Readers — Perhaps it had not yet occurred to you that without a black belt, you and your family might not survive holiday shopping. You poor, naive fools. See you in traction!
Hi dthdiinkni
Blogger,Black Friday is just several weeks away and for many people this means heading out even earlier this year to get the best deals and steals. However, if history repeats itself,
Black Friday can make people do some crazy things. Each year the news headlines tell stories of people being physically hurt over holiday gifts. As ridiculous as this sounds, Krav Maga Worldwide, a leading self-defense organization is informing shoppers how they can stay safe with some basic self-defense tips.
Would you be interested in learning more about how you can keep your Black Friday shopping safe?
Of course! I am eager to learn how to fell any mom reaching for the last Sno-Glow Elsa Doll. Let me at her!!! – L.
Out of my way, shopper!
Staying safe on Black Friday is easy. Just sit in living room and use computer.
And of course the media is going to also spin this as the sex offenders favorite day to “shop” for children.
Nothing says Christmas like karate chopping a mum over Frozen merchandise.
“And of course the media is going to also spin this as the sex offenders favorite day to ‘shop’ for children.”
Sigh. Remember when “shopping for children” meant buying stuff for them?
Screw Black Friday. I never participate. My sanity is worth more. I do my Christmas shopping in Sept and Oct and early Nov and then I am done. I am about done already. I hate crowds.
I don’t really feel sorry for anyone that gets hurt in that Black Friday mess. It makes us look like greedy material idiots when people get into fist fights over a cheap sweater.
Oh fights do break out. My friend does Black Friday shopping every year and she always has a story to tell every year. She takes her giant 6 foot plus brother with her as a bodyguard.
I mean is this over paranoia? Because fights DO break out. Because people DO get trampled. Maybe it is only one person getting trampled every year but still it does happen. And this is one of those things that is it worth it to be hurt for a slightly cheaper Barbie dream house? No. It really is not. I would rather pay $30 more dollars and get that dream house in Oct.
It makes me sick when I hear about like that Walmart employee that was trampled to death by crazed shoppers. What a senseless death.
The stories I hear every year makes me glad I live in Canada. If I want a Black Friday deal, I do it online, but there is no reason for half the country to go to the store and get into fights (armed and otherwise) over merchandise.
In fact, I am 2/3 of the way through my Christmas shopping (although most of it is in the mail somewhere — gotta shop early when doing it this way). Come December, I refuse to even think of going to the mall.
My family has always shopped on Black Friday, my dad included. He actually plans our “battle strategy”. But honestly, I’ve never seen people rush a door, fight over a toy or in general be anything other than nice to each other. Now, I’m not going to Best Buy or KMart but the mall has always been pretty sane. We are in by 6am and out before noon.
I’ve rarely gone, and then only to smaller stores or the mall. I hate how people skip Thanksgiving for this stupid shopping.
I’m thankful that I’ve spent the last few Black Fridays traveling most of the day to visit extended family for a Second Thanksgiving, and will do that again this year. In prior years, I just planned to do anything BUT shopping, including arranging things to be sure I wouldn’t need to run for any groceries or other odds and ends. Ever since Black Friday transcended “somewhat fun, unusually busy shopping day” somewhere around the early 80’s, I’ve just opted out.
It’s true that there’s some small risk that you will find yourself in the middle of some kind of altercation initiated by someone else, but going out and taking self-defense lessons for that small possibility is about like up-armoring your car *just in case* some nutcase might someday try to run you off the road. The likelihood of either happening to any given person is small. You hear about genuine physical Black Friday fights because when they happen, they *make the news.* What else does that remind you of?
Let it go, let it gooo…..
I guess you should seriously re-evaluate your priorities if you require training to fight off shopping ninjas on Black Friday.
I have never understood the desire to camp out in frigid weather for early bird sales at Wally World and beating others into oblivion to be one of the lucky buyers of a flat screen TV. I’d rather stay home eating pie and watch the Sound of Music. And It’s the same TV’s every year. Where do they all go??
I do enjoy watching the news to see the much-hyped interviews (“Stampede at Walmart”) after these shopping fights occur. I know I should be ashamed, but I’m not. It’s like Jerry Springer has gone live. It’s often a dentally challenged person, trying to get one of the few TV’s the store has lured in these clueless folks with to duke it out in the electronics department.
The Hunger Games but with flat screen TV’s.
May the odds be ever in your favor.
Maybe I am the odd man out, but I love the hustle-bustle of Black Friday shopping. I try to get to the biggest outlet mall in the area and made a day of it.
Funny thing is, although I’ve seen some rudeness, even some light shoving, I’ve never seen a melee. Of course I’ve seen them on the news. But I went to Google and looked it up, nobody keeps statistics but it seems like it happens maybe a half a dozen times each year. It is always at a select few locations, and (I’m trying to put this in the most delicately way possible) in an area of low socio-economic standing.
I think the best equivalence to this is a major sports victory or maybe the Ferguson riots. There are 100,000 fans who just want to have a drink in a bar, or people who want to show disapproval of police brutality, and 100 that want to use that as an excuse to burn cars and loot business. Of course it’s the 1% of looters that make the news.
