Your Personal Space

[kidswarrior]

I only need enough Personal Space to swing my battle axe.

Coulda used one today when at the end of school (for those who don't' know, I teach adjudicated kids--those with probation officers, police records, etc.), and four gangsta-looking young adults showed up to give one kid a ride. All good, except they were lurking (yeah, lurking) just out of sight (I happened to step out at just the right time and see one of them), and the kid they were there for (I found by talking to them) had been in a verbal altercation with another kid during school. So, he'd obviously used a smuggled cell phone to call his older homies.

I went back to class, kept all the kids (we have an isolated , one-room site, no security officer or even proctors, no principal, no one at all but my female assistant), and called PD. They said they had no cars available at the time and pretty much dismissed the whole thing. I told them, fine, I'll handle it. :angry: In the meantime, my assistant was releasing students one at a time to any parents who showed up, the other parties who were in possible danger from this group got a ride from one of the kid's mother, and I kept the 'problem' child till last.

Cops showed up 15 minutes later. I'da rather had the battle ax.

 

[Tez3]

Hmm..what does Bush and politics have to do with this thread?

I was wondering that, one minute there's a discussion on carrying weapons etc the next I thought I was on the wrong thread!

 

[exile]

Just to answer the OP question—4 feet absolutely is the closest I'll tolerate (apart from e.g. a crowded NYC subway, which is a different culture completely), and anything closer than 6 feet is when I start going from yellow to the high end of orange in milliseconds. I prefer distance in most situations, especially when anyone outside my family and fairly small circle of good friends is involved. Maybe it's a personality thing—I'm happiest when I have a certain number of solitary hours in a day, which alas doesn't happen that much—but I hate it when people I don't know appear to be needlessly getting within that 6' radius.

 

[Xue Sheng]

[off]
Xue Sheng, when my knee is really killing me, I DO go walking using a 190 cm poleaxe as a walking aid. It doesn't take that much space to get moving.
[/off]
Having a weapon only gives confidence when you know that at any given moment you can draw and utilize it. Now constantly taking care of it (grip-hand distance, grip position, distance of closest possible opponent) would require a constantly focused mind, which is a hard thing even if speaking mildly. If you have that mind capacity, fine, otherwise you shouldn't be more confident than you would be in an unarmed setting.

Edited to add: The above (esp. the "Having a weapon only gives confidence...") is only true if you have a self-critical mind. Criminals don't tend to have one.

Actually, I was not serious, I was kidding. I know this will likely surprise many here but I do not even own a Battle Axe

Cops showed up 15 minutes later. I'da rather had the battle ax.

This one is nice so is this one

 

[kidswarrior]

Actually, I was not serious, I was kidding. I know this will likely surprise many here but I do not even own a Battle Axe

This one is nice so is this one

Yeah, beautiful. I'd take either. If only they'd ship to California. :rules:

So, I just keep working with the sticks: 6 foot hiking stick, 4 foot shillelagh, 3 foot shillelagh, crook'd cane, and kubotan. I guess that relates to the OP and how much personal space I like. If there are four of them and one of me, I like 15-20 feet unless it all turns south, then I guess it's just whoever comes within striking distance first gets it first. There's a very dark side of me tonight that wants to say of this scenario, It's better to give than receive. But I won't say any such thing. My wife would be appalled.