I was speaking with one of those people from the long ago and the far-far away. Someone who trained under me back in the later 1970s. We were speaking about the advanced Korean teacher whom I was teaching with/for, and my old mate brought up the memory of one of his sons.
 
As the story unfolded, I had helped this man get here to the U.S. to teach the martial arts. I ran a studio for him and taught most of his classes. All good. Then, a couple of years deep, out of nowhere, two of his sons arrived. I didn’t even know he had two sons. His ex-wife, being upset that he was now living here in The States, packed them on a plane and sent them to him. He didn’t expect them. But, he took them in for obvious reasons. They were good kids, in their early teens. And, like most kids from South Korean, they had trained in Taekwondo, and were quite good practitioners.
 
They arrived, and he had me train them with our other students in our Black Belt Class. Again, all good.
 
One day, his oldest son showed up and one of his front teeth had been broken. Apparently, one of his classmates, at his junior high school, had some sort of a beef with him, and attacked him. I didn’t know this at the time, but his father had told him never to fight. If so, he would be in big trouble.  So, the kid did not defend himself.
 
…I mean this kid was a very good martial artist. I’m sure he could have easily kicked the ass of any of his schoolmates. But, due to his father’s instruction, he did not fight back.
 
From this, however, the kid did get his front tooth severed. It was like half there. I guess he took a fist to the mouth.
 
Seeing this, I wanted to do something about it. I mean, you know how it is when you are young, something like that is devastating.  I had the idea, knowing that his father had very little money, and was barely making ends meet, I thought I could take his son to the dentist and pay to get his tooth fixed.
 
I called up a local dentist and I took him in. The dentist examined his tooth and told me it would be fifteen hundred dollars to fix it. Wow! I never thought it would be such a price. I don’t know, maybe the guy was ripping me off??? But, I did pay for the exam.
 
Me, I was a grad school student, with very little income. I had some hundreds lying around. But, not fifteen hundred.
 
There was nothing I could do as this was before I had credit cards or anything like that.  I wanted to help but I could not.
 
So, if we tear this situation apart, there are a lot of levels to look at. The kid, he could have easily defended himself, but he did not. He did not, because his father, (a relatively new immigrant), did not want his son to cause any chaos. The kid, a good Korean-born son, always listened to his father, as if he had not, the result would not have been pretty. Me, I wanted to help but I did not have the means to do so. What could I do?
 
So, here we are, this young man could have obviously, and very affectively, kicked the ass of his foe. But, for his reason(s) he did not.
 
What was left? A young man with a broken front tooth. Some jerk-off who felt all empowered when he should not have. A father… Well, I don’t know what he felt. Me, I felt very guilty that I could not help the kid; buy him a new tooth, and turn his life around.
 
I don’t know about you, but there have been a few times in my life when I could have totally kick someone’s ass, who came at me, but for whatever logic I possessed in the moment, I did not. How about you? Has a situation like that ever occurred in your life? If it has, maybe you understand. If it has not. Good for you! Physically brawling is the most animalistic level of human existence.
 
But, to the point… There are those people’s assess that could be/should be kicked but for whatever reason they are not. What is a person like that left with? Answer : A false knowledge and experience based upon someone not doing what they could easily do.
 
What about the person that passes and chooses not to hurt them? Yes, sure, they did the good deed. But, at what cost?
 
As you pass through your life there will be those time(s) of conflict. Hopefully you will not have too many of them. But, remember, if they do come at you, you must keep in mind, if you could kick their ass, and you do not, that choice could come to define a specific period of your life or, maybe, in fact, your entire life.