View Single Post
Old 01-31-2010, 07:46 AM   #41
fisher6000
Dojo: NY Aikikai
Location: Brooklyn
Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 31
Offline
Re: My dark side and aikido

Hi Phil,

I agree with you. A good bartender goes with the flow and never escalates conflict, but at the same time is responsible for the entire bar's good time, not just the loudest DB in it, and so must manage behavior constantly.

When I lived in Arizona, there was either a law or a financial incentive for anyone who serves alcohol to take a class called TIPS training, which taught strategies for managing drunkenness in ways that de-escalate conflict. Enlist a less-drunk friend to enforce for you; get the drunk guy to admit to you that he's drunk and should get a cab, and not the other way around; frame enforcement as a personal favor to you and not as a threat. Never just tell a drunk jerk that he's being a drunk jerk. Never get into a power struggle, but do figure out what the escalator wants from you and withhold it until you've got his attention.

It took me much longer than the amount of time I was bartending to figure these skills out, but the experience and the class remains helpful. And this is why I am so drawn to aikido--I think it reinforces similar strategies.

People behave badly all the time in all sorts of contexts, and I have a strong history of letting that bad behavior get my goat and lead me to my own "justified" bad behavior. I tend to respond to conflict in an unbalanced way. But the more I can just respond to behavior in ways that protect myself and are about a constructive outcome, the less of my own "dark side" I wind up seeing.
  Reply With Quote