Welcome to Episode #102 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “3 Halloween Self-Defense Lessons.”
When I was a kid, Halloween was a big deal. That’s because in our town, you were allowed to “trick or treat” for TWO nights instead of just one!
Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that while life can certainly bring you treats, it can also bring some serious tricks. Hopefully, my tragic story will help you write a story of triumph!
Okay—to be fair, my story isn’t really “tragic”, but it sure felt that way at the time. 🙂
Either way, I’ve got some self-defense advice to help you bolster your personal safety as well as strengthen your pursuits of success and happiness. I hope you can join me!
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3 Halloween Self-Defense Lessons
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TRANSCRIPT
Howdy! Ando here from Happy Life Martial Arts. Welcome to episode #102 of Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes even a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better.
It’s Halloween season as I record this, so I thought it would be great to tell you a ghost story. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen a ghost, but don’t worry, I have something even more frightening, even scarier than a ghost story. I have a bad guy story.
Yes, even though I’ve never seen a ghost, I’ve seen bad people, and I think they’re way more frightening because they’re real. So if you’re ready, I’ve got a Halloween story, one story, that will offer up, I think, three self-defense lessons. And these lessons, I think, will help you in your pursuit of safety, success, and happiness.
You ready for that? Let’s go.
All right, here’s the story…
It was a cold, dark Halloween night in Buffalo, New York. Now at the time of this story, this is going back a ways, I was probably in seventh or eighth grade, which puts me around 13 years old.
Now you might be thinking right away, 13, you’re out trick-or-treating when you’re 13? You’re a little too old for that. And I say, mind your own business. I enjoy trick-or-treating, and we were pretty good at it. And there’s two reasons for that.
One, the older I got, the more territory we could cover. You knew where the good neighborhoods were, where they were, and who was handing out the full-size candy bars, and you had the legs to get you there. So that was one huge advantage, experience.
Secondly, where I lived, we were on a border between Buffalo and a town called Cheetowaga, and they had different nights for trick-or-treating. One of them allowed trick-or-treating or endorsed it for the 30th, Halloween Eve– mischief night for some– so that was the night you were supposed to go out.
But the other said, no, no, it’s on the 31st, that’s trick-or-treating on Halloween proper. But most people living on the border, they were just confused, so they would just give out candy on both nights, which meant double the candy, double the fun.
So because I was older and because of the two nights of trick-or-treating, we scored. We always scored.
Now, because I’m 13, however, my friends weren’t always so gung-ho about dressing up. So on this particular night, they showed up in really what I would call, to be nice, low effort costumes. At that age, you’re talking about a guy had a black sweatshirt on and a ski mask and says, I’m a ninja. And the other guy pulls up a hoodie, puts some charcoal on his face and he says, you know, I’m a demon.
So pretty low effort, but not me, friends. Not me. No, no, I’m in it to win it. So very quickly, here’s what I put together for perhaps I think it was my last year of trick-or-treating.
At school, maybe some of you participated in this, Campbell’s Soup Company, the red and white label, the soup people. They had a program called Labels for Education. So, if you had a can of soup at home, you could take that label, bring it into your school. The teachers would collect all of those labels, send it into the company, the company would give your school money or supplies or something.
I don’t think they run this anymore, but at the time, we were all bringing in soup labels. Now, where did you put the soup labels? Well, they had a container. It was a cardboard can about three and a half, four feet tall. And that’s where you would drop in your labels.
Now, I went into the library one day where they had this container and I saw that they were putting it to the side. They were going to throw it out. I think they were replacing it with a new one or a new fancy nylon version. But there was this beautiful can. And I just asked, can I have that?
Boom, Halloween, done. I stapled a little strap or little ropes inside like suspenders and I could stand inside that can. So I’m a can of soup. Okay? But that’s not all.
No, no. My friend, you know me. I want more. So I decided I would dress up like a clown in the can of soup. Clown in a can. That’s the high concept for this, okay? Clown in a can.
