W
warriorsage
Guest
Many people seem fixated on the ability to end an altercation without doing harm to the other individual. Before I get too far into this, let me state that I'm one of the least aggressive, least violent martial artists around. I don't want to hurt anyone, period. BUT, if somebody attacks me, my main hope is that I survive the situation. I've been in a few stressful situations before and I know that sometimes the body freezes and sometimes it reacts out of habit. I just pray that I react as quickly as possible and do what it takes to go home at night. If he gets hurt, it's his fault. If he doesn't get hurt, hooray for him.
I'm sure there are a few people that are skilled enough to allow them to control exactly what they do to their opponent and can actually stop the attack without hurting the other person. What I'm also pretty sure about is that the number of individuals who can do this is very small. I think waaayyyy tooo many martial artists are still carrying around an image in their head of the Walker Texas Ranger-type fighter, the one who can kick a gun out of the attackers hand, disarm knives at will, and then be so sure of himself that he lets the bad guys go away with only a warning. I think it's silly that alot of people talk about how "easy it is to hurt someone," and that the real deal is to defend yourself without having to resort to hurting them. I don't think it's easy at all to hurt someone...that is, an aggressive someone who will most likely be bigger, or stronger or have a weapon and who has surprise on his side and is moving in for the kill. Heck, anyone can hurt an attacker who lets you hit them. I bet I can hurt anyone on this forum if you let me put in a shot, but I also bet that if we were really fighting, I wouldn't have it so easy.
Every once in awhile a put something like this out there to see what people think, and just as often I get response like, "Well one day you'll get good enough and you'll have the confidence to KNOW you can handle any situation." To me, that's laughable. I have confidence in my overall abilities, I know I'm not exactly a slouch. What this confidence gives me I think is the honest belief that I have a chance to escape against an attack from one of society's predators. It levels the field a little and takes back some of the advantage he had.
Or maybe I just haven't honed my skills to the point where I can instantly decide in a life-or-death situation which type of strike and target will have just enough effect to make him drop his knife (but leave no visable marks) and scare his buddies enough to make them also drop the lead pipe and the gun and all run away, in fear of what I could've done!.
I'm sure there are a few people that are skilled enough to allow them to control exactly what they do to their opponent and can actually stop the attack without hurting the other person. What I'm also pretty sure about is that the number of individuals who can do this is very small. I think waaayyyy tooo many martial artists are still carrying around an image in their head of the Walker Texas Ranger-type fighter, the one who can kick a gun out of the attackers hand, disarm knives at will, and then be so sure of himself that he lets the bad guys go away with only a warning. I think it's silly that alot of people talk about how "easy it is to hurt someone," and that the real deal is to defend yourself without having to resort to hurting them. I don't think it's easy at all to hurt someone...that is, an aggressive someone who will most likely be bigger, or stronger or have a weapon and who has surprise on his side and is moving in for the kill. Heck, anyone can hurt an attacker who lets you hit them. I bet I can hurt anyone on this forum if you let me put in a shot, but I also bet that if we were really fighting, I wouldn't have it so easy.
Every once in awhile a put something like this out there to see what people think, and just as often I get response like, "Well one day you'll get good enough and you'll have the confidence to KNOW you can handle any situation." To me, that's laughable. I have confidence in my overall abilities, I know I'm not exactly a slouch. What this confidence gives me I think is the honest belief that I have a chance to escape against an attack from one of society's predators. It levels the field a little and takes back some of the advantage he had.
Or maybe I just haven't honed my skills to the point where I can instantly decide in a life-or-death situation which type of strike and target will have just enough effect to make him drop his knife (but leave no visable marks) and scare his buddies enough to make them also drop the lead pipe and the gun and all run away, in fear of what I could've done!.