Attitude Ready to Fight Attitude

Recently, we spent an evening at the county fair. A Friday evening with crowds of people means that you have to be especially aware. Believe it or not, I saw what I would call an error of attitude ready to fight attitude.

Let me explain …

Security Guard Silliness

At this year’s fair, I saw men all wearing the same official shirts, acting as security guards. Can you guess their biggest error in doing their duty?

I’ll tell you in a minute, but first, let me share some of their “other” mistakes:

1. They roamed in small packs — I saw buddies hanging with buddies. In some cases, the friends were much more interested in talking to each other than they were scanning the crowds for potential problems.

2. A few of them were munching on elephant ears and other fair food — Security guards don’t look professional when they “are” scanning the fairgoers while packing down sweets and other junk food. The time to eat is on your break.

Note: From a practical martial-arts standpoint eating isn’t a good idea. Do you want to focus on your food or the crowd of people? And if you your response contains the weak concept of multitasking …

3. And, ooh, the macho posturing — I don’t know which martial arts schools they were representing, but they were strutters. You already know the problems of walking around with your arms crossed — “locked”into position in front of your chest. And if they were trying to project attitude … well, the rougher someone tries to act around me, the more it makes me want to … giggle. “Seriously.”

And now, drum roll … lets get to their biggest error …

Fighting Bodybuilders

The biggest mistake that these macho security “specialists” made at the fair was the way they scanned the audiences of the events and worked their way through the midway crowds and the people roaming the commercial building.

I spent about 15 minutes watching them “work.” These official guards seemed to focus on other musclebound males (and their girlfriends). No kidding.

It seemed that the peacocks were looking at other peacocks (and their hens). As they picked the other bodybuilders out of the crowd, they seemed to jut out their chests even more. They made their paths almost cross with the tank-top wearers. Not quite challenging, but definitely in each other’s space.

And being so focused on their “own breed,” they missed a lot of the other potential snafus, dangers, problems, and misbehaviors! Let me ask you: do you think that only muscular men cause problems at fairs? Are pickpockets only found in Herculean giants?
Isn’t it possible that guys who beat their wives and or kids have sinewy builds?

Note: As a matter of fact, if I had to pick two types that complained to the carnies and other employees in a boisterous manner, it would have to be short males and the tattooed females. I’m not saying that all short men have “short-persons-aggressive-complex,” or that all tattooed females are bRitches … it’s just what I noticed at this year’s fair.

The Practical Martial-Arts Lesson

As a martial artist, I wonder if you (we) notice a certain class of people out in public more than others.

I’d like to believe that I notice everybody. So, you’d think that these security guards would also think that they are scanning for everyone and everything.

Are they just lazy?
Do they not understand the parameters of their job?
Are they aware of their prejudiced focus?
Are you missing anything, when you scan out in public?

“Stuff” to ponder.

Keith

Tags: fair self-defense, fighting bodybuilders, martial-arts awareness, muscle bound, security guard errors, security guard training, short persons complex