Fighting and sparring with friends
By Eli Shirian
Last year has been dotted with minor scuffles with friends and relatives. These people know I have been training for many years in Budo Ninjutsu; they want to check my abilities, even if it's done jokingly.
Almost all the confrontations looked like this; a friend was talking to me and then suddenly charged forward with pushes and shoves that end with my back to the wall, meters behind me.
All these incidents happened in the gym I work at, and the machinery and free weights lying around make every throw an imminent danger for my opponent. Now, if this was a regular confrontation against someone I don't know I would deal with it rather easily, but when my fight vocabulary is restricted because of safety reasons my response will always be lacking. I did not mention this, but an important fact is the weight difference, all my friends are very muscular bodybuilders, and weigh at least 90 kilogram (180 pounds) that’s much heavier than me. The weight and strength differences are a major factor, because it makes "playing" the confrontation very difficult.
