from overseas are shown. Local US news or US commentary news like. Many Americans probably watch more commentary news than local news.

I imagine how the news is carried can be quite dangerous in the way it shows certain subjects such as domestic abuse, I suppose if a high profile 'celebrity' case comes up it will be carried but I've seen on social media comments on the Johnny Depp case, so many people seem to have odd ideas about what domestic abuse is as well as what is acceptable and what is not.

 

[Juany118]

US news is a business and they follow stories that get a lot of commentary. Watch old footage of news from 30 years ago and compare it to what is talked about today. You will see that Local news for the most part has kept almost the same format but CNN and FOX makes use of commentary news. Local news gets straight to the point. 24 hour news tells a story and shares perspectives which are not representative of the mixture af Americans.

Now think of what news people from overseas are shown. Local US news or US commentary news like. Many Americans probably watch more commentary news than local news.

Yeah, I think I have a different perspective on many issues because I simply don't watch TV news. If I am on day shift I listen to NPR for almost the entire shift. On Overnights it starts with NPR and then rolls into the BBC World Service, via NPR from 12-6am. I once explained it to a co-worker as "I want to know why the rest of the world actually has an issue with us and you aren't going to get that from a US News Network because Walter Cronkite is dead."

 

[JowGaWolf]

Yeah, I think I have a different perspective on many issues because I simply don't watch TV news. If I am on day shift I listen to NPR for almost the entire shift. On Overnights it starts with NPR and then rolls into the BBC World Service, via NPR from 12-6am. I once explained it to a co-worker as "I want to know why the rest of the world actually has an issue with us and you aren't going to get that from a US News Network because Walter Cronkite is dead."

I like NPR as well. It doesn't have the "drama." or over excitement that comes with other News Network. The hosts often take a reserved tone and allow reporters and guest set the necessary tone. The hosts seem to try to stay neutral which is something that I like, instead of a host that is constantly bashing their perspective and every segment that is shown only reinforces that perspective.

 

[Juany118]

I like NPR as well. It doesn't have the "drama." or over excitement that comes with other News Network. The hosts often take a reserved tone and allow reporters and guest set the necessary tone. The hosts seem to try to stay neutral which is something that I like, instead of a host that is constantly bashing their perspective and every segment that is shown only reinforces that perspective.

Yeah, that and they will try to have not only opposing views but on news stories go deep enough that you can actually make your own opinion.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

i really cant except that as an answer. i am not saying your wrong, just that it seems that if the abuse ends in a fatality with a knife or a gun how can martial training not be important or help save someones life at that moment?
as i look at martial arts training i will acknowledge that martial arts currently does not really address the issue...but then that leads me to questions,
1...should it ?
2..why doesnt it?
3..is domestic violence something that society at large doesnt like to address and that is why it is ignored in MA ?

1. I don't think most instructors have the background and training to deal with DV in any meaningful way. The confidence the student gets from their training may help them get past the issues that keep them in the situation, but I'm not sure MA training (except with a small number of special instructors) can go much beyond that. As you say, in that moment of violence, the MA training can be helpful, excepting that most victims of DV don't take the necessary step of exiting the situation. Often, they don't exit the situation even in the moment of violence. That severely hampers the effectiveness of the physical MA training.
2. see above
3. DV is clearly something most people don't understand and/or feel uncomfortable discussing. So, it gets less attention perhaps than it should. There are groups doing very good work in the area of DV, but they tend to be a bit "below the radar". As for MA, I'm back to my answer to #1.

 

[Paul_D]

last night i happened to find out my aunt who passed away a few years ago was a victim of domestic violence and it was her husband that shot and killed her then turned the gun on himself.
she was originally married to my uncle but he had passed away of a heart attack back in the 80's she had remarried and the family had lost track of her. then someone had made contact and her and her new husband started to show up at Christmas family gatherings. i knew she had passed but i didnt know why or how until last night when i was talking to a cousin.
as an instructor of self defense i am now wondering how anything i teach could have helped someone in her situation. at the moment i feel that somehow self defense would not apply to a domestic situation but that just feels wrong and incomplete. i had a student many years ago when i was a karate teacher that was abused by her husband. we never spoke about it directly but it was known. she really changed the way i approach self defense and my own path has become more about self defense because of our interactions. but now all these years later i still feel that what i do is still not applicable to a domestic situation.
am i right ? how do others feel their martial arts training or teaching applies.

Part of self defence is teaching people to recognise the warning signs of a potentially abusive relationship.

 

[Steve]

Part of self defence is teaching people to recognise the warning signs of a potentially abusive relationship.

Which kata or form or drill teaches that? I don't mean to sound flippant. I'm just surprised by how matter of fact you sound, considering you are talking about something I've never heard of being taught in a self defence class.

 

[Paul_D]

Which kata or form or drill teaches that?

The majority of SD skills are soft skills (Coopers Colour Codes, Target Hardening, Threat & Awareness Evaluation, the list goes on….) rather than hard (physical) skills. The majority of SD courses completely ignore the soft skills (or skip over them paying little more than lip service) and focus only on the hard skills, in the most part as the courses are run by Martial Artists who only possess the hard skills, and are therefore unable to teach the soft skills.

