What am I supposed to say to Drop Bear?

[Tez3]

Yeah not really. You don't give people enough credit.

Credit? nay, lad never a borrower or lender be, I have no interest in credit.

 

[Steve]

Well, if this is a mod endorsed true confessions thread, I enjoy every poster, without exception, Even those with whom I tend to disagree,

The single exception is a guy who I think was bullied as a kid and now enjoys bullying others online. That guy is hopeless.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

If that was how it works. But it isn't. what we get is more of a collection of urban myths retold as fact.

Where, precisely are you thinking I'm getting this information from, that it includes so many urban myths?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Memories, particularly under stress, are typically pretty unreliable. Aren't they? I think cops or lawyers here would know better, but I've read and heard many times that eye witness accounts and people's memories of events can be wildly divergent. Often considered unreliable in court.


It's the idea of probative value. Video has high probative value. Memories are less reliable.

I agree, and I've made that same point, myself. At the same time, you don't discount the entire account simply because it's likely to have mistaken memories in it. You glean what you can. Someone who has been in many interactions is more likely to have an accurate memory (so, officers' memory is likely better than the average witness) because they are more accustomed to the stress interactions, and that acclimatization goes a long way to reducing part of the effect. Top that off with training, and we get more accurate accounts from some sources. So, we can put more credence in the reports from the LEO's. That doesn't mean we dismiss all evidence from bouncers and security officers - they may not have the same training for reporting, but many of them do have more interactions with that level of stress.

Nor should we dismiss out-of-hand those reports we can get first-hand from someone who defended themselves. We use it for what it is - a report from a reliable source (because why would we use input from an unreliable source) that likely has inaccuracies in it. They probably didn't imagine the entire incident, and the major details are likely to be more or less accurate, within a range. If they thought there were 6 people, there was probably more than one and fewer than 10. If they thought there were two, there were probably multiples (but not a given) and probably not more than 3 or 4. If they thought there was a knife, there was probably something (not a given, but most likely) in the person's hand.

Then, we add in what they were able to gather afterward. Did someone else verify to them that the object was a knife? That raises the odds that it was actually a knife. Did others say they never saw anything in the person's hand? That lowers the odds there was anything there.

We all know (at least those of us in this discussion, apparently) that first-person accounts aren't terribly accurate. But we still use them to glean what we can from them. The legal system doesn't dismiss them out-of-hand, either.

 

[Steve]

Absolutely. But when yiubglean what you can from memory, it should be with mucj skepticism, not used as a foundation for entire training models.

 

[Paul_D]

What am I supposed to say to a person who is definitely wrong, and definitely ignorant of VT

Nothing, it's not your job to be the Idiot Whisperer.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Absolutely. But when yiubglean what you can from memory, it should be with mucj skepticism, not used as a foundation for entire training models.

I never said it was the entire foundation. That's a straw man Drop Bear has attacked many times. My assertion was that this evidence was an essential component to developing an approach to self-defense. Sparring should be in there, scenario training should be in there, drills should be in there, and looking for evidence from both video and reliable first-person accounts should be tossed in, since none of the others can accurately represent a self-defense situation. Between resistive sparring, progressively aggressive scenario training, and what evidence you can glean from videos and first-person reports, there's a reasonable combination of validation methods. Better yet if you also toss in some review of what works in resistive sport settings (like BJJ competitions, MMA, etc.).

EDIT: Not for nothing, but when I first read your post, I thought I'd forgotten how to read.

 

[Steve]

Posting on a phone and it autocorrect funny.

 

[MaMaD]

i thought this is a game thread

 

[Tez3]

i thought this is a game thread

No, not really because we have people who won't play fair.

 

[drop bear]

Where, precisely are you thinking I'm getting this information from, that it includes so many urban myths?

It goes around the self defence scene a bit. You know 90% of fights go to the ground. All fights occur at elbow range. If you train submissions you will let go if the guy taps. I think it was Guy B who was telling me you can't for some reason street fight with your guard up.

They are not based on anything not even actual observation. Just dogma.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

It goes around the self defence scene a bit. You know 90% of fights go to the ground. All fights occur at elbow range. If you train submissions you will let go if the guy taps. I think it was Guy B who was telling me you can't for some reason street fight with your guard up.

They are not based on anything not even actual observation. Just dogma.

I wasn't talking about any of that. I'm talking about taking information from people who actually were in an encounter. If someone says they ended up on the ground (or didn't), that's likely to be accurate - those aren't the sorts of things that are often lost in mis-remembrance. Of course there are bad "facts" out there - there are in every endeavor. Reviewing what actually happens - the accounts of people involved and video where available - is how we get past that foolishness.

This is what I find aggravating about this discussion. You used the word "dogma" there - yet you are the one who has been arguing this with me that the evidence I'm referring to is just "stories", then you come around to explaining that you're talking about just the crap that's NOT supported by actual accounts. If you quit trying to disagree, you'd actually make my point for me, but you've been too busy trying to find a way for me to be wrong.

