358 - Mailbox: “Do you want to get stabbed up?”
A female trainee describes a group knife threat after a night out in Cheltenham
Copyright © 2023 by Jeth Randolph
All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the author.
Many thanks to (name removed- who attended a workshop I ran a couple of years back for a group of local women) for emailing me to share this experience she had.
Here she describes being set on in a park in Cheltenham late last year while with friends, one of whom was pregnant, returning home from a Restaurant.
(My comments are in brackets, feel free to leave your own below– Jeth)
Hi Jeth,
I hope you are well.
I have intermittently been thinking about recording you the event I told you about and I decided to type it up for now!
I will see you at a workshop sometime soon!
All the best,
(name removed / all other names are changed).
We were walking towards my car which I had parked at Winston Churchill Memorial Park with Simon, Hannah, and Sarah after a meal for Simon’s birthday.
Simon and Hannah are a couple and Hannah Is about 6 months pregnant.
This was in September, and it was dark outside.
As we approached the entrance of Winston Churchill Park, I said to them,
“Are we going to go in there?”
I wasn’t fully aware at the time, but I had a sense that something did not feel right.
(Trusting intuition – it would be interesting to analyse what that sense was that you felt, whether it was just a park at night or perhaps some other, more specific thing that you picked up on.
When something doesn’t feel right, listen to it.
There’s nearly always a social pressure to ignore it, ignore that rather than a subconscious warning bell, you have it for a reason.)
I laughed it off as the car was through the park. I don’t know why I said that.
As we were walking through the park and past a bench, a boy on the bench sat with some girls said,
“What an ugly looking group of friends”
Some of us laughed or didn’t speak and we carried on walking
Simon called back to him:
“Not an ugly as your ratley mum’
(Not the best move. Every moment spent not replying and moving towards an exit is a solid investment.
And then, as if on cue…)
The boy on the bench got up and started coming towards us shouting as we carried on walking.
I stayed close as the other three walked on.
Suddenly there were lots of boys who had come to join, and they were running towards us.
I grabbed one of the boys’ clothes and pinned him into a bush - using the elbow pin and push idea that you showed me.
A girl came over and tried to plead with the boy to stop.
There were a lot of people coming and I grabbed another guy to stop them getting towards my friends.
However, there were more of them, who had been hanging in different parts of the park and had now all joined together and were egging each other on to hurt Simon.
(Some want to see a stabbing/ violence. They enjoy it. It conforms to degenerate culture fashion, it’s normalized.)
I tried to hold some of them back and Hannah and I said that she is pregnant and to leave them alone. The boys said they only wanted to beat up Simon.
(The public “mum” comment is in the process of being punished.)
Simon got hit on the side on the head.
(This is an opening salvo to see if he will respond and try and defend himself. With numbers and with female company, they will be secure in pushing him to try and fight and then this will in turn be punished with a group beating or worse.
If this was a small pair or group of non-threatening males rather than mixed, it would have been far worse and even faster.
A visible humiliation for status in front of the peer group is what is being sought.)
A boy with a balaclava on said “Do you want to get stabbed up” and held or pretended to hold something under his clothes.
(It’s a posture learned from fashion culture. Probably a poseur living the roadman fantasy.
A real gang threat over selling space would go faster and less verbally. This is still a threat to kill whether there is a knife in reality or not.
How can you be sure?
The weapon tells alone might be enough for pre-emption for a trained person – only the risk of escalation involving multiple assailants is a brake. As is the presence of a pregnant partner - something for the “just hit him” crowd to consider.
And all the guys know it.)
The boys said just leave the park and the girls who knew them carried on persuading them to leave the situation and apologised to us.
(This is not a given these days for girlfriends to be peacemakers. Rather females may be the instigators of trouble or egg on proxy males to perform violence.)
Simon and Hannah later said that Hannah would not let go on Simon’s hand. He had wanted and told her to but she has felt like it would protect him as if she had let go, the boys would have been able to get to him and he would have got beaten up. Sarah also did not leave Hannah’s side to protect her.
(Holding back here was a positive, it can also be a well-intentioned threat to your ability to defend yourself if your “protector” is in the way of your responses.)
We left the park, and everyone was okay.
(This was very lucky as some situations would follow you, determined to harm. This seems like a poseur territory display by local smooth brains.)
Some things I noticed:
- you never know how many people there are even if it looks like one person, they may have others near by.
(This is a huge deal. Some will be shocked at how a crowd can gather fast and for not one member of that crowd to be wishing for anything other than watching someone get beaten or stabbed. There are other articles with examples on the journal regarding the modern desire to film violence for social media clout.
I always assume that no one will come to my aid if I were set on by teenagers or whoever.
I know my beating will be filmed and shared though.)
- Not to react to something anyone says as it could be for you to bite and an excuse to start a fight
(This is EXACTLY what it is. They need to goad a reaction from you to create the perceived group justification of a disrespect that will warrant severe punishment.
“He had it comin’, yo!” )
- Pinning is effective if you are strong and able to hold someone against something.
(Elbow pinning is very useful in that it is possible for a weaker person using good structure to use body weight and momentarily hinder the arm movement of an aggressor to buy a brief window for some other option. I say hinder NOT restrain or immobilise here.
Here it allowed a smaller woman to stiff arm push a larger male into a bush and disrupt access to her friend. )
- women can protect men, if the males are set on only attacking men, I guess this cannot be assumed.
(For women and smaller men, the idea of hindering and deflecting attacks are more realistic against a larger aggressor than the bullshit fantasy that you will overpower them with a technique.
You cannot ever assume you will be able to reason your way to defending yourself or someone else either. Indeed, like some countries, certain people are just “non-agreement capable”.
This was a smart move for you to make rather than standing in front or attempting to fight directly.
Having made any physical contact with an aggressor in a situation like this, you must be willing to fully fight them as this will also be seen as a justification for serious disrespect punishment focused now, on you.
Well done and I’m glad you guys were ok.
Feel free to drop in to a workshop, will be good to see you,
Jeth)
Notes:
Wearing balaclavas is very much a roadman fashion trend with some aspiring teenage idiots lately.
It is legal to wear one and is now common. I believe, it’s illegal to refuse to remove it when told to by police and also, may also be potentially used as evidence of intent in certain crimes like burglary. Several readers are/ were cops, so maybe someone more knowledgeable can correct me here?
The pretence of medical mask fashion will, I’m sure, be back in “lock step” at some point and that also seems to be mirrored weirdly, by the the intimidating wearing of masks in youth culture – whatever that is.
Wearing of masks is common in BS drill videos and the like and this has done its job of seeping into the consciousness, worldview, and mindset of the impressionable listener.
Really fascinating account, and for me personally I find it interesting how my perspective has evolved. Previously, I would have been very shocked that a retort, even an ill-advised one, would elicit such a response, whereas now I am much more aware of how unwise such action could be.
This could have gone in quite a number of different ways, couldn’t it, and I find myself particularly lingering on the fact that the elbow pin and the grabbing of another lad worked and without repercussions in this instance. You would think it could be the trigger to violence towards this woman or a renewed desire to attack Simon. Or were these lads more in the role of egging on/observing?
Much to ponder.