As
a child I thought bravery meant not crying, keeping your word and standing up
to bullies. I also thought it included not showing fear and not making
"silly" noises when confronted with something scary.
As
I got older I realised most of that was antiquated rubbish from the pre and
post war era, still lingering around like a bad smell from people who had their
hair clipped "when we were your age" and had possibly done national
service.
At
about 10 or 11 when I started fancying girls I thought bravery meant actually
being able to ask a girl out. I would add into that also that bravery meant not
showing any emotion AT ALL if she laughed at me. Bravery extended to continuing
to be stoic if, months later the girl in question and her friends would point
at me and giggle as I walked past.
Watching
far too much television, films and reading shed loads of violent comics and
books, I had rather moulded ideas as to what bravery could and did encompass.
Bravery
when being tortured by baddies would mean keeping your mouth shut and if
necessary, dying to protect secrets. It was only much later in life that I
realised that no matter how hard someone is, if you attack their testicles with
nut crackers or flay them alive, then they are 99% certain to confess to
everything including the assassination of JFK.
Bravery
was a long list of things but most of them came under the sub headings of
stoicism, suppression of emotion, standing up for yourself and not being afraid
to voice an opinion/ answer back.
I
considered myself Not Brave for a long list of perceived failures. I don't know
about now but in the 1980s, if you were attacked by another kid or even a
teacher, be it verbally or physically then unless you were known to be
"hard" you had to just batten down the hatches and take it until the
storm of abuse had passed.
What
a pansey!
Not
answering back as 'Errol' stole my lunch money and stamped on my foot for half
heartedly attempting to stop him. Not saying or doing anything as 'Chubs'
repeatedly punched me in the face while I simply stood there crying.
Growing
up there were a multitude of situations where I kept my mouth shut and to this
day feel resentment for doing so. My aunt remarried a rather loathsome
businessman named Barry. Very rich, very successful and a complete and utter wanker. Racist, right wing and judgmental of anyone below the 40% tax threshold,
he once told a story at the FUCKING DINNER TABLE in my house about how he'd got
an attack of the "screaming abdabs" while visiting a tyre factory and
had shit himself. He stood up to mime how he'd been waddling with his undies
full of excrement while everyone sat there and simply said nothing (or in my
aunt and mother's case, giggled appreciatively like it was the funniest thing
they'd ever heard). If I had tried to tell the same story I'd have been shouted
down or made to leave the table within the first couple of sentences. I wanted
with every fibre of my being, to plunge a fork into the ill mannered twerp's eye sockets...but of course I didn't.
What
a pansy!
Suppressing
how I felt and simply "taking it" became a part and parcel of life.
Problem was that when I got into my early twenties I then began to get a little
more stubborn. I'd argue a 'little bit' and regard that as 'better than nothing'
when I reflected on the incident later.
When
I got into my thirties my obstinacy had become obnoxious but rarely productive.
I'd stand my ground in arguments and tell people to go fuck themselves but it
was mainly because I considered that the alternative was to simply stand there
and take it and if I did that well...
What
a pansy!
I
joined the UK
When
I was in my late thirties my father told me over a beer the following opinion.
"You're
not a coward Lance, you are in fact very brave. You're prepared to stand your
ground but you just can't fight".
Later
as I took up Krav Maga and tried to adopt the philosophies about Conflict
Resolution and what the UK head Jon Bullock calls "the lest creative
option" to solve problems I realised that bravery is a lot more
complicated than simply standing still and taking a beating to prove I wasn't a
sissy.
Bravery
can and does include keeping my mouth shut. I had a row recently with a rude
man in Boots (chemists) in town. What started off as me telling him that I
didn't' like how he was speaking to two female cashiers, quickly devolved into
a Monkey Dance that would have (as Rory Miller said), looked highly impressive to a
female chimpanzee.
Bravery
to me used to mean walking down that dark, narrow lane to prove that I wasn't
going to be intimidated. Bravery was standing up to a guy (who was with about 5
of his mates) for insulting a woman I was with. Bravery was refusing to be the
one that reversed when in a narrow bit of road where only one car can pass, and
both of us took the initiative and now someone has to back up.
Bravery
can include these things but something I've found recently, partly through Krav
and partly through just being alive for 45 years, is that bravery can also be
going the 'long way round' to avoid that narrow lane. It could be NOT
confronting that racist guy who insulted my lady friend. It could also be
biting the bullet and putting the gear stick in reverse.
Bravery
includes being able to swallow pride and anger and let yourself be humiliated
if it is necessary to avoid potentially greater nastiness. A Krav Maga
instructor named Nick Maison is Expert level 3 (black belt 3rd dan equivalent) and when in
a verbal argument in London with a big guy who had queue jumped, he showed
submission and lowered eye contact. He has my respect for this as it took what Mr Miller calls the
Human Brain to be this controlled and above all lacking in ego to resolve it
this way.
Being
able to take the path of less badassery or what may feel like the 'coward's
way' is one of the bravest things you can do, if it is to resolve a situation
in a way you 100% feel is the right one, not just the easiest one.
A
quote I read years ago sums this up for me:
"A
true hero is someone who does what he does not knowing if anyone will ever find
out why he did it".
Nuff
said.