All right, so picture this now. It’s cold, there’s a frost on the lawn, and it’s getting late. But I’m older and there’s no real curfew so I can stay out later. And it’s dark because it’s late. And it’s cold. And I’m wearing my can.
I’ve got, yes, some big shoes. I’ve got the whatever, the wig, all this stuff. And I’ve got this can that I’m kind of working within, all right? It’s a little small. And I’ve got my bag of candy that I’m holding on top.
Okay. So we’re making our way and we’re trying to get to the good houses. And we realize that the houses are starting to turn off their porch lights. It’s getting a little too late. But we wanted to make one more score. And to get there, to get to the other neighborhood, we had to go down a long dark street.
So whatever. We’re 13. I don’t care. So we start going down this street. Okay. Crunch, crunch. Walking down frosted ground. And as we’re walking, I notice out of the corner of my eye, there’s a car rolling up.
Now, like I said, I’ve never seen a ghost. But when you’re, let’s say, five years old, what scared me more than anything, maybe you too, was the idea of the big kids, right? If I was coming home from school and I was five years old and there were eight-year-olds or nine-year-olds coming the other way, I’d cross the street because I was afraid of the big kids.
Well, now I was one of the big kids. I’m 13. I am a big kid. But then there’s another level to be afraid of. Big kids with cars. That’s a whole other level of scary, at least to me.
Anyway, there we are, like a shark out of the corner of my eye. There’s this car, I think it was a Camaro, this makes me upset. There’s this car just rolling right along, matching our speed. And right as we’re kind of noticing– Hey, what are they doing?– boom, that’s it.
Door opens. Two of the bigger kids come screeching out straight at us. And my two friends, again, they’re just wearing sneakers and sweatpants. And they’re all dressed in black on a dark street. So, they take off like bottle rockets. I don’t even know if I saw them again in my life. I don’t even remember their, I don’t even know who they are at this point. They just took off and disappeared immediately.
But what about your friend, the clown in a can with the big shoes? I couldn’t even lift up my knees inside that cardboard can. I was just taking little steps all night. But when these monsters come running at me, I try to run because fear is natural. And I start pumping my legs, I crease the can.
I go down, face plant, roll over, I’m in the frost. And the big kid comes over, pins me down, reaches inside the can, strips away my bag of candy. They run back to their car, they’re gone. I’m laying on the ground alone, cold.
It’s dark, no candy. My can is broken. My spirits are crushed.
There’s no more to that story. That’s it. There’s no justice. The cops didn’t catch them.
Cops? Who cares? It was just a candy theft. That’s it. However, if that was the trick, there was a treat. Because even if you lose something, if you learn something, you didn’t really lose. Right? That’s what we say. Although I probably would have preferred the candy.
So let’s get to these 3 lessons…
My 3 Halloween Self-Defense Lessons
Ready? First lesson. This one goes right to the safety heading, okay? Your personal safety. Here it is.
Kids, little kids, walk into trouble without even knowing it. Grown-ups, at least they should, grown-ups know where the trouble is and they avoid it.
Now in this case, it was late. You’ve heard these types of rules like “nothing good happens past midnight” or “nothing good happens past 2 a.m.”
The signs were there. Lights were being turned off. It was late. Too late to be trick or treating. Take your candy and go home.
Didn’t listen. It’s dark. We chose to walk in a dark neighborhood, down a dark street, isolating ourselves. No good.
I was set up so that I could not run. My footwear was not okay and my legs were limited inside the cardboard can. No good.
My hands were not free to fight, to push away, to do anything. I was holding up this can, holding on my candy. No good.
Elbows inside. No good.
Now these kinds of tips seem obvious. I’ve even already made a video about this, Tips to Avoid Being Sucker Punched. And we go over the same thing. This is one of the reasons I made that video because I learned that I always want proper footwear. I don’t wear flip-flops.
I learned that I don’t want to grow a ponytail. I’m going to keep short hair so no one can grab my head.
