Queens Day Fight?

[Odin]

On the 30th of April we celebrate our queen's birthday. Day off from work. Party. Drinks. Music. Fun.

Since it is the first suny day of the year, with temperatures reaching 21 degrees C, She Who Decides Pretty Much Everything and I decided we should take the youngest kids (girls of 8 and 10) out for a long walk. Some 14 kilometers along the Old Rine River. Visiting Woerden, Nieuwerbrug and Bodegraven. Long walk, but we like to do those things every now & then.

So off we went. Woerden first. My eldest daughter was playing the sax on the market place, collecting money for the anti cancer society. Money poured in, so she was happy. We walked to Nieuwerbrug. The last functioning toll bridge in our country. Since 1188. You have to pay half a Euro to get across by car. Goats and sheep are one cent each. Just that you know.

We continued our tour and ended up in Bodegraven. Old town with mill and such. A car (4x4) comes backing out of a parking lot. In such a way that he allmost drove over my wife and eldest daughter. I came like 50 meters behind, because the feet of our youngest were souring. The guy in the car just continued to back up and allmost hit us. I tapped his window in order to ask him to be a bit more carefull from now on. Out jumps a 2 meter tall guy of somewhere between 25 and 30 years old. "Nobody touches my CAR!!!" he shouted and came running towards me.

He stopped and stooped over me. Like an inch or two away from my face and shouted that he was going to hurt me. Now, I must admit, I was a bit distressed. I am 43, not in the best shape, but I did box on university level and trained with a world champion (Don Diego Poeder) and a European champion (Fast Eddy Smulders). Not because I was that good. My eysight is bad, especially on the 3D department and I am only 1m82, which is short for a cruiser weight. But I was a Lionheart and had a right swing that would be as hard as the guys mentioned afore. In short: it will drop an ox.

Now here I am, with this guy facing me off. Call me stupid, but I don't. Back off, I mean. Maybe reasoning, maybe instinct, but it is the flight impuls that triggers most agressivity. And submissiveness, sorry, not in my nature. I can look for it, but it just is not there.

So the guy raged on (big, big pupils - is he on pills?) for like a few seconds and then backs of himself. But in the process bitch slaps me on the face. But really like a bitch. I mean: if I would want to caress a fly ... well, that kinda thing. I had to smile. Happens to me when I get into a fighting mood. The touch must have done that. Not like aggressive, that "fighting mode" but in terms of boxing mode. Allowing a small amount of adreneline to kick in. Time slowing down. Rationals taking over. Left hand clenching a fist, in front of my eyes, right hand alongside my right jaw line. Chin towards my chest, looking thru my eye brows upwards to my opponent (hey, the guy is 2 meters!). "The smiling boxer" was one of my nick names. "Drago" (Rocky IV) was the other.

This fucker sees me taking position (mind you, I am not hitting, just taking position to defend) and it triggers him to the extend that he runs back in my direction and starts swinging punches at me. Time slows down even further. Right direct aimed at my head. Small slide to my left and a miss. I feel myself stepping two steps back. Why? I take myself out of reach. My reach. I know what will happen if I dive a punch within reach: automatic reaction of a right direct on his chin, probably braking his jaw and my hand. Another blow. Left direct this time, again aiming for my head or neck (if he was aiming). I put my arm up and catch it with my right underarm, turn to my right and step back again. Out of reach, because I know (thinking goes so fast in these situation) I do not have much skill to operate offensively on that blow. So I step back some more.

The guy now throws two swings (hooks) at me. A right one. I dive and step back. I know I don't want to throw my right hook after that. Twenty years ago, training 2 hours a day, I could hit a musquito's left ball, if I aimed for it. Now I know, the blow would be devastating. I might hit his temple ... So I step out again. He throws swing number 2, a left one, again leaving himself open to my right hand swing. Again I decide not to throw it, but to step back. I can see the guy's frustration. "He is smaller, I threw, what? 4 punches? Why don't I hit him?"

By now my own anxiety is over. This guy is not a boxer. For sure. Means I can floor him at any time. Well, if I have too. And as long as he is no black belt karateka or sumtin'. I feel releave. For a moment. Because now, seeing he cannot hit me, the guy kicks me. Fortunately I trained with some kick boxers long ago, and one rule I remember: "take your legg of the floor, when you will get kicked on it, or want to block a kick" and so I did. No impact what so ever. And another thing learned: the guy is no karateka or kick boxer either. But, shit, he is still 15 years younger, a head taller, all muscles and no fat, and coming for me.

I feel like I am running out of options, because due to my backwards movements and his agressive foreward orientation, he is now in between me, my wife, and my two small kids. He is not going to get near them. No way.

He kicks again, and at the moment he lifts his left leg, I kick him in the nuts. Not "caressing a fly" but wanting to hurt and stop him. And over all: let him stoop down. A kick in the nuts will make a man bend over, bringing his head down ... I won't even have to raise my right arm for a strike. You get the picture.

Off he goes intending to kick that kick. He lifts his foot of the ground. I kick him with a direct right foot kick in the balls. I retract my foot for the now obligatory dance two steps back. His mouth opens in agony, his hands go to his groin, he bends over bringing his head exactly where I want it. A quick left uppercut and then ... Mr. Stone Hammer's right swing to knock him out. It will terribly hurrt him. Breaking a jaw, putting him in hospital, concusion, maybe worse.

