Play fight ! Yesterday I tried this new group therapy based as it's name says on playing and fighting . The game is supposed to bring back up some hidden emotional traumas we all suffered as children
"Don't fight with your siblings , it is ugly". A kind of late bloomer rebellion.
The group is made up ten people of both sex seated in circle. The annoying thing about these new age group is the crowd: men with un groomed beards , smelly feet with protruding nails, and yellow teeth from smoking joints, dressed like scarecrows. Women are even worse: piercings and tattoos everywhere, purple hair , unshaved and surrounded by this resilient smell of rotten incense.
As in the Chinese proverb "from the muddiest waters grow the beautiful white lotus" two participants stood out the crowd: an innocent cute blond girl wearing a neat gym outfit , as if she was doing her daily yoga and a gentle good looking boy, clean and smiling. Two renaissance angels from the bourgeoisie in the middle of revolted dirty anarchists.
Rules are simply and cruel. Use any means during 5 minutes to pin the opponent on the hard wooden floor during 5 seconds...
The first volunteer can choose whom to fight. A shaggy thin guy with long legs and a heavy metal T-shirt comes into the circle and summons the cute boy to wrestle with him.
Polite, he accepts and immediately gets violently thrown on the ground. His head banging on the floor. But he wriggles out of the lock. Annoyed, his adversary holds his arms and tries to tackle him again. To no avail. The cute boy manages every time to wriggle out of the scarecrow's claws. The 5 minutes are over. The game is called off. 0-0. Both fighters are out of breath. The cute boy is bruised. He combs his disheveled hair with his hand. The other people in the circle are laughing : "you guys looked like two monkeys" says one scornfully.
The second fighter is an old fat woman with a greasy grey pony tail. She summons the blond school girl. And the slaughter starts. Before 5 minutes , she is tackled and trampled by the witch who triumphs. The blond sheds a tear , she feels that she was ridiculous. People around try to comfort her. Actually she looked like a Barbie being thrown up and down by a mean step-mother. She excuses herself and leaves.
The game goes on for one more hour. A father wrestles his teenage son. Two tattooed girls wrestle against each other, half laughing half fighting. After each game, people confess how they felt during the fight.
"It was challenging but fun"
"It was like being a child again"
.………
It is the last round. A cold blue-eyed muscular skin head is challenging the others. Nobody moves. The referee says that the game won't be over until someone takes up the fight.
To everyone's surprise, the cute elegant boy stands again and announces that he is fighting: " I need to overcome my fears" he explains. The skin head grins. He looks like a tiger who is about to devour his prey. The cute boy defends himself with the energy of despair. Again, thanks to his flexibility and skills, he manages to get out of each tackle. Perfidious , the skin head even tries to strangle him. The referee finally intervenes: "look in his eyes, the power is your confidence, be more aggressive" he screams at the cute boy.
The last minute of the game, the big skin head is taken aback. The boy is on him almost all the time, but he is light and cannot pin him onto the ground, although he wears him out by his multiple assaults.
Game is over: 0-0.
The first attacker, the sleazy guy with thin long legs snorts that the boy wanted people to pity him, that is why he chose to fight again.
Gasping, the skin head admits that he admires the boy who dared defying him.
The referee calls the end of the session and everyone prays and pay the therapist. Bruises are called fight kisses and are normal, he jokingly adds.
"People join this group for different emotional reasons : fight a fear , a frustration , as a sign of rebellion or self- affirmation? "
Nevertheless, the cute boy thanked everyone politely with a hug and leaves alone limping.
Algès, November 2017
