There is an aspect to our kids and teens classes that we don’t tend to promote – talking. Alongside working on self-defence skills and techniques, we’ve created a safe and supportive environment in which students can voice their opinions, experiences, worries. This week, one child shared their worry about rumours of a Red vs Blue game between their school and another. It was like a snowball effect – everyone in the class, and bear in mind that they come from a number of different schools, said they were also feeling scared.

It didn’t exactly come as a surprise. There has been plenty of news coverage of this Red vs Blue trend that is gaining traction on social media. Seemingly originating in London, there have been incidents reported beyond the capital. We’ve seen reports of trouble in Bristol and Essex schools have issued a letter from Essex Police to parents to raise awareness.

So what is Red vs Blue?

It’s a thinly veiled ‘game’ designed to incite rivalry and violence between different schools and targeting children as young as 11 years old. More than a scrap or a skirmish, students are challenged to earn points for hurting their opponents. And even worse, there is positive encouragement to carry weapons, including compasses, protractors and scissors – items commonly found in a student’s pencil case – and even knives and fireworks.

It’s every parent’s worst nightmare. School is meant to be a safe environment, travelling to and from school should not be a life or death experience. It’s bad enough that violent incidents in and around schools seem to be escalating, and some, such as the tragic stabbing at a school in Brent in February, are being linked to the Red vs Blue trend. At a more local level, parents are taking to social media and talking about what’s happening, especially as more and more schools are issuing advice. 

Life is not a video game

Do these children genuinely want to kill? Have they become totally desensitised to violence through online gaming? Does Red vs Blue offer the ultimate satisfaction? Is violence and physical harm considered a sport? Police forces are monitoring social media platforms and working to disable accounts that promote the trend, but it’s bound to be an uphill struggle. And we can’t expect an immediate police response every time a group of young people gather after school. 

Bringing it back to our students, we took the opportunity to reinforce everything we teach in our self-defence classes.

• Don’t engage with viral trends. Even showing up as a spectator holds the possibility of getting caught up in violence.

• Don’t share the social media posts, don’t be part of the problem. If you see a post relating to your school, dates, times and meeting places, tell your teacher, tell you parent or carer, tell us.

• Be aware of what’s happening around you, particularly during travel to and from school. If you see groups gathering or spot students wearing coloured bandanas, remove yourself from the situation, contact a responsible adult or the police.

• Don’t hang around after school, just go straight home. The best self-defence is to avoid a fight before it happens.

All sensible and obvious advice that builds on our work around situational awareness and de-escalation. The conversation also offered a springboard to show our students how to defend against the kind of improvised weapons being promoted on TikTok and Snapchat. We set up a variety of scenarios to practice effective self-defence techniques. We even made our own (safe) improvised weapons to see how those techniques would be successful. And we also turned out the lights to practice those same techniques when the weapons were hidden or out of sight.

We don’t want our young members to face danger. Equally, we want them to know how to defend themselves if they do get caught up in a potentially dangerous situation. It sometimes feels that the world is becoming a rather strange place. Children have less opportunity to simply be children and enjoy a carefree childhood. At Krav Generation, we’re doing what we can to keep them safe.