Just got back from a Tae Kwon Do School field trip to the waterslides in Sacramento. Something about 102 degree heat (we always say it's a dry heat) that seems to melt away common sense in people's heads.
We were getting our caravan together in the parking lot to return home. The last carload (our very time challenged instructor) was keeping us waiting. Out of nowhere a sedan sped through empty parking spaces, hitting a waiting car behind me. It didn't stop until it ran into another parked car with a mom putting her infant into the car. Amazingly the first car hit deflected the speeding car away from one of our students getting into one of our cars.
It turned out that the driver was a fourteen year old girl who had been given the keys to load up the car. A large group (about ten of her family) ran up to the car, telling her to get out of the car and starting to argue with each other. Very quickly the crowd swelled with our students, the family from the other hit car. It was one of those moments that felt like a mob becoming out of control.
Multiple people called 911 (including myself) but they were taking forever to come. Once the police came the family of the girl became more verbally abusive hitting the girl and then coming after the driver of the car (one of our parents) whose had been missed.
It was definitely one of those meconium hitting the fan and flying all over the place moments. The parents from our school moved our students out of the melee and things started to calm.
After things cooled down we all realized how fortunate it was that no one was hurt. A few feet forward and my car would have been hit on the side where my son was sitting. The girl who was nearly hit was able to jump behind a car door just in time. The infant in the other car was uninjured- very fortunate as she was not yet in her car seat. Her mom was safe instead of being pinned between her car and the speeding car.
I'm not one of those people that believes in random luck and coincidences. I felt protection for myself and the other people on the scene. Having experienced the front end of my own car being torn off by a semi truck, I don't take this new experience lightly. It gave me a whole new appreciation for importance of de-escalating hot tempers and preventing mayhem.
Snapping many "yo's" and thank yous to the Shoten Zenjin...
Dr. Mimi
Posted by drmimi at July 26, 2004 12:15 AMEverything happened SO fast that I didn't even think about chanting Daimoku. Helping to keep track of 17 kids and couple of loose cannon adults keep me occupied.
Coincidentally, the waterslides were less than a mile away from the Sacramento Community Center. In fact we ended up eating in the strip mall that houses the center. I didn't feel any special protection because of the proximity, just happy to know of places nearby to eat.
Once I got home, I chanted sincere Daimoku of thanks. Since the "crazy Sunday", I have been thinking a lot about what happened. I'm concerned that although the Tae Kwon Do School teaches all sorts of physical techniques re self defense it is very light on teaching restraint and how to deescalate a situation. My goal is to continue to convey this to my son from a Buddhist perspective. Just looking for more adult role models in our environment that can do this (cause I learned from Sunday that his Tae Kwon Do instructor and most of the adults connected to the school do not have this skill).
Dr. Mimi
That is one of the most hair raising stories I have read in a long time. Wow! Every now and then I read a story that is so awful that my only response is to just chant Odaimoku as a kind of prayer for the people involved and as a way of saying "this is too awful to articulate a resonse and all I can do is appeal to the universe that there is some meaning to all this." With the kind of story you told here I also spontaneously chant Odaimoku (silently in this case as I am at work) out of a profound sense of gratitude that it did not become one of those awful stories. And yes, this is definately a situation where one would want to at least chant a few Odaimoku to oneself for calm and a deescalation of temper. I know I would need to.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
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