Its been about a month, and i’ve gotten a handful further into my goals.
I’ve been training kickboxing for about 5 months now, and its done a handful of good things for me. 1st, I’ve been a lot more energized and stronger. I’ve also been practicing wrestling/Jiu jitsu for a lil more than a month, and surprisingly, i can wrestle my brother whos 60 pounds heavier than me, and put him in a choke (we just practice with each other for fun). The only thing is that ever since I started martial arts, people have been mocking me for doing it. They will punch or flick their hands into my face and try and make me flinch. And when I do flinch, they’ll make fun of me for that. I’ve learned to not do much about it and just shake it off, but sometimes i do have to do something about it, and when I do, they’ll start mocking me. This kid in my school does boxing, and one time i was in the bathroom with him, and i had a nice conversation about martial arts with him. But whenever other people are around, he’s always trying to make them laugh, and I’m the victim every time. He does the exact same things that i mentioned, but he actually hits me, and i try and move him away from me, but then he goes on a rant about me and say stuff with a weird accent saying “oooh! You gonna use yo kung fu! Ooooh! Im so scared!” One time, he even almost kicked me me in the face doing a spinning back hook pretending to be me. And the entire middle school knows that I do the “karate ****”. I’m also the skinny kid in my grade, but I can still fight, but it doesnt matter to anyone, and they’ll just call me a stick or something like that. Its really hard to think of how I even do this by myself and have no one to talk to. Also, isn’t it weird how I can make a longer paragraph about being teased than my school essay? Should this be a little bit shorter? Its outrageous. Like, every time theres a half day, people love to go out and hang out in the city, but look whos at home by himself! That would be me! And even when I find out they’re going to the city after school its to late to try and nudge my way into the group. Obviously, they arent thinking of me so I shouldn’t even hang out with them. I even had a converstion with some of my classmates who noticed some of it too. They mentioned about how none of the people at my lunch table even care about me, and how I change friend groups all the time, since I used to sit with them. I wanted to feel like I fit in with the large group of kids, but it never really worked out. The only person i talk to this about is my brother, who has a different point of view on it. He says that if they offer a fight I should take it so they would give me the respect I should have and so I would be able to humble them. Anyways, thats all thats been happening in the past 3 months
I personally would avoid a fight at all costs. I don’t train in fighting but I could probably hold my own well enough if absolutely necessary against someone my age. But why? There’s a chance you’ll get hurt and if you fight at school you might potentially be suspended. I would say keep training but only use it unless absolutely necessary. For example if you are in fear of your life.
Anyway, correct me if I’m wrong.
Nah you right. I had about 8 years of martial arts training myself and every instructor I ever had was almost deathly serious about never using those skills on another person unless my life was at stake. To them, the practice was far more about the mind and body connection, something that took me years to realize.
@Scoogy it sounds like you’re young. Which is great! You’ve got lots of life to live. I really don’t want to come across as patronizing; I happen to know how some things can seem absolutely huge at that age. It took me years to get over my own bullying. But the wonderful thing about aging is your perspective gets much bigger. School seems so much smaller now, on this side of growing up. I was able to process the hurt and see things from my bullies’ perspective, and I realized it was almost never about me.
Sure, it was crappy to be the target. I definitely still feel the wounds, but they’re more like scars now. And the most important thing I learned was most people lash out, just to lash out. They happen to pick someone and single them out, and they never set out to target someone for bullying’s sake, but rather to make them feel better about their own ■■■■. And some of those people will never get over their own problems. So really the best way to get through it is to be better than them. I hope I made any sense and hope my words may bring you some solace. I know it must seem like you’ve got forever to go before you’re out of that environment, but I promise you’ll be on the other side of it in a nanosecond. This is a really great community and I’m glad you’re reaching out rather than immediately resorting to violence. Always remember, the best revenge is a life well lived.
life hits hard sometimes, the last four months have been really hard on me too, and im sorry that this is happening to you.
just ignore all those bums, they dont know what theyre talking about
if you need anything were here for you tho 
I was going to make a detailed reply, but @DumpsterWonder already said what I wanted to say 
Only thing I’ll add, is that as someone who intensely trained martial arts for several years, it gets difficult being unable to really show those skills off outside of your dojo/gym. You can’t really share that part of your life you’ve invested so much in with the people you walk the halls beside. I certainly didn’t get into martial arts to become a bully or to start fights, but I eventually found myself always looking for the opportunity to put that self-defense training into action. For that reason, if I could do it over again, I would’ve chosen to do a team sport through my school.
Being in team setting with schoolmates may help you make friends, or it may not. Like DW said, it sucks going through school without many friends, but once you graduate, that seems like such a small part of your life. Even those who do make friends in school rarely stay in contact with more than one or two of them as adults. What being in a team sport will do is help keep you from frequently thinking violent thoughts, while learning to coordinate with others to achieve a common goal (and hopefully having fun while doing it!). That’s a much more useful skill to develop for real life, my friend. Just something to consider.
Happy birthday, @Scoogy !!
You’re doing all the right things, man! Talking about it is braver than you realize.
so i can say from first hand experience this doesn’t work. I’ve always been a big intimidating guy. growing up i was constantly defending my younger brother or friends who were getting picked on. i was in a LOT of fights growing up. funny thing is nothing changed. it didn’t stop getting anyone picked on. heck it didn’t even stop ME from getting picked on much less anyone else. fact is you will never be able to beat respect and humility into ppl and i promise you’ll lose a piece of yourself trying. please don’t lower yourself to anyone else’s level. it isn’t worth it in the long run. there are horrible ppl in the world and we all have to figure out how to navigate that minefield but you’ll get there dude. hang in there. school doesn’t last forever and the world is SO much bigger and better than it seems as a young person who’s whole world is school
and know that everyone in the world wont love you, but that doesnt mean you aren’t loved
Being the 40 year old here who also had it rough as a kid…Don’t cave into these jerks, don’t give them that satisfaction. They want a reaction out of you because then they feed off of that and continue to feed off of further reactions. Often times, bullies have their own insecurities going on so they feel the need to 1-up themselves and lash out on others, just to make their pathetic selves feel good. This applies to many adults I see in today’s world too.
Use what you know when the time comes and it’s your last resort/need to defend yourself. Otherwise, just keep working on your training and don’t let the bullies push the buttons. They aren’t worth yours or anyone’s time.