Why I Wish I Got My Black Belt from Hong Kong Airlines

How cool would it be to kick your manager’s butt?

I greatly believe in training. I have been fortunate to work in businesses that also believed in having trained and qualified professionals in their organization. I have personally and professionally benefited from that philosophy, and I have gained new knowledge as a result.

Since graduating from university, the most time-consuming and costly training I have been asked to undertake was my lean Six Sigma Black Belt training. The training comprised nearly 50 hours of e-learning, six residential sessions over six months, and submission of two projects demonstrating all the tools and techniques that I learned. The instructors were excellent, and often I was reminded that I was going to learn more than 140 tools and techniques during the course. I used this number to brag to others about how proficient I was going to become.

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Comments

Re: Black Belts & Hong Kong Airways

Paul, I agree with your general comment that non-violent methods should be a part of conflict management. But I don't think that Wing Chen is designed to "kick ass". Rather, it appears to be aimed at establishing control of a situation at close range. Many martial arts (including Aikido, which I study) teach conflict avoidance as preferable to actual combat. But if a passenger is out of control, and there's only one female attendant on the spot, it makes sense to me to have her able to defend herself and prevent the disruptive passenger from harming her or others.

I wonder, however, if Hong Kong Airlines has done any analysis of their frequency of incidents. Providing martial arts training to flight attendants is a reactionary response that doesn't address root cause. Perhaps they could use some SSBB training?

Jeff

Wing Chung Class for Hong Kong Airlines Flight Attendants

Yes, Wing Chun is for self defense. But this is not the primary reason why FAs of Hong Kong Airlines take the classes. They are more for mind, body and emotional balance. There are preventive and de-escalation methods and procedures to follow when FAs are comfronted by physicallly disruptive passengers. That's a separate training. And yes, they are trained how to tackle offenders to apply handcuffs.