Moral Dilemma

[PangQuan]

You know those guys who think they are the badest of the bad, and fail to realize that they are regular people just like all other martial artists, and are prone to the same mistakes and draw backs. Say you know one of those guys, and they are in serious need of a wake up call. And suppose they happen to be a good friend. Would you put them in their place or let them continue on and not risk creating a strange situation, in regards to friendship as well as training. And suppose you wanted to "show them the light" how would you go about doing so without hurting thier pride and ego. I can easily ignore this but at the same time, I feel that if someone does not tell him how it is he may be in for some hurt later on in life. Just curious what you would do.

[mickey]

Hello PangQuan,

I have been called a perfectionist at times in my life; yet, in my book, a perfectionist is someone who is well aware of his shortcomings.

Your friend may be well aware of his shortcomings and is simply putting up a front in hopes that no one else will see them. Another angle your friend may be working from is poor self esteem. In that regard, he needs to feed himself that talk because no one else provided him with the necessary reassurances about himself early on in his life. People like that tend to burn out because the poor self esteem eventually overpowers the talk; their only salvation is having someone to believe in their facade.

Your role? I suggest that you continue being that person's friend. Your own demeanor will be a grounding influence for him. He is already learning from your behavior as you are from his. You may also ask what his goals are. Since you are the grounded person in this relatioship, such a question coming from you may bring him down a few notches to deal with reality.

Oh yeah, the confrontation thing may worsen your present situation.

Good Luck, whatever you decide.

mickey

P.S.: Is the late Gene Davis still remembered in Oregon?

[David Jamieson]

man I thought this was going to be a thread about royal dragon having sex with his friends wife. :p


...

anyway, invite your bud to train with you. school him and tool him, don't be hatin, just set the perspective straight. It'll iron out.

[joedoe]

As a friend it is probably your responsibility to point it out to them that they aren't all that great before someone else does it. At least you will do it carefully.

[red5angel]

we have this guy in our capoeira class who has a problem that is similar. He's good at what he does but he has a hard time controlling himself and often times while playing he gets out of hand. He can get ****y but in general he's actually a pretty nice guy.
Occasionally some of the top students will decide it's time to remind hum to be humble, so they wil all play him in the roda, one after the other and basically just hand him his ass. this usually gets the message across atleast for a while.

[PangQuan]

Good advice guys, thanks. I think ill stick to my current route and use the ol' sitting dharma method. It usually works well for me. Smile and nod, smile and nod. Ill probably use a little of red5's classmates method too.

P.S. Mickey
You still hear the name around here yes. :)