 

[drop bear]

I wasn't talking about any of that. I'm talking about taking information from people who actually were in an encounter. If someone says they ended up on the ground (or didn't), that's likely to be accurate - those aren't the sorts of things that are often lost in mis-remembrance. Of course there are bad "facts" out there - there are in every endeavor. Reviewing what actually happens - the accounts of people involved and video where available - is how we get past that foolishness.

This is what I find aggravating about this discussion. You used the word "dogma" there - yet you are the one who has been arguing this with me that the evidence I'm referring to is just "stories", then you come around to explaining that you're talking about just the crap that's NOT supported by actual accounts. If you quit trying to disagree, you'd actually make my point for me, but you've been too busy trying to find a way for me to be wrong.

supported by any actual accounts is a fairly fuzzy concept.

Hence my references to defeating people with lazer eyes.

I mean if your logic lets that sort of thing in. Then there needs to be a change to how you adress your evidence.

Doesn't there?

Those same urban myths get passed off as legitimate accounts by the way. It is how the system supports itself.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

supported by any actual accounts is a fairly fuzzy concept.

Hence my references to defeating people with lazer eyes.

I mean if your logic lets that sort of thing in. Then there needs to be a change to how you adress your evidence.

Doesn't there?

Those same urban myths get passed off as legitimate accounts by the way. It is how the system supports itself.

You're just absolutely unwilling to admit that there's any valid information from people in defense encounters, aren't you? You'd like to think that sport evidence is good enough, even though the context is drastically different. You have so many good contributions, and yet on topics like this you obstinately cling to the idea that all first-hand accounts must be utter crap, so you dismiss them all.

If your logic lets you ignore accounts from people involved in actual incidents, there needs to be a change in how you address your evidence. (No "doesn't there", because I have no question about that statement.)

 

[Steve]

You're just absolutely unwilling to admit that there's any valid information from people in defense encounters, aren't you? You'd like to think that sport evidence is good enough, even though the context is drastically different. You have so many good contributions, and yet on topics like this you obstinately cling to the idea that all first-hand accounts must be utter crap, so you dismiss them all.

If your logic lets you ignore accounts from people involved in actual incidents, there needs to be a change in how you address your evidence. (No "doesn't there", because I have no question about that statement.)

Personally, I think the problem with a personal encounter is the inherent, self serving nature of the evidence. There are four possibilities, and all are self serving:

1. If you train martial arts and unsuccessfully defend yourself (are mugged or tragically are killed), then you didn't train long enough or it was just fate.

2. If you train martial arts and you survive (by any measure, even if your life was never in danger), it is proof your training works, even if the training was immaterial to the defense.

3. If you don't train and are mugged or murdered, you should have trained.

4. If you don't train and successfully defend yourself, you were lucky, and should still train.


Stats don't matter. Facts don't matter. Reality doesn't matter. Style doesn't matter.

 

[drop bear]

You're just absolutely unwilling to admit that there's any valid information from people in defense encounters, aren't you? You'd like to think that sport evidence is good enough, even though the context is drastically different. You have so many good contributions, and yet on topics like this you obstinately cling to the idea that all first-hand accounts must be utter crap, so you dismiss them all.

If your logic lets you ignore accounts from people involved in actual incidents, there needs to be a change in how you address your evidence. (No "doesn't there", because I have no question about that statement.)

When have i ignored an actual incident though?

Most of the time i just get told the street.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Personally, I think the problem with a personal encounter is the inherent, self serving nature of the evidence. There are four possibilities, and all are self serving:

1. If you train martial arts and unsuccessfully defend yourself (are mugged or tragically are killed), then you didn't train long enough or it was just fate.

2. If you train martial arts and you survive (by any measure, even if your life was never in danger), it is proof your training works, even if the training was immaterial to the defense.

3. If you don't train and are mugged or murdered, you should have trained.

4. If you don't train and successfully defend yourself, you were lucky, and should still train.


Stats don't matter. Facts don't matter. Reality doesn't matter. Style doesn't matter.

You're starting to sound like Drop Bear. I've literally never heard someone make statements that would fit those 4 statements you closed with, except where they were making outrageous claims. Perhaps you are getting this impression from forum posts - I would expect those kinds of problems more on a forum than having a 1-on-1 discussion with someone who has had to defend themselves and either succeeded or failed.

I've heard folks talk about the difficulty they had with a technique and try to dissect whether they were doing it wrong, it was the wrong technique to use, or the technique simply didn't work well enough. I've had people talk about changing styles because of a self-defense situation - even after one successful one where they felt like they survived by luck because they didn't have the tools for the situation. I've had people decide that what happened was good execution of things they'd practiced well and seemed to work more or less as expected. I've had people say, yes, that they simply hadn't trained long enough or hard enough - more of a revelation in the latter, and a valid observation that their approach to training had been pretty lazy. I've even had a couple of people say they don't think any level of physical skill training would have helped, because they never saw the attack coming, and they were trying to figure out if there was a way to have seen it in time (better awareness, reading cues, etc.).