I learned that I don’t ever wear hoodies. I don’t wear anything that’s dangling or hanging off of me. I don’t want a leash on my head or my person, so I don’t wear that.
I don’t wear tight pants or anything constrictive. I want to be able to run or kick.
So all of that, hopefully, you get. Stay in bright lights. Stay around other people. Follow the rules. Use common sense. Always be able to fight, be able to run. And here’s another lesson.
Give them the candy. They went through all that effort. Their version of trick-or-treating was to go rob a kid who’s doing all the trick-or-treating That’s pretty smart. I’m not saying they’re dumb, they’re just bad people. Give them the candy.
If I was thinking faster, and as soon as I saw that car coming up, I said, Oh, they’re going to rob us, and now they’re running at us, and oh, my friends took off. If I had just taken the bag of candy and dropped it, or thrown it over the edge of the can, maybe that would have been enough.
Now in fairness, bad people are bad people. Maybe this goes under the category of cow tipping. Maybe they also just wanted to tip over the clown in a can. So maybe I was asking for it in two different ways. Walking around in a can and I’ve got a big bag of candy.
Either way, I’m not blaming the victim here, but I sure made it easy for them to take advantage of me. So give them the candy. They want your wallet? Give them the wallet. You got a backpack? Drop the backpack. They want your computer? Hit them with the computer and run. Get your priorities straight. That’s a lesson.
But overall, the big takeaway for me on that one, the big treat from that trick, was to not look for trouble and don’t welcome trouble. When you’re a kid, like I said, a little kid, they don’t know. They don’t know where the danger is. That’s why you need a chaperone or an adult to escort you around, tell you which houses to go to, which ones to stay away from, who to talk to, who not to.
Go through the candy. Don’t eat that one. That one looks safe. Kids don’t know.
But then you get a little older, like a teen, and you’re not completely mature yet. You’re not completely mature, so you almost welcome trouble. All the rules that you learned along the way as a little kid, now you want to test them.
So you’re not supposed to stay up late. Go to bed. I want to stay up late. I’m going to sneak out. I want to go out late.
You’re not supposed to drink. I’m going to get bombed.
Don’t smoke. It’s bad for you. Well, what does it taste like? I want to know what that cigarette is all about.
Hey, you got a driver’s license. Follow the law. Stay to the right. Follow the speed limit. No, I want to see how fast this car can go.
Don’t fight with anybody. Don’t look for trouble like that. You’ll get hurt. I’m going to start a fight. What are you looking at? That’s immaturity.
It’s perhaps a natural stage of growth, but it is immature. You’re looking for trouble. You’re almost welcoming the excitement that trouble brings. It breaks you out of that box you were raised in. I get it. And frankly, some people never outgrow this stage.
Age is not what matters here. I say teens, but that’s not fair. There are some very level-headed, mature teens. And there are some really immature 50, 60, 70-year-olds and beyond. But I’m going to say that if you’re a grown up, you truly understand consequences. You can weigh risks and rewards and you can make wise choices for your life.
I’m not telling you which risks are okay and which ones are not. That’s up to you. We all play this game of picking our battles. Where do you want to take risk? Where do you not? But just evaluate that. Please evaluate it.
Are you in the bright light or are you in dark areas of your life? Are you traveling alone? Or do you have friends? Do you have good friends?
Are you prepared to run and leave something? Are you prepared to fight and stand your ground if you have to? These are the kinds of things I think that you have to think about.
So, lesson number one for self-defense. Kids walk into trouble without even knowing it. Immature people know the rules of safety, but they want to challenge them and test them to see how far they can go. Grown-ups know the rules, follow the rules, create their own rules to minimize trouble, if not completely avoid it.
Okay, lesson number two from my Halloween story. This one’s more in the success category. Here’s the lesson.
Masks are for kids. Being yourself is for grown-ups.
When you’re a little kid, you probably don’t have much say in what you’re going to be dressed up as for Halloween. Your parent thinks it’s cute, oh, you’re going to be a clown, you’re going to be Dracula, you’re going to be Pac-Man, whatever.
