Kicked Out

Krav Maga is a self-defense sport originally developed by the Israeli military. It takes a “no-frills” approach to self defense. Whereas in Eastern martial arts like Kung-Fu or Aikido, one may learn elaborate, beautiful, dance-like responses to an attack, in Krav Maga you simply learn to kick ‘em in the groin. Conceptually, this famous Indiana Jones scene sums it up.

While you may identify this “directness” as something compatible with Dutch culture, you would likely not immediately point to my oldest son Maks (11) as an obvious fit for such a sport.

Like his parents, Maks is not violent. He is not aggressive. He will not quickly pick a fight (except perhaps with his brothers).

Nevertheless, for the last year or so, Maks took part in a Krav Maga group for kids and had a great time.

That was until last month, when he was kicked out.

We found Krav Maga kind of randomly. A friend of my son’s once participated in a different sport. Next door a Krav Maga training was going on, and he decided to join that instead. He told my son about it and they started to go together. This Krav Maga group was targeted at kids between the ages of 7 and 12. It involved more playful exercise like running and rolling than “hardcore” Krav Maga technique.

Obviously, these are kids, so there would be the occasional rough housing. And from time to time, my son would get hurt, on occasion too emotional to immediately recover. In such cases, I’d take him home. That’s fine. It’s expected. And somewhat surprisingly to me, he was quite resilient, it never lead him wanting to quit.

Then, about a month ago there was another incident. A new, older kid threw a large skippy-like ball in Maks’ direction, and he was thrown back and fell onto the floor. He was hurting quite badly, and ran crying out of the room.

While the Krav Maga instructor wasn’t there when this happened, he had seen it happen peripherally. He wrapped up a chat he was having with a parent, and then came to me and Maks. Maks was still in a very emotional state.

“Come with me Maks,” he said.

“Where?”

“Into the room.”

“Why?” Still sobbing.

“Just come with me into the room. I have something to say.”

“But why?”

“Just come.”

At this point I felt I had to interfere a bit and suggested that Maks should just go, because probably the instructor had something to say to the group about what just happened.

Reluctantly, Maks came along.

Indeed, the instructor gave a speech about how what had happened was not OK. About how they should be more careful, and being in the room without him was OK, but he needed to trust that things wouldn’t escalate.

When he was done, Maks — still upset — wanted to leave the room again and sit with me.

“Where are you going?” the instructor asked.

“Outside.”

“No Maks, you’re staying here. You can sit here until you’re ready and the join back in. Where does it hurt? It can’t be that bad.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Sit.”

Again, I encouraged Maks to just stay and see what would happen. He could join back in whenever he felt ready.

Half the lesson passed, then Maks came out of the room. He was sent away: if he wouldn’t participate, he may as well go.

We went home.

The next week before the lesson started the instructor called me and Maks to him.

“Maks, you need to know something. I run these trainings because I want to, not because I have to. I don’t need the money, I do this because I like it. This also means that I feel I can make some demands from everybody in this group.”

Maks nodded.

“The thing I want you to commit to is to follow the rules. If you want to participate, you have to do as I say. Your dad already paid for the entire year, but I’ll happily give you that money back if you’re not willing to commit. You don’t have to be here, it’s your choice. But if you choose to be here, you need to follow my rules. Are you willing to do that?”

“Yes, but...”

“No no no. No ‘buts.’ I need your full commitment. It’s ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ No ‘buts.’”

“I’ll try.”

“No no no. There’s no ‘I’ll try.’ There is only ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”

Maks was very confused. I suggested the instructor started the training while I’d talk to Maks.

From birth, both Maks and his brothers were raised with the idea that everything is a conversation. Rather than putting up a lot of strict rules and boundaries, me and my wife always spend a lot of time explaining the rationale, the why behind just about everything.

Even while on occasion we’d forcefully pull them back when they were about to cross the street without checking for traffic, this would always be followed by an elaborate discussion on the dangers and the importance of always properly checking if all is clear.

Also when picking schools, we had opted for ones that created space to explain. Where there was always space for a conversation.

Implicitly, this had also steered how our social environment evolved. You tend to select people that have a compatible world view.

At some abstract level, me and my wife realized we were letting the kids grow up in a bit of a bubble. We knew that at some point, they’d hit a bubbly wall.

I had somehow never anticipated we’d hit such a wall with Krav Maga.

However, as it turned out — in his youthful wisdom — my son had.

“Ok Maks. We have a decision to make. What are you thinking?”

“I don’t like that I have to make a decision just like that and we can’t talk about it.”

I was also very surprised about the abruptness of this ultimatum. It didn’t seem fair and kind of out of the blue.

That said, one thing I had noticed Maks had been struggling with is that he’s taking some things too literally. In his mind, committing to follow the rules would mean there would be no exceptions possible, ever.

I had learned that in general commitments like this could be taken with a grain of salt. Whether personal or professional, while we make commitments all the time, everybody understands that if everything doesn’t go exactly according to the commitment, it’s usually not the end of the world. There is room to wiggle. Of course, directionally we go for it. But, you know, life is uncertain. Things happen. If you would only be able to make commitments about things fully in your control, you would likely have to miss out on a lot of stuff.

And Maks really enjoyed Krav Maga. Until 10 minutes ago, we had no plans to quit. So, perhaps it was time to be a little pragmatic?

As it turned out, Maks understood all this. However, over the past year there had been a few cases during Krav Maga sessions where he ran into a (virtual) wall. There had been cases where he got very emotional (usually due to being in pain) and he had seen no hints of understanding from the instructor’s side, and no space for a conversation. He knew this would happen again. And he wanted to keep the option open of opting out in such cases. To simply not participate, to even leave whether that was “following the rules” or not.

Saying “yes I will always follow the rules” (implicitly: “yes, I will always do as I’m told”) to Maks would just mean he’d be lying.

He didn’t want to lie.

I’ve had many jobs in my life. Some easy, some challenging. By far, parenting is the hardest job I ever had.

You put so much time and energy into it, yet a lot of the time you feel you’re failing.

However, on occasion, you have those little sparks. Those little moments when you realize that you must have been doing something right.

Maks resigned from Krav Maga that day. Still, I’ll keep framing this event as being kicked out, because it sounds cooler.

The instructor was quite surprised.

“Be warned,” the instructor told me, “Maks will keep running into this. Discipline matters. It’s important to learn to follow the rules.”

And of course I agree. There’s a time and place for rules. However, there ought also be time and space to explore where those rules come from, to challenge them, and to understand where there’s flexibility.

No such space existed in this particular Krav Maga group. Nor likely on the battle field where it originated. We can have peace with that.

Now we just have to find Maks another sport that he will enjoy just as much.

Kick boxing perhaps?