the crisis team

sorry lads, no pictures

just the end of a, erm, long day of retraining for my school's 'crisis' team.
since we have kids that range from little to 6'10''; from feather weight to heavy
weight...we all get together at the beginning of the year--four of us from the high
school section of our lower/middle/high school and practice shite moves bound
by libilities and codes, that have become ordained as safety maneuvers to restrain
giant kids whilst being watched by cctv.

obviously i can't say the name of my school. but i can say that if it weren't for
the fact that the four of us just happen to have varied enough backgrounds
the moves just wouldn't be enough...said another way, we have to MAKE the moves work:

-one guy's and ex'boxer and ex'wrestler
-another's a giant personal trainer that has broken up loads of fights
-my mate from years back has fencing/tkd/and a handful of real fights and fights
that he's broken up...we both worked security at the same job
-myself

anyway, it was loads of fun and we all laughed through the whole thing--especially since
our instructor had no fight experience. not meant to sound as bad as it does...all involved
are really great people. but every time i tried to test my guys and make it static, i was
told to not do this so that the moves could be learned--by doing them still on compliant people.
uhm...and never moving beyond that...uhm. anyway, welcome to the american justice system.
in the end, what i took out of it is that all must look grotesquely tame and gentle, with retreating
gestures made obvious...or said another way.

WE HAVE TO TRY AND NOT REALLY DO ENOUGH, SO THAT INCIDENTS CAN TAKE FOREVER AND
LOADS OF STAFF CAN GET HURT AND STUDENTS CAN APPEAR STRONGER AND SCARIER TO THEIR
MATES...THEREBY ENCOURAGING MORE LIKE-BEHAVIOR.



before joining the 'crisis' team, i've gently [enough] put down loads of big kids in ways that they never bothered me again, or complained, etc... i guess i should be greatful these incidents were outside and away from the cameras

it was LOADS OF FUN but very silly...and i so wanted to turn it into a giant RBSD class

The justice system in relation to handling violence in institutions is simple. You'd think they were phobic of anything even resembling violence. Everything has to look nice. So nice in fact that let's take all the violence out of the violence. It's actually a duct-tape solution based on compensating for ineffectiveness and inefficiency with manpower and time. Attempting to clog it all up with a giant ball of gum. In actual fact I think people designing these ideas should quit being half-assing idiots and just go all the way. Just hire a whole team of sumos wearing armored pillow suits and just have them group hug all altercations away. Make the suits pink bunny costumes for extra effect for the cameras.

At some points I've thought of self defense as essentially illegal, and that as it was already a crime, just being the most effective criminal at it I could be, hell they seem to get away with it most of the time too. In reality though, it's all PR. To the ninja, the enemy is always watching and listening.

The execution of the crisis team type stuff might be abysmal in the context of good violence, but maybe there are other angles of approach to make it look nice?

A line from the movie "wag the dog" has stuck by me; "It's not what it is (that matters), it's what it looks like." I'm sure some of the stuff in that stuff will look nasty if applied nastily. But there might be nasty stuff that looks nice if applied sneakily. You know, to get the educational message across. Maybe various dirty moves meant to go unnoticed by the referee in boxing and so on is a place to start, or at least check out.

RichB said///
In actual fact I think people designing these ideas should quit being half-assing idiots and just go all the way. Just hire a whole team of sumos wearing armored pillow suits and just have them group hug all altercations away. Make the suits pink bunny costumes for extra effect for the cameras.

ha ha ha. i'll just bet they'll like the idea, and it's more honest. i'd sort of prefer it