And at that very moment "She Who Always Knows Best" shouts: "STOP RIGHT NOW!" And so I do. The guy takes the left hand uppercut, but I can withhold the right swing that would have caused so much damage. And in the end damage to me. Not just talking about a broken hand, but about all the police stuff that might have followed. And I would have been the bad guy, for he would probably be hospitalized.

The shithead strumples back to his car. I dance like a butterfly but manage not to sting like a bee. On my place. Don't go after him. Let him go. And so he does. He steps into his car, drives away full throttle.

"Well," my daughter said, "by the time he slapped you, I thought you would end up in a fight!"
"Yes," my wife says, "I shouted you guys to stop. I was just not sure you would win this one."

WTFlip?

"Oh, for sure," my youngest daughter replies, "Dad would have kicked his ass!"
"Yeah, for sure," my elder daughter sais. "I loved to see how you ducked all his swings! That was really cool!"

My friends, I am not a fighter. I was in the boxing kinda definition, but that is 20 years ago. I mean to say: I am not an aggressive person. But now, looking back at what happened. I feel a bit strange. Strange, because I did feel fear in the beginning of the onsault and before I could decide that this guy does not know how to fight in a professional way. Strange because time slowed down the same way it did when I still did box. Strange that my head kept on deciding in a very rational way what to do. Strange because I could withhold myself to throw my right swing until the very last moment.

And mostly: strange that this kind of shit happens, when you just take the MSS and the kids out for a walk. I imagine what would happen if anybody else without proper boxing training were there in stead of me. I wonder and feel bad about what might have happened (to him, to me) if I would have hit him.

It teaches me distilling is maybe not such a bad hobby after all.

Sorry, just had to share. "To get if off my liver" as we say over here.

Odin.

[rad14701]

Very well played, Odin... As we grow older we learn restraint... I've always been one to break up fights, not get into them...

That being said, the last person I had to lay hands on was 22 or 23 and I was 40 or 41 - I've lost track... He was whacked out on booze and drugs and decided to beat up his mother and father who called me to intervene because if the police had been called he would have gone directly to jail due to other pending charges... He was never struck with a closed fist even though he pulled and pointed a loaded gun directly at me and had every intention of pulling the trigger (just one of many times that has happened) until I wrestled it away from him... But I can guarantee you that his whole head was bruised from what amounted to seemingly countless more than bitch slaps from both the front and back of my hands... And he gained a new found respect for us older folks that he thought he could out smart and out muscle... I'll be 52 in June and am in as good or better shape than I was back then and when I head towards a brewing or ongoing situation it usually breaks up before I get there... Aside from when I was sick back in 2010, before losing 40 pounds and being diagnosed with diabetes, I've weighed the same as I did when I graduated from high school in 1978 - and am back in that shape again thanks to medications...

Glad you're still viewed as a protector by your daughters, even if the wife was a bit skeptical...

[mash rookie]

Are you practicing to write a book Odin? Do you guys celebrate April fools day at the end of the month? If you are not spinning a tale I must say I am sorry to hear that happened. It could have been disastrous with your children there. I am glad it ended okay. They often don’t.

At this point in life I am a pacifist. I applaud that you took the bitch slap and only responded when the attack continued.

In my youth I was in many fights. I lived in a rough neighborhood but mostly because my pride would not let me walk away when challenged. I took a few whippings standing up for friends too. When I was young I was short but naturally strong. In my thirties forties I exercised several days a week could still bench press 300 lbs at fifty and do 100 pushups in three sets. That strength almost cost me my freedom ten years ago when I did not walk away from a fight. Deserving or not. I never want to hurt anyone again.

Enjoy the glow. Give your wife and kids a hug and hope it doesn’t ever have to happen again.

[Odin]

Good to year you are in shape Rad! It is good to break up fights. I was running a youth club as a youngster for youngsters from the country side, so I know what you talk about. Some 200 to 250 people in a bar on a Saturday night ...

I think the fact I am a father makes me react differently then I would have 20 years ago. Also the knowledge that, being in full training, I could drop the guy without any damage. To me, to him. Just a clean shot to his neck and it would be over. He would be "out" for 20 seconds. And more submissive for sure. Feeling a bit sour, but that is it. But without training and with more weight behind the punch ... not knowing where it will land ... him (maybe) on drugs ...

Glad it worked out the way it worked out. And afterwards I downplayed what happened for the kids. Made no fuss about it. Didn't give it much attention. Instead, I took the kids to have an icecream. Just like we planned. Seems like they allmost forgot about it already. And that is good. I wouldn't want them to feel scared or something like that.

The fact that it did happen, makes me even more eager to get back in shape too. I am not a diabetic, but have a strong sugar and especially grain defeciancy. I cannot well digest it without being very tired, gaining weight and holding water in my system. Since 3 weeks I am back on my diet, having lost 3 kilo's already and feeling more energetic then before.

Just wondering ... maybe my illness is the reason my young geneva is so good! It is a "no-grainer" after all (pun intended)!

Might also explain why my grain whiskey is not up to standards. "All grains and no pun, make Odin a bitter man".

Let's go down that other road.

Odin.

[retlaw]

know that feeling oh to well ,
my squinty eyes would be the lure for many punches,
what i have learned is that those that look for a fight usually get a fight, and most of the time it does not turn out the way they were hoping for,
walking away from an idiot gets you more chicks then turning yourself into an idiot,

[Prairiepiss]

Well played Odin. Glad it worked out for the best.

[OlympicMtDoo]

Good story Odin, glad it turned out for the best, tell the Queen happy birthday