So little kids have no idea what they’re dressed up as. That’s it. You find a mask that your parent wants you to wear. Then you get older. And now you do have the awareness to start choosing what you want to be. You get to choose the mask you want to wear on Halloween and beyond.
You’re looking for that mask that fits your personality, that fits your desires, that fits the energy of your life at that time. Maybe you’re goody-goody, you want to walk on the dark side. Maybe you don’t feel very good and you want to dress up like a hero. So you could get into all of that.
Why did you choose that costume? What does that say about you? Or maybe it’s just fun. But I would say that the older you get, the more power you have to choose what you want to be. And that then plays over into your real life, right?
You’re not just wearing a literal mask on Halloween, but if you’re at school, if you’re at a new office, you start choosing, well, who are the cool kids here? Do I want to dress up like they do? Which clique seems to be the power clique here? Who do I want to associate with to get ahead?
Well, in my estimation, that can also get you into trouble. I was thinking about it as I was putting this podcast together, and I remember falling in with the cool kids, but they weren’t so cool. They were jerks, and that made me a jerk. I remember wanting to be part of that cool clique, but only because they were in power, not because they were good people.
So, that can be a really distorted view of what’s good in the world. Just because they’re powerful or cool doesn’t mean that’s for you, doesn’t mean it’s right, doesn’t mean it’s good. So we’ve got to think about that, and that’s where growing up comes in. Once again, here’s the maturity.
As a grown up, I don’t think you should be wearing masks anymore. I think the sign of being a grown up is you don’t wear a mask. You don’t need a mask. You can be yourself. That to me is the mark of maturity.
There is no cool kid cooler than you being yourself. There is no cool clique that is cooler than you being yourself.
So now you just have to ask yourself, are you wearing a mask? Do you wear one mask at work, another mask with your friends, another mask when you’re working out? Who are you trying to be? Who do you want to be? Who are you?
Do you think when you put on these masks, you’re fooling anybody? Are you trying to fool yourself? Maybe you come off like you’re really tough, putting on that mask, but really you’re not.
Maybe you’re coming off like you’re very intellectual, you’ve got all the politics of the world figured out, but really you’re just parroting somebody else and you don’t really know.
I just worked out with a guy, it comes to my mind, who presented himself with the mask of being a cool guy, nice guy, happy guy, friendly guy, high five guy. But then when you worked out with him, he was trying to stick it to me. He wasn’t such a nice guy.
As a matter of fact, it turned out, in my opinion, my estimation, that he was so over the top trying to be nice to hide the fact that his heart had a little bit of evil in it. He enjoyed causing pain. He wanted to get away with hitting someone and being a bit of a bully and hoping that he could hide that part of himself. Oh no, sorry buddy. I caught on.
So, you got to be careful. If you’re wearing a mask, you got to wonder, are people seeing through it? And then what are the consequences? That guy I just mentioned, who I think took advantage of me in that workout until I stopped it. How many other relationships are going to disappear and opportunities because people saw through his mask and he doesn’t know?
He’s still walking around with that mask. But behind his back, people are saying, Yeah, there’s something wrong with that guy. Yeah, he’s not what he seems to be. I don’t trust that guy. And therefore, I don’t call him. I don’t offer him anything. I don’t want to work out with him anymore. And now he’s lost. No treats for him.
So be careful if you’re wearing a mask, because it may or may not hide who you really are. That was lesson number 2. Masks are for kids. Being yourself is for grown-ups.
Lesson number 3. In the category on this one, I would just put under happiness. Just to be happy in this world. The lesson to me is this.
Begging and hoping is for kids. Planning and providing for yourself is for grown-ups.
When you’re a kid, I think you want everything. I want this. I want that. Gimme, gimme. I want more.
You want everything, which is not practical, not tenable. You can’t have everything. And if you try to give a child like that everything, they’re still going to be disappointed. It’s never enough when you want everything.
