| Friend,
True story alert...
My second school was located in an area where there was a lot of "urban flight" - people who moved out of the inner city due to gentrification and increased costs of living.
Now, I grew up poor, so I had a lot of experience in dealing with shady people as a kid. I also knew that just because someone is poor, it doesn't mean they're bad people.
However, my previous school was in an affluent community, and I'd forgotten just how crazy some people who come from rough environments can act…
A lady came in the school to enroll her five-year-old, and she brought along her teenage sister to enroll as well. The mom also explained the teen would be bringing the five-year-old to classes, as she sometimes wouldn’t make it home from work in time to take her child to class.
The next day, the teen comes in with the kid for their first lesson. I teach the private, and then invite them to stay so the five-year-old can attend the group class.
Later during the class, the teen is on her cell phone having a very loud conversation. I ask her politely to take it outside, and she ignores me.
So, I ask her again. Again she ignores me. And I ask her a third time, at which point she begins cussing me out in front of my tots class.
Finally, I ask her to leave. She continues making a scene, so I escort her outside, then I call the police before going back to apologize to everyone and salvage what’s left of the class time.
A few minutes later I dismiss the class and go outside to greet the cop. He happens to be Hispanic, and he is having a very animated conversation with the teen in Spanish.
Thankfully, I speak a little Spanish and understand it passingly (my grandma spoke very little English, so I had to pick it up to converse with her). As it turned out, the teen was telling the cop that I hit her, that I beat her up, and so on.
Talk about a mess…
Until next time,
Mike Massie MartialArtsBusinessDaily.com
P.S. - I started off writing today's message as an email, but it turned into a 1,700-word article. So, I hope you don't mind that I posted it to the blog and linked it from this email.
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