My proudest moment as a martial artist was the first time I had to actually use my training, and I gained that knowledge that I actually know how to defend myself and that I would have been subject to great harm if I hadn't been training.
When I was in college, I had a roommate who was a bit surly. He was an amateur boxer and pretty muscular and burly, and very aggressive. He was having a very bad week: he was dropped from his pledge to the fraternity he was trying to join, found out he was going to flunk out of the University, and then both his girlfriends learned the other existed and they both dumped him. He decided to drown his sorrows in alcohol, and came back to the dorm quite intoxicated and very angry. He decided he was going to take out all his frustrations on me. . .
After failing to try to talk him down, he started to take swings at me, and I kept blocking and dodging all his punches, until I was able to drop him to the ground with an ikkyo joint lock, and start to pin him down. He was fighting me, but I was able to keep him down and from swinging while I shouted for help.
The Resident Advisor came in and saw what was going on, and the school had a pretty strict no-alcohol policy and my roommate was already under warning for suspected violations of the policy, now he was found obviously drunk in the dorm. He also had a number of complaints against him for being threatening/violent to other residents, so when he was pinned to the ground flailing, everybody knew it was because he started it.
The police were called, he was taken in for public intoxication, he was temporarily moved to a new dorm room pending a disciplinary hearing, which proceedings began the next day. After he was suspended (and never came back), he kept in touch by e-mail with a few people in the dorm he became friends with, but that ended because a few months after he was suspended he ended up beating somebody to death in a bar brawl and going to prison.
When word reached us about that, I realized it was worth all the time and effort, and that without my martial arts training he might well have beat me to death that night, and martial arts became a lifelong pursuit to me.
When I was in college, I had a roommate who was a bit surly. He was an amateur boxer and pretty muscular and burly, and very aggressive. He was having a very bad week: he was dropped from his pledge to the fraternity he was trying to join, found out he was going to flunk out of the University, and then both his girlfriends learned the other existed and they both dumped him. He decided to drown his sorrows in alcohol, and came back to the dorm quite intoxicated and very angry. He decided he was going to take out all his frustrations on me. . .
After failing to try to talk him down, he started to take swings at me, and I kept blocking and dodging all his punches, until I was able to drop him to the ground with an ikkyo joint lock, and start to pin him down. He was fighting me, but I was able to keep him down and from swinging while I shouted for help.
The Resident Advisor came in and saw what was going on, and the school had a pretty strict no-alcohol policy and my roommate was already under warning for suspected violations of the policy, now he was found obviously drunk in the dorm. He also had a number of complaints against him for being threatening/violent to other residents, so when he was pinned to the ground flailing, everybody knew it was because he started it.
The police were called, he was taken in for public intoxication, he was temporarily moved to a new dorm room pending a disciplinary hearing, which proceedings began the next day. After he was suspended (and never came back), he kept in touch by e-mail with a few people in the dorm he became friends with, but that ended because a few months after he was suspended he ended up beating somebody to death in a bar brawl and going to prison.
When word reached us about that, I realized it was worth all the time and effort, and that without my martial arts training he might well have beat me to death that night, and martial arts became a lifelong pursuit to me.
