The gym where they teach you how to beat up chavs

17 June 2009

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Brendan O’Neill is not impressed by a class of paranoid white-collar workers learning how to head-butt imaginary assailants and defend themselves with their laptops

But is this all just a glorified form of keep-fit? For a moment, the class turns a bit gay. Mat has us on the floor doing leg-and-butt exercises, promising that we will get ‘the same kind of butt you see in Calvin Klein adverts’. We all giggle approvingly. But there is a sinister side too. In this Krav Maga class, in the much-promised but elusive Chav Fighting class, and in other increasingly popular street-fighting classes in gyms across London, well-to-do white-collar workers seem to be visiting their fear and frustration on imaginary threats.

The executive recruiter tells me London is likely to become more violent as the recession gets worse. A combination of media exaggeration about the threat of chavvy knife crime, the strangely intense paranoia fostered by spending all night in a dark, dingy gym and white-collar workers’ feelings of recession-related insecurity has generated a new culture of quite hateful keep-fit. These sweating men look (and smell) like the physical manifestation of today’s culture of fear.

I say: leave the so-called chavs alone. They might feature regularly in the media as the binge-drinking cause of Britain’s every social ill, but in the real world they are mostly pleasant or shy young men and women. In my neck of the woods, Lambeth (the rough part), a group of what many people would label as chavs, complete with one of those ugly, snarling mutts, inhabits a local bus-stop, talking loudly, drinking Sunny D, displaying their underwear. Yet if you so much as smile at them, far less say ‘Good evening’, they look away or sink further into their hooded tops like especially shy tortoises. Bless ’em. I can’t imagine ever using these kids as punchbags or even throwing my Evening Standard in their faces.

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Mr Green

June 18th, 2009 1:38pm Report this comment

You picked the wrong martial art!

Those in the know, know that Krav Maga is for fruitcakes, body-guards and those who have wandered in off of the street by mistake!
Most martial arts only get down to the "nitty-gritty" aggresive stuff once you have attained a high level of control.

Personally, I would always recommend Shotokan Karate or Judo to those who want a complete workout (ie - fitness, stamina, strength, weight-loss and self-defense).
In all forms of martial arts you will find forms which concentrate more on the agressive aspect, but Shotokan Karate and Judo are (generally speaking) for the mind, body and spirit; no headbutts!

ps - I lost 4st in 3 years when I started Karate. In more senior lessons I gained broken ribs, broken fingers and torn ligaments, but we wont mention that...

paul gilboy

June 19th, 2009 8:19pm Report this comment

I bet you get beaten up by a thirteen year old girl next week its sods law. You'll be going back to the krav maga course a month later stinking of fear, muttering under your breath that you sort the little bitch out in future.

David Short

June 20th, 2009 3:18pm Report this comment

I see the subs are excelling themselves again - 'Defense'?

DJT

June 21st, 2009 11:15am Report this comment

"figures released by the Met last year showed that it dropped by 15.7 per cent over the previous two years, from 12,122 to 10,220 incidents." oh well only 10 thousand (reported) knife crimes...so that's ok then, i guess...

Mr Green

June 22nd, 2009 3:25pm Report this comment

Well spotted, David.
£10 Woolworths' voucher in the post.

No one likes us, we don't care

June 24th, 2009 10:12pm Report this comment

So Brendan, you'll drop the first mugger you meet with your superior eloquent liberal attitude will you? You portray yourself as a geek sniffily objecting to people spending their lawfully earned time and money in learning how to protect themselves. Don't go out at night. Oh, and do let us know where donations to the flower collection should be sent.

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