Alpha Male Counter Tactics

hey,
Ive had two people in the last couple of weeks ask me about dealing with alpha male metacommuncation strategies... headlocking, backslapping, over loud chat...

do you all know what to do when someone is doing this kind of thing to dominate you?

no but I'm interested in case I'm doing it subconsciously. My boss is alpha male stock. He'll be loudly taking the piss out of people constantly, and there's plenty of sucker punches on the arms. I get a little bit of the verbal but NO physical. Everyone gets that except me.

Now I don't know if it's a coscious decision because he knows about my training, or if it's something I'm doing to interupt him subconsciously. I'm certainly not an imposing figure, so I can rule that out.

I'd definitely be interested in this. I must admit I don't go for all the back-slapping and headlocks but I do quite often find the alpha male, top-dog "lets see just how loud I can talk in a room to overpower everyone else here to show I am the bees knees". That sort of thing. Short of deflating them by asking them politely to pipe down not sure where else to go with that..

I'm assuming it's quite a dominating tool in their eyes

I have quite a few friends that are like that and also some of the guys that train along with me had that problem before (Guys body punching you, putting chokes on you suddenly etc.). The "alpha males" are usually people that hangs with us and the way we deal with them is when they get physical we play physical back then it sort of become a scenario type training sometimes. Then as times go by you usually get used to it and play along with him

Reading Loki's post makes me think that I kind of act like that. Me and a friend up north constantly throw punches and put chokes, tackle each other. We are both interested in martial arts, I never really saw it as competitive, just fun and good practice.
I do throw punches and chokes on some of my friends but not really often.

Thanks Richard for posting this. I wanted to see this topic.

I'm very interested in reading the responses here.

I generally am quite alpha but I am not loud at all and keep my hands to myself. Sometimes a typical alpha male will be backslapping me and trying to bust my balls and I cant think of anything else but busting their chops with a right hook. I'd like to know the best ways to stop this social process without resorting to violence. Resorting to violence is a comfortable thing for me but it sucks when you get banned from your favorite drinking spot or are not welcome at your buddys partys anymore.

Solution 1
Look said individual straight on and say "don't fuckng touch me please"....if he doesn't comply, fuck him up.

Solution2
Use the mirror effect. Act exactly towards him as he does towards you...he may not like it being done to him and will become more conscious when he is doing it.

Solution 3
Kick him in the nads! Use only when all else fails.

I'd be interested in this too. Not being dominated and dominating other apes is useful stuff. It can avert a lot of trouble before it escalates to physical.

hahah Victor S. although that was a funny post but I bet that's the only 3 actual options you can have.

I just finished watching a documentary on the former mafia contract killer "The Iceman" Richard Kaiklinski. He had pretty good alpha male de-escalation techniques.

his good strategies were cyanide nasal spray and being fed to rats werent they???

well, they wont make the same mistake twice i guess... BIT extreme tho'

Could someone shed some light on some of the signs and techniques to look for when people are doing this to you, would be interesting and useful to know what to look for.

i wouldnt become hostile if im friends or on friendly terms with the guy, just do what he does back to him and maybe hurt him a little bit while youre "messing around" so he wont do it again. I noticed gordon brown and george bush trying to do this slightly the other day, trying to show their power, standing with one arm infront of the other, slaps on the back stuff like that, sometimes i'll see the person whos been patted on the back will do it back to the other bloke.

Nav wrote:

i wouldnt become hostile if im friends or on friendly terms with the guy, just do what he does back to him and maybe hurt him a little bit while youre "messing around" so he wont do it again. I noticed gordon brown and george bush trying to do this slightly the other day, trying to show their power, standing with one arm infront of the other, slaps on the back stuff like that, sometimes i'll see the person whos been patted on the back will do it back to the other bloke.

The slap in the back reminds me of a funny scenario i was once in. I know this guy through a friend of mine. After a gathering when we are about to leave the guy greeted me with a very hard slap to my back so i did the same back and after some verbal conflicts he procceed to go on the cab, as he went on the cab the me back then which is quite mean ( ) push kicked him.