So as you grow up, as you grow older, you become more selective. You must become more selective. Instead of wanting everything, again, you pick your battles and you say, well, I want that. I want this and I want that. You learn to focus on a goal or two.
So that’s one sign of maturity. But now there’s another challenge. Now that you set your goal, you know what you want. How are you going to get it? And this is a big one. This is tricky. Are you going to go around begging for it, hoping for it? Or are you going to build it? Are you going to make it happen?
Trick or treating is really, when you think about it, a very immature activity. It is for kids. It should just be for kids. Because you are asking someone else to determine what you get. You’re saying trick or treat. And then you’re just hoping to get something you want. It’s all faith-based.
When you go up to that door, you have no idea what’s on the other side. And by the way, when you get a trick– if you live your life like that, just begging people for things, gimme, gimme, gimme, and not working for things, expecting things, feeling you’re entitled to things, being disappointed when you don’t get what you want, even though you didn’t do anything to get it, except for whine– imagine when you get the trick, imagine if you’re a little kid, five years old, you go up to the door and you say, Trick or treat, and they open the door, and he’s got a deck of cards, the guy that lives there, and he says, Oh great, I have a trick. I don’t have any treats. I have a trick tonight. It’s a magic trick. Pick a card, kid.
How many kids do you think will be delighted to participate in a card trick instead of getting a piece of candy? Really what the child wants is treat or treat. They just want to come to the door and go, give me a treat. That’s really what it comes down to. It’s a false choice from the beginning. Trick or treat.
The problem is, in life, I think there are more tricks than treats. The tricks are coming. Treats are more rare. The treats you have to actually work for. This is the lesson that you learn as you grow older.
Those kids taking away my candy taught me something really important. All of that stuff that I had amassed, all that sugar came from begging for it, hoping for it. Yeah, I was walking around, but come on. Someone else just came and took it from me. That was life giving me a trick and I didn’t like it.
I had faith that I could just get what I wanted, go home and keep it. Nope, life said, I got a trick for you. You don’t get to keep it. Now he gets it.
So this is your choice in life. Do you want to just deal in faith or do you want to deal in fact? Do you want to take a chance and knock on a door and see what comes–could be candy, could be a punch in the face– or do you want to just buy your own candy? Make your own candy. Provide your own candy.
I don’t even have to go outside the house. I don’t have to dress up. I don’t have to do a song and dance. I don’t have to look like a fool. I don’t have to put myself at risk. How about I just buy my own candy? It’s a far more sensible way to live your life. I know it’s in my bag because I put it there. I didn’t ask you to put it there.
So, what do you want? You funnel down, “I want everything” to “I want something”. So what is it that you want?
Now ask yourself, how are you going to get it? Are you running around knocking on doors, whether the lights are on or off? Are you living on faith that good stuff is going to come if you just hang out long enough and keep asking for it?
Are you hanging out with people who are going to take off when you’re in trouble? Are you hanging out with people who are going to laugh at you or help you when you need help? What kind of friends are you bringing into your life?
What kind of relationships are you allowing in your life? Are you just on good faith hoping people are going to be nice to you and not rip you off or do you have contracts? Did you lawyer up? Did you trust but verify?
Do you ask the hard questions? Do you set the boundaries? This is self-defense for financial health, personal physical health, and just happiness, I think, in general.
So that was lesson number 3. Begging and hoping is for kids. Planning and providing for yourself is for grown-ups. And I think that brings us to the end of the lessons. That’s it.
So, I hope you can learn from this humble clown in a can. I do appreciate the tricks that life provides, because I do feel that the treat at the end is that I’ve learned something. If you made it this far in the podcast, I hope you’ve learned a little something too.
My wish for you is to make it– don’t hope for– make it a safe, successful, happy Halloween for yourself, and then beyond that, make it a safe, successful, happy life. I hope you can take that tragic part of my life and turn it into a triumph in yours.
Until next time, smiles up my friend. Let that smile be your shield and your sword. Keep fighting for a happy life.