Most people just want a good deal on some toys and 1% will use the crowd as an excuse to punch an old lady in the face over a Tickle-me-Elmo.
That said, I’ve been tempted to cold cock the random old broad on Black Friday. Not over a toy, of course (I have some class), but over the fact that the parking lot is full and she parked her old Buick so far over the line that she is taking up two spaces.
While I believe that learning a martial art is good investment of time and good exercise, I don’t believe that black Friday shopping should serve as the sole reason for getting lessons. The media will give tons of coverage to a few bad apples, but considering the amount of shoppers, those incidents are very rare.
Well put Steve about martial arts is a valuable skill. I have my kids in karate right now. But yeah, I don’t think fighting over a tv is worth it. I would feel I failed in my parenting if my kids were involved in something like that when they grew up.
Go to youtube and put in black friday fights or deaths-there are some disturbing and entertaining videos.
Never understood the need to stand in line for hours, take time off work, fight insane crowds all to get a good deal on whatever.
If it were a kidney for my dying family member, maybe, not certain but maybe I would do it. But cetainly not for some material possession.
LOL, I wonder how many of these idiots fighting and shoving to buy a TV or whatever, are also ones that think football, hockey and the like are barbaric violent sports?
I’ll undercut this “self-defense organization.” Here are some free tips.
Tip #1) The vast majority of injuries and deaths (which are thankfully rare) are from stampeding injuries. Typical “self-defense” moves, aren’t going to protect you from that. You protect from that by being long legged, fast, and at the very front of the line. Or by joining at the mid to later part of the line. Most of all you protect others by not pushing.
Tip #2) If someone does start a fight, just drop the toy, gadget, or do-dad. Your medical co-pay is probably more than the discount on the item.
Okay mostly I just avoid Black Friday. But my experience is that people aren’t vicious at these things. Most people are half asleep. One Black Friday I walked halfway through Wal-mart with a bright yellow sticky note with something embarrassing written on it stuck to my back side. When my mom spotted it she pointed and laughed so hard she couldn’t tell me what she was laughing about. And not a single person looked. People just continued walking passed with glazed over eyes. So…
Tip #3) If you really do plan on going head to head in a crazy melee for stuff… Get lots of sleep and drink your coffee. Actually being awake will give you a huge leg up… Though there is a slight chance you might be distracted by a kid wandering around half asleep with an embarrassing note stuck to their back.
LOL, I Black Friday shop every year (although less now since all the sales are starting on Thanksgiving Day itself) and I’ve never felt the need for self defense. Sure it gets tight and people get frustrated but it’s not like people are getting trampled by the dozens in every Walmart and Target in America. Oh and just a tip: That Elsa doll, which my 3.5 year old is praying for, is on sale at Walmart right now for the same price as the price in their Black Friday ad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xL8rE9DT4g
calm my butt. This is chaos and madness and makes us look no better than savage animals and yes, I think some marital arts probably would be useful in these examples. People are freaking nuts.
SOA, “this actually happens” and “I can find YouTubes of these incidents” are precisely the same arguments that people make in favor of helicopter parenting, of never letting your kids 20 feet away from you when they’re little or on their own until they’re 25. The fact that something “does happen” is not the same as a good argument that it’s common enough that we should structure our lives around the possibility. In this case, yes, it “does happen” and no, it’s not common enough to justify the average person going out of their way to prepare for.
I once made the mistake of going to Walmart on Black Friday. The store offered a few copies of each discounted video game on sale at 10 p.m. Before the official “start” time, the employees stepped out of the way and young men shoved all the middle aged women down and ripped apart the display cases so they could get the games for themselves. At least one woman actually got hurt, but it was from mass shoving, which I doubt self-defense classes could prevent. I turned away in disgust, only to see adults fighting over $3 pajamas. I’m pretty sure I called them savage animals before I walked out with nothing. I didn’t get self-defense lessons. I just stopped shopping on Black Friday (and never shopped again at Walmart…but that’s another story). Because the really awful feeling was from participating in the worst of materialism…when it was still technically Thanksgiving Day.
I like going out shopping on Black Friday as kind of a kick off to the holiday season. But my wife and I start at about 9:00 in the morning and go out for breakfast first. We never go out with any expectation of what we’re going to buy. We’re just out shopping.
About 15 or so years ago we went out very early with the intention of picking up a stereo that was on sale at Target for our daughter. When the doors opened there was a stampede to the electronics section. Target had LOTS of these things in stock, but people would not take a chance that they were not going to get one. People were pushing others out of the way. They were climbing shelves to get to the ones that were up high. There was an employee on top of a ladder trying to hand the stereos down, and people were trying to climb up both sides of the ladder. (when I think about it now, it reminds me of some of the scenes in World War Z where the zombies are climbing over each other to get over walls)
We got out of that mess without even trying to get the stereo. Before we left the store I saw a grown woman sitting on an endcap crying, with tears and all, because she only got one of a particular scooter that was on sale, and she needed two.
Once we got outside we looked at each other and agreed — NEVER AGAIN!
We enjoy our breakfast, shop casually, buy things that we come across that we like, whether they’re on sale or not, and if people are acting like crazed animals, we go home.
Please stay safe on black friday as some people have no regard for humanity on that day.