Literally every time I've had a discussion like that - again, excepting those folks making outrageous claims that seem unlikely to be true - they were in analysis mode. Most came to one of two conclusions: what I knew worked pretty well and that was scary as hell so I want to train more and harder, or what I knew didn't work so well and I need to change/add to my training.

So, will you also dismiss those people's accounts? Will you say they are acting entirely on bias? Will you claim there's no value in the account of someone who's not defending their art?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

When have i ignored an actual incident though?

Most of the time i just get told the street.

When I talked about using personal reports of incidents, you passed it off as "stories" and not useful evidence. This has repeated in at least two separate threads now - and has been EXACTLY what I was talking about here, which you worked very hard to say was useless as evidence and was just "urban myths".

If you didn't meant to claim personal reports of an incident were not useful information, I'm not sure how we ended up in this rabbit hole.

 

[Steve]

You're starting to sound like Drop Bear. I've literally never heard someone make statements that would fit those 4 statements you closed with, except where they were making outrageous claims. Perhaps you are getting this impression from forum posts - I would expect those kinds of problems more on a forum than having a 1-on-1 discussion with someone who has had to defend themselves and either succeeded or failed.

I've heard folks talk about the difficulty they had with a technique and try to dissect whether they were doing it wrong, it was the wrong technique to use, or the technique simply didn't work well enough. I've had people talk about changing styles because of a self-defense situation - even after one successful one where they felt like they survived by luck because they didn't have the tools for the situation. I've had people decide that what happened was good execution of things they'd practiced well and seemed to work more or less as expected. I've had people say, yes, that they simply hadn't trained long enough or hard enough - more of a revelation in the latter, and a valid observation that their approach to training had been pretty lazy. I've even had a couple of people say they don't think any level of physical skill training would have helped, because they never saw the attack coming, and they were trying to figure out if there was a way to have seen it in time (better awareness, reading cues, etc.).

Literally every time I've had a discussion like that - again, excepting those folks making outrageous claims that seem unlikely to be true - they were in analysis mode. Most came to one of two conclusions: what I knew worked pretty well and that was scary as hell so I want to train more and harder, or what I knew didn't work so well and I need to change/add to my training.

So, will you also dismiss those people's accounts? Will you say they are acting entirely on bias? Will you claim there's no value in the account of someone who's not defending their art?

Just read the threads around here. Any time a real world example is shared, whether from a news article or anecdotally, it falls into one of the four categories above.

I shared a story about a woman who was training for American Ninja Warrior who was assaulted. A guy held a knife to her throat, attempting to rape her. She fought back and credits the confidence, strength and agility gained from training for saving her life. So, according to the general line of reasoning, we should be able to conclude that parkour is effective for self defense. The establishment suggested she was lucky.

Other threads have titles like "proof karate works for self defense" which are grounded in stories like the one above. But in these cases, because there is a stake, it's actual evidence,

Bottom line, I believe if you don't see how every self defense story falls into one of the categories above, it's because you're too close to it and in your blind spot.

I think there is a number 5, which is that micro level stories are unreliable, and to measure the efficacy of a self defense program, it must address a specified need and actually track progress against the measurable goal.

Regarding the slam about sounding like drop bear, that's beneath you. You're far too reasonable, I think, for that. We may fundamentally disagree with some of the "experts" here, but I think martial arts, and self defense experts in general, can easily fall into a dangerously myopic view. I think much of the kerfuffle around drop bear is from people who are used to saying things with authority and not being questioned.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Just read the threads around here. Any time a real world example is shared, whether from a news article or anecdotally, it falls into one of the four categories above.

I shared a story about a woman who was training for American Ninja Warrior who was assaulted. A guy held a knife to her throat, attempting to rape her. She fought back and credits the confidence, strength and agility gained from training for saving her life. So, according to the general line of reasoning, we should be able to conclude that parkour is effective for self defense. The establishment suggested she was lucky.

Other threads have titles like "proof karate works for self defense" which are grounded in stories like the one above. But in these cases, because there is a stake, it's actual evidence,

Bottom line, I believe if you don't see how every self defense story falls into one of the categories above, it's because you're too close to it and in your blind spot.

I think there is a number 5, which is that micro level stories are unreliable, and to measure the efficacy of a self defense program, it must address a specified need and actually track progress against the measurable goal.

Regarding the slam about sounding like drop bear, that's beneath you. You're far too reasonable, I think, for that. We may fundamentally disagree with some of the "experts" here, but I think martial arts, and self defense experts in general, can easily fall into a dangerously myopic view. I think much of the kerfuffle around drop bear is from people who are used to saying things with authority and not being questioned.

You are talking about the responses to the incident, rather than the value of the incident, itself.