Think of it like teaching children to cross the road. You don’t teach them to do a stuntman role over the bonnet of the car once they get hit, instead you teach them the skills to avoid getting hit in the first place. Same thing here, rather than waiting until your partner starts physically abusing you and then learning a “kata” to stop them, you learn the warning signs of a potentially abusive partner, so you can get out of the relationship before it gets to the stage where you have to defend yourself physically.

If you wish to learn what the warning signs are, then Google is your friend.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

The majority of SD skills are soft skills (Coopers Colour Codes, Target Hardening, Threat & Awareness Evaluation, the list goes on….) rather than hard (physical) skills. The majority of SD courses completely ignore the soft skills (or skip over them paying little more than lip service) and focus only on the hard skills, in the most part as the courses are run by Martial Artists who only possess the hard skills, and are therefore unable to teach the soft skills.

Think of it like teaching children to cross the road. You don’t teach them to do a stuntman role over the bonnet of the car once they get hit, instead you teach them the skills to avoid getting hit in the first place. Same thing here, rather than waiting until your partner starts physically abusing you and then learning a “kata” to stop them, you learn the warning signs of a potentially abusive partner, so you can get out of the relationship before it gets to the stage where you have to defend yourself physically.

If you wish to learn what the warning signs are, then Google is your friend.

And most of those soft skills you mention are reasonably weakly related to domestic violence.

 

[Steve]

The majority of SD skills are soft skills (Coopers Colour Codes, Target Hardening, Threat & Awareness Evaluation, the list goes on….) rather than hard (physical) skills. The majority of SD courses completely ignore the soft skills (or skip over them paying little more than lip service) and focus only on the hard skills, in the most part as the courses are run by Martial Artists who only possess the hard skills, and are therefore unable to teach the soft skills.

Think of it like teaching children to cross the road. You don’t teach them to do a stuntman role over the bonnet of the car once they get hit, instead you teach them the skills to avoid getting hit in the first place. Same thing here, rather than waiting until your partner starts physically abusing you and then learning a “kata” to stop them, you learn the warning signs of a potentially abusive partner, so you can get out of the relationship before it gets to the stage where you have to defend yourself physically.

If you wish to learn what the warning signs are, then Google is your friend.

Thanks but I guess what I was really asking is, do you think that any self defense programs actually stress skills that you describe as part of self defense? I am skeptical.

 

[Paul_D]

And most of those soft skills you mention are reasonably weakly related to domestic violence.

No, they aren't meant to be, they were given as examples that just because you don't learn a skill in a "kata" doesn't mean it's not a SD skills.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

No, they aren't meant to be, they were given as examples that just because you don't learn a skill in a "kata" doesn't mean it's not a SD skills.

I was referring to your earlier comment that SD training is applicable to DV.

Part of self defence is teaching people to recognise the warning signs of a potentially abusive relationship.

I don't think it necessarily is. It could be, but a good, well-rounded self-defense training system that covers both soft and hard skills could be quite good without ever being able to get into the dynamics of DV, which is an entirely other area of competency.

As usual, you are insisting on your definition of what is and isn't self-defense training.

 

[Paul_D]

I don't think it necessarily is. It could be, but a good, well-rounded self-defense training system that covers both soft and hard skills could be quite good without ever being able to get into the dynamics of DV, which is an entirely other area of competency.

As usual, you are insisting on your definition of what is and isn't self-defense training.

It is not my definition, it is my willingness (unlike most male martial artists) to accept the facts that different people are more likely to be the subject of different threats.

The second most common way for women to be killed violently in the UK is for them to be strangled, at home, by someone they know (partner/ex partner). I don’t see how a SD system can be “well rounded” when it completely ignores one of the most common ways for people to be killed. You are clearly happy with a system that ignores DV, as that is not your biggest area of concern SD wise.

 

[Paul_D]

Thanks but I guess what I was really asking is, do you think that any self defense programs actually stress skills that you describe as part of self defense? I am skeptical.

Ah, ok, in that case I would I say a few yes, but most no.

As most courses are run by men, they often are only able to see violence in terms of the types of violence that they and other men are likely to be the victim of.

 

[Steve]

Ah, ok, in that case I would I say a few yes, but most no.

As most courses are run by men, they often are only able to see violence in terms of the types of violence that they and other men are likely to be the victim of.

I agree with you completely that these skills are Integral self defense skills. And also that They are not commonly taught.

I've beat my head against the wall trying to suggest that They are not adequately addressed by most "self defense" instructors.

 

[Juany118]

Which kata or form or drill teaches that? I don't mean to sound flippant. I'm just surprised by how matter of fact you sound, considering you are talking about something I've never heard of being taught in a self defence class.

It's not only that. People who end up in abusive relationships see the cues, their friends tell them the cues but either because of early life conditioning them or falling "in love" before the cues become visible they make excuses and rationalize actions. They blame themselves.

It is a very different dynamic than using observation and other "soft" skills in a typical self defense scenario.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Hopefully this can provide some insight on the difficulties that people from the outside will have to deal with when dealing with someone who is at a high risk of being in and staying in a domestic violence environment.