Should martial arts instructors be allowed to hurt students?

In the middle of a varsity baseball game, with more than a dozen runs to go, my coach, a former pro, told our pitcher, Tommy, to throw the ball to the opposing pitcher when he came up to bat.

“Hit him in the head!” he said forcefully, leaving no doubt in my teammate’s mind as to his orders.

Tommy walked slowly back to the mound, obviously distraught and confused, and not in the mood to insult another player, even if the opponent was doing a great job burying us that day.

Tommy ended up throwing one or two pitches down and inside, and at a speed low enough that they didn’t pose any threat to his counterpart.

This infuriated our coach, who was stalking the bench like a frustrated tiger, as the scene did not play out to his specifications.

From then on, Tommy was assigned the worst possible pitching assignments, and when we were losing badly, the coach kept him in games simply to prolong his misery.

I offer you this episode because it reminds me of what I have seen in martial arts.

The instructors whispered “Hit him!” to various students in order to satisfy their own cravings for a show, or for revenge.

This raises a crucial question: Is it appropriate for a martial arts instructor to promote injury or directly inflict it himself?

For example, if student A is hitting student B and is about to
inflict serious bodily injury on B, we would want a
instructor or Sensei to intervene and separate the two in order to
reduce the threat.

If A “got a dose of his own medicine” in the process,
we would not cry for him, unless his punishment was
proportion and obviously
undeserved

But in most other scenarios, it would seem counterproductive for a teacher and especially a school principal to hurt rent payers by preventing them from training.

However, this happens more often than anyone realizes, especially to students who believe they are training in a safe and secure environment. But why?

Five reasons come to mind, immediately:

(1) Bordeaux. Instructors run the risk of becoming distracted if they continually perform the same exercises, in the same way, day after day. So to spice things up, they occasionally let their dojos turn into a “Fight Club” scene.

(2) To take a student to a lower level. If a trainee’s ego shows too much, an instructor, or a proxy acting on behalf of an instructor, will humiliate the offender.

(3) To induce a student to quit smoking. One would think that taking him aside for a friendly chat would do the trick more efficiently, but many types of martial arts are non-verbal and surprisingly avoid VERBAL confrontations.

(4) To prove to themselves and others that “This really works!” Surprisingly, even the most experienced martial arts students doubt their abilities to defend themselves in a “real fight”, so they can’t resist the urge to try a move or two on a conveniently placed, living, breathing shock dummy.

(5) Sadism. Where else, except in Dottie’s Domination Dungeon, can you get people to pay you to beat them up, yell at them, drill them to death, and then bow to you in submission and gratitude?

Martial arts training necessarily involves the use and confrontation of force. Accidentally, some injuries will follow.

But promoting them, no matter how you rationalize it, is beyond stupid.

it’s criminal