ESD Editorial: I Challende You To A Duel
- Reading time: 2 min
It was a bad time for our family. The divorce was past, but the control issues were still very much in the present. I was anxious, depressed, doubting my ability to make decisions. Unsurprisingly, I made bad decision after bad decision.
My kids were suffering despite all the therapy. One of my children would stare into space for long periods and then turn on me with their fists. At the time I was pretty frail, and they bruised me.
The center where I was going to a support group offered an Empowerment Self Defense (ESD) class. It was called “Freedom to Choose.” I didn’t feel like I had freedom, and certainly not choices. But the class was cheap, so I tagged along with my friends from the support group.
I didn’t catch a lot of what was going on. Yelling “NO!” was fun. That was about the extent of it for me.
Until we played a game called “Move in Closer to Get Away.” The instructor broke us up into pairs and handed everyone a pool noodle. One of us was instructed to hit the other with their pool noodle. The participant being hit was instructed to respond by moving forward rather than backing away, and while moving forward to hit the other participant with their pool noodle until they yielded or ran away.
As the game started and they started to hit, I started to back up, as I always did when my child would hit me. Then I remembered to yell “NO!” and move forward, walking into the blows instead of moving away from them.
Something broke inside – something healed.
Next time my kid started to hit me at home, I didn’t back up. I moved forward.
As I pressed towards them, they moved backward, and their punches slowed down. They had this inscrutable look on their face – I wasn’t sure if my boundary was comforting them or scaring the !@#$ out of them. (It was probably a bit of both.)
Then I had an idea. I ran and got some pool noodles we had lying around the house, threw one to them, and yelled “I challenge you to a duel.” Soon enough, all the kids and I were running around the house pounding each other with pool noodles. For the first time in a long time, I felt joyful and released.
It became a family thing to have “duels” when we felt sad or angry. Our pool noodle swords allowed us to transform the tough emotions we were dealing with into action and process them together.
It brought us back some hope.
If you’re facing similar issues, here is a home activity that you can use to de-escalate:
Play with your kids, if you have kids. Keep pool noodles around. When things heat up, and feel beyond talking out – like siblings won’t stop fighting, or a child is stonewalling you – get out the pool noodles and say whatever works for your family. “I challenge you to a duel.” “Luke, I am your father.” A Klingon battle cry. Whatever works.
Try to explain the moving forward concept if you can. But Which you’ll also be demonstrating that in your play, so they’ll get it.understand Congratulations! You’ve created a non-verbal way to communicate with one another and work out anger.
An ESD Class Room Activity can be found on the free learning platform from the association, The Idea Bridge: https://theideabridge.esdprofessionals.org/ in the course “ESD Anthology – A Spectrum of Safety”.