Then he suddenly went berserk and tried to reach for me, his friend were dragging him back and the counter action caused him to tore a hole in his pants

Kind of stupid I know

hahaha. Hilarious.

I got a pretty funny story too.

Like a month ago, this guy was acting all alpha to me and my friends. He grabbed me in a headlock and threw a shotglass at my friends table and knocked some glasses over. My friends were pissed but these set of friends were more passive kind of folks.

I told him not to grab my neck and he was like "Why the fuck not?" basically and I said I just didn't like being strangled but I just said in a friendly joking way. Then he started to talk loudly about fighting which usually isnt a good sign and he said he wanted to fight someone. He was starting to piss me off so I told him to get lost and he was like "you want to go?" which means "lets fight" in our parts. I said that it would be a mistake and he best just leave me alone. He said "Why because I'll embrass you punk!" and he started taking his jacket off (ritual sign I think) and then he pushed me but as soon as his hands entered my realm I connected with a right hook and it knocked him out cold.

He was like twitching on the bar-room floor and not a word of lie I jumped in the air and tryed to double stomp his face but I just basically landed on his face and slipped and knocked over a bunch of tables and chairs. But he was too unconcious to captialize on me being on the ground. I got escorted out cursing and flipping but when I got outside I picked up two hot chicks which basically is the highlight of this story. haha

Defently didn't de-escalate that good though.

let me just start by saying...i miss so much now that i don't have access to my work computer...arrgh! Bob Spour on the site and all, i feel like it's christmas. i'll have questions...right now i'm just processing it all.

regarding the alpha male counter tactics: personally i think it's a context question. i've had a pretty uncomfortable fight develop out of that from one of my sister's boyfriends sort of taking advantage of his
'in' status. i think people do this as a kind of lithmus (however you spell that) test, and when i suspect
that i respond either in a sneaky way--being playfully 'strong' in my responses (if it's someone that i sort of
know and will continue to know). if it's someone i don't trust, and a little too close to my skill level, then i sort of give a fence response verbally. for me, what i don't want is that gradual build up that comes from someone who likes to hide behind the joking--as a means of testing/gaining. when i can actually get away with it, i have 'playfully' put several people on the floor quickly--as a frame of reference. not a fight by a long shot, just an attempt to conjure the thought in someone's head, "russell plays too rough, he's no fun". if it's a real friend...i'll horse around until we're told to grow up. then it's sort of a release that i've never really grown out of.

i remember this sort of thing being more annoying in martial arts classes. some people you felt it was okay to sort of respond last-second to strikes--sort of learning how to react with perhaps more realism during drills...others just left a bad taste in your mouth if you didn't make a stronger showing. probably those guys intimidated me in some way, but probably also they were projecting something i didn't like during the training.

as for the verbal stuff...i kind of like what Richard said about playing with the script...it made me think of how many times we act out stuff subconsciously. there was a guy who was making fun of me in front of others... he was very alpha. the laughter he was evoking was partly due to his natural humor, but partly because people were playing into his personality in a subordinate way. i pretended to laugh with him, then abrubtly stopped and turned away as if thinking of something else. it made people laugh at him because he had been sort of laughing with me only a moment before. that still sort of makes me laugh. at the time, i was still annoyed inside, but it really helped not to show it and do something odd like that.
i saw someone else do that same thing...probably where i got the idea. he laughed and said, "sometimes you can say some really funny things...continuing to laugh...then abrubtly and dryly said...'and then there's now' " it was hysterical.

'Avoid loud and agressive people for they are vexations to the spirit'-Desiderata.
Working in the building game you get alot of these types,and I personally never accept it,it is a form of bullying which I cannot stand to me or others.
Years back it was worse because it was considered banter-no way mate that is crossing the line,I don't do it to others so I don't want it done to me.
One guy in particular was having verbal digs as soon as I started one particular site-constantly-I tried everything from laughing with him to showing I was'nt bothered but he carried on and on.
He started giving me shit one day and was standing to my left in front of a crowd,in mid - piss take I spun round and palmed him in the face he went back over a bag of cement and cracked his head on the ground,I stood over him and shouted 'whos laughing now c**t' and walked off.
I had a guy come up to me after and say 'well done mate he was a proper prick' I just said 'hopefully he'll learn from this'.
The alpha crap stopped from that day forward.

