Why Boys Should Learn To Fight

Fighting was considered a serious offense in my school years ago and it continues to be so, in many if not all schools here.

• Many of us are raised as kids with sayings such as ‘fighting is bad’, ’fighting is something that hooligans do’, or the classic ‘fighting is for losers’. 
• Teachers, parents, and our society harp on how fighting is totally unacceptable and if one dares to challenge the rules, he is swiftly punished.
• Yet fights still occur and bouts of physical aggression are still seen in many age groups, the predominant being young red-blooded males.

Why Boys Should Learn To Fight

Stopping behaviors innate to boys, such as rough playing and play fighting, will cause boys to lose touch with that primal fire within them, and over time it affects them insidiously in many ways throughout their life until they decide to reclaim that fire.

These young men then grow up into adults and deal with issues such as anxiety and loneliness and some of them take refuge in the digital world of online games and media. They avoid adversity and prefer to remain on comfortable and safe paths laid out by others and they possess no desire to explore their own potential, strengths, and weaknesses to become a better man.

Stopping fights will lead boys to obediently follow the instructions of their elders. We also covered if fighting can solve problems.

We live in a time where people who are fully in touch with themselves and not afraid to show it are seen as strange and ‘out of the pack’. With the media and society’s obsession with topics such as toxic masculinity and how being masculine is bad, the greatest hit has fallen upon the young men of our generation, ranging from schoolboys to young teens.

The question that seems to elude all who condemn combative behavior in young men is:

What drives them to engage in violence and what is the underlying message behind that?

As human beings, we have indeed come a long way from primitive times, and with unimaginable technological and medical advances, life has become relatively easy and comfortable in most areas, especially affluent countries. We pride ourselves on being a ‘civilized society’ and have invented a myriad of laws to ensure that as a society, we are able to function progressively and not crumble into anarchy and chaos.

All of this has been great yet it does come with a personal price. We have lost touch with our primal instincts and if there is ever a threat of it emerging out of our ‘civilized’ being, we become afraid and suppress it by any means, lest we be judged as being strange and uncouth by our fellow ‘civilized’ people. However, simply ignoring and pretending that we do not have such parts in ourselves does not make it a reality. Thousands of years of evolution encoded in the very fiber of our being, in our DNA, does not simply go away by mentally willing it or shaming it.

It is deemed taboo to be proud of being a male and developing masculinity is seen as something bad. It is innate in men to be warriors, hunters, protectors, and leaders and it still stands true, even after thousands of years yet these strong attributes are not stressed upon present young men. Rather, the malevolence that a small group of unhinged men commits is smeared onto all men and they are essentially discouraged to be a man.

A tiger cannot express what it means to be a tiger in its entirety if it is prevented from behaving like a tiger and we see this scenario with modern men who are not allowed to truly be men. We also have a post showing what animals you can fight with videos.

Now, this is not to shame men on the decisions that they take because we are all individuals at the end of the day with varying interests and inclinations yet seeing such phenomena occur in a large number of males of recent generations is startling and worrying.

Bullying is a common occurrence that nearly every young man has either experienced firsthand or witnessed yet the approach towards curbing bullying is always skewed towards promoting harmony and talking about the evil of bullying I do agree that it is evil having gone through personal experiences as a boy. The focus never seems to be on empowering the victim to be strong enough to stand tall with courage and confidence rather than cowering behind his parents.

Also, trying to stop bullying simply by talking about is futile because it is a behavior that is innate in us. Bullying is a power play where a stronger being takes advantage of a weaker being and rather than trying to eradicate it, boys have to be taught to be stronger. To be allowed to play roughly and encouraged to engage in physical sports, especially martial activities, under strict guidelines to ensure nothing goes out of hand.

What happens to boys that are victims of bullying and feel totally helpless and powerless?

Many spirals into mental health issues and self-destruct while a few decide to take out their rage and hatred onto the cruel unfair world that made them suffer by engaging in destructive activities such as joining criminal gangs and participating in violence.

I say this not because I read this from a journal somewhere rather I have seen the effects up close in personal friends. One of my childhood friends is currently serving a sentence in prison for a slashing case that occurred two years back and his descent into criminal activity was triggered by incessant bullying in school and unsupportive parents that did not know how to mentor and raise a young boy.

Looking back, I had my fair share of encounters with bullies and also stood up for myself to the extent of flouting school rules. This led to meetings with school teachers who tried to shame me into being ‘less aggressive’ as they put it, and one teacher even went as far as to say that due to my aggressive behavior, I was destined for prison as an adult and that I would never amount to much. I was glad that I had experienced the roughness of boyhood and all that accompanied it as those experiences guided me in my life toward learning martial arts as a young adult.

How aggression flows is another thing. Either we teach and show boys and young men how to channel their aggression in a healthy and safe way in a controlled manner or they risk channeling it wild and uncontrollably with devastating consequences. The aggression is always there and shaming is evil and ridiculous.

Even psychological experts agree that suppressed aggression being bottled up and then erupting one day is far more dangerous compared to regularly releasing aggression in a controlled environment, which could be in a boxing ring, a wrestling mat, or fencing.

It is interesting to observe that males in virtually every animal species are combative and rough tumbles and full-on fights are a regular occurrence. Even in our closest ape relative, the Chimpanzee, males are observed to gang up and follow the lead of an alpha, and clashes with rival groups are common. Despite our advancements, as humans, we are unable to shake off the primal being within and it is no surprise when we look at global events plagued by wars, criminal activity, random attacks of violence, and school shootings.

In the words of Norman Mailer, “Masculinity is not something given to you, but something you gain. And you gain it by winning small battles with honor.”