Lonewolf333 wrote:

h

He was like twitching on the bar-room floor and not a word of lie I jumped in the air and tryed to double stomp his face but I just basically landed on his face and slipped and knocked over a bunch of tables and chairs.

were you trying to kill him??

Nav wrote:

Lonewolf333 wrote:

h

He was like twitching on the bar-room floor and not a word of lie I jumped in the air and tryed to double stomp his face but I just basically landed on his face and slipped and knocked over a bunch of tables and chairs.

were you trying to kill him??

Excessive force ring a bell?

Lonewolf333 wrote:

h

He was like twitching on the bar-room floor and not a word of lie I jumped in the air and tryed to double stomp his face but I just basically landed on his face and slipped and knocked over a bunch of tables and chairs.

Some all-out-scenario training kicked in? This is what the "stop button" in the POV stuff is for. Anyway I'll take a lesson from your experience and not train for double stomping heads, although I suppose it would be safe for a chest. Rather use one leg for stomping those heads in.

Yeah it was kind of excessive.

But don't leave a fire with a few embers. Or I should say don't leave some ashes with a few embers or you will have a fire again.

sorry mate, but for me, head stomps are reserved for serious life threatening situations only.
Attempting to jump on someones head for being a bit of a cock in a bar makes you come across as a bit of an animal.
it's totally disproportionate and if you'd landed hard and seriously injured or even killed the guy you'd thoroughly deserve a lengthy stretch.

I've been kicked senseless by a stag party when I used to drink - total cowards - another time glass ash tray - from behind over the head for nothing. So the likes of someone double stomping an unconcious man in a bar on the head I've seen before; and myself and a mate seen this guy fitting on the pavement whilst getting stomped we (stupidly) steamed into the attackers and I think saved the unconsious guys life - we still got nicked (for fighting) and I think the police saved us from a battering.The pack who stomped this guy done time. We got let out the next day with the police pressing no charges and complimenting us.Enough said..

Interesting story. I once got sucker punched and stomped unconcious by a bunch of people in a playground walking home one time one halloween. It sucked.

Yeah it's something I'd probably never do again.

So any of you dudes train in any martial arts?

What's some good training techniques for building punching power? Anyone know?

I'm a boxer, so I'd say: learn to box. Go to a boxing gym, and work hard at it. Technique and muscle application = good punching power.

Interesting that you should mention this. Because this is something i've been experiencing and thinking about.

At work (in a bar), there is this big english guy, and when I first met him he got on my nerves. I was shocked how he acted. He straight out insults people he doesn't know. Like if somebody would come and try to open the gate on the fence, and had trouble opening it, he is just like "you are a fucking wanker" and stuff like that, all the time! (this is to people he has never met before)

And whats even more surprising, he always gets away with it, nearly every single time! Most of them laugh along with him, maybe its because he is alot bigger than everybody else, but it has to be something more, because even size won't stop everybody from confronting you.

It pissed me off at the start, and I didn't talk to him much, but then I started talking to him properly and he is an ok guy. And I just now see it as banter between us, at the start I used to get pissed off or offended and now I just give him shit back.

And something that is very interesting. Last night I was basically 'on' and had better comebacks than him, I seen it as friendly banter. And it seemed once he realized that he can no longer effect or intimidate me with his talking shit, he started to get 'playfully physical'. Probably hoping that would intimidate me and shut me down.

But I am also comfortable with that, he pushed me a few times and I managed to catch it and push his arms away so his push had to effect. And he grabbed me and pushed me against a window at one stage, by the wrists and I released the grab and threw a few strikes missing him, just to show him that i'm not worried about him being physical either.

One thing I found interesting, I don't know if it was him playing psychological games, but after that he said to somebody else (about me) "he would probably kick my ass anyway, i'm not a violent person".

I think this guy is used to pushing guys around verbally, and it either they just laugh because of his size or are intimidated, and not often they just give it back like me. So then realizing that, he has tried to go physical to intimidate me. Probably hoping again, his size will help intimidate me as he is a fair bit bigger than me.

It would be interesting to get some insight into this.