Is Self Defense a Myth?

[Drake]

I will oblige you with mortal combat, but only if you attack with nothing but exaggeratedly telegraphed haymakers, posing after each punch so I can land my twelve technique combo.

I shall slowly and deliberately draw my entire arm back, much like Popeye, and strike you from the widest radius of movement physically possible without dislocating my own arm.

[YouKnowWho]

there is spiritual value in punching a man in the face.

To

- punch someone's face is to help him to have face transformation.
- kill someone is to help him to go to heaven.

[Sima Rong]

Headbutts and knees are better for face transformation.

[Syn7]

Excuse me, sir, if you'd please come with me over to this open area so that I might kick your ass. *grabs wrist*

When I was a teen, we used to get free passes to a place called playland from security if we "handled" problems for them that they couldn't. So one time these 4 guys were making trouble and we were asked to "talk" to one of them after he had been escorted off the premises. My friend Dorian walked up and said "hey, come with me" grabbed his arm and walked him across the street, sat down, changed out of his nice shoes into his basketball shoes, stood up, one punched the guy, sat back down and put his nice shoes back on. That one has always stuck in my mind. It may be rare, but weird stuff can happen like that.

[Syn7]

To

- punch someone's face is to help him to have face transformation.
- kill someone is to help him to go to heaven.

So how many hands have you broken with your face?

[yeshe]

In the past I knew quite a few people that could fight very well and the thing is, they were not martial artist they were some pretty rough characters and on the wrong side of the law and in some cases just lacked common decency.They were the type of guys that could be joking around, sitting back having a drink just being totally chilled out then BAM!they might be on top of some poor bas**** nokin the snot outa him.They did not train or work out or even exercise at all.
What they had was a strong inclination for violence and an idiotic fearlessness.I grew up with and later worked with these types but I always kept an arms length away from that kind of crowd.

[yeshe]

The point is that they didnt need martial arts or selfe defence classes.
Ordinary folks,thest of the 99% of us are not so inclined to confontation and espesialy physical confrontation.Most of us dont want to hurt anybody or wort yet get seriously hurt ourselves.

[YouKnowWho]

Most of us dont want to hurt anybody or wort yet get seriously hurt ourselves.

I don't have that much faith in human being. If someone kills your parents, rapes your wife and daughter, burns down your house, ... , you may want to

- open his chest,
- take his heart out,
- put it into your mouth,
- take a big bite on it, and
- have a big smile on your face.

Old Chinese saying said, "You hate someone so much that you want to eat his fresh, and sleep on his skin." If the human being are so civilized, those words would never appear in the ancient history books.

[yeshe]

[QUOTE=YouKnowWho;1250756]I don't have that much faith in human being. If someone kills your parents, rapes your wife and daughter, burns down your house, ...
Great!Thats the the point.IF some one rapes yer wife,IF some one does this or that,THEN we go and do sumthin or other. Thats the way it is for the regular sane 99% of us.
As far as old bad ass sayings go, when was the last time you busted someones eye cuz you thought they looked at you funny?Or stabbed some one cuz they owed you $200?
I never have,I have seen others act this way.I know two of them are dead and one is in jail.A lot guys on this forum could probably tell similar tales as well.There's gotta be some guys in law enforcement or maybe even a few C.O,s out there on the board.
99% of us just don't do that kind of stuff.But there is a 1% that does and that is where self defense comes in .

[wenshu]

Old Chinese saying said, "You hate someone so much that you want to eat his fresh, and sleep on his skin."

[YouKnowWho]

99% of us just don't do that kind of stuff.

That's the whole point. You want to kill if you hate your opponent so much. How often do you hate your opponent that much? Just because someone call you, "You yellow"?

If we can realize that most of our conflicts in our life, we truly don't hate our opponent enough that we want to kill, there is no good reason to "start or accept any fight".

[Kellen Bassette]

Hey! Wenshu found a clip of John's "Beggar Carry Dog" technique!

[Kellen Bassette]

You want to kill if you hate your opponent so much. How often do you hate your opponent that much? Just because someone call you, "You yellow"?

Only if your Bawang.

[Shaolin Wookie]

It'd be interesting to consider the role that "self-defense" laws play in this concept, especially as related to MA. Insofar as MA schools in the US have to play around certain regulations and restrictions, as well as insurance policies, "self-defense" seems more like a convenient label. A "School of War" or "Dojo of Assault" wouldn't last a second, it seems. Or, its insurance policies would shoot through the roof.

I think this is relevant since "self-defense" as opposed to "martial arts" has a legal connotation. "Martial Arts" is not a legal category---it's the art of making war, legal or illegal. I think the concept of "self-defense" is generally taken, in the broader market of self-defense, as "how far you can go without getting prosecuted for assault." That's why so many moves in CMA are generally prefaced with ----"You shouldn't ever do this move unless your life depends on it." The problem is---you never really know when your life is going to depend upon it until it's too late.

It seems to me like "self-defense" is highly ambiguous and worthless as a concept. When students and fellow MA's ask me how to become better at sparring, fighting, etc., I always say, "You have to want to hurt your opponent more than he wants to hurt you." What this usually translates into is---don't play a game of defense.

Consider the Trayvon Martin case. Let's say that you're a creeper (George Zimmerman), and you really creep someone out. That person feels threatened (psychologically, I suppose), even though the creeper hasn't engaged in any kind of physical aggression against Martin. Martin then attacks, allegedly. Zimmerman shoots him after getting his butt kicked, since he didn't know how far Martin was going to go---and if he waited too long, he might wind up dead or braindead. He could have tried some self-defense maneuvers to ward off MArtin's blows, but why risk it if every blow brought him closer to unconsciousness (allegedly)? So he decided to cut Martin's aggression short in martial spirit.

Many people said that Martin was acting in self-defense, and that Zimmerman was the aggressor. But assuming (since we have no evidence to the contrary) that Zimmerman was just a creeper, and nothing more, then only he could have been the one acting in self-defense according to the law. And he was also the only one of the two who had the proper martial spirit for a violent encounter between two people on a relatively deserted street.

But I also do think that Martin had reason to confront Zimmerman in self-defense. Why lead the creeper back to his house? Why let that creeper know where he lived? I'd confront the creeper as a last resort, but only if I had sufficient weapons [or witnesses] at hand to do so if things turned sour. Rule #1 of MA--don't underestimate your opponent. Martin instead thought he was acting in self-defense by attacking some guy he didn't know, without any witnesses (or buddies) by his side, ignorant of the larger situation---possible guns, knives, etc. The fatal mistake was overestimating his chances as an unarmed assailant. He had a poor martial spirit, since he was trying to subdue or knock Zimmerman out. He went too far, too soon, probably with the intent of only knocking Zimmerman out, and didn't consider that the creeper was also capable of self-defense if Martin attacked first (allegedly). And of course, Zimmerman can't read minds. If some dude is bashing his head into concrete, he had better act as if his life is on the line.

What's funny is that so many people then were up in arms against the "Stand your ground" laws, since it seemed that these laws encouraged Zimmerman's hastiness on the trigger. Ironically, Martin also believed that he had the right to Stand his Ground. He simply calculated poorly. He brought fists to a gunfight (allegedly).

[Shaolin Wookie]

It seems to me that the Stand your Ground concept---you have the right to fight back, and you don't have to flee your assailant if you're on public territory---is on the right track. If you have the legal (and hence the legislatively "moral") duty to retreat, then you're generally hamstrung from the start.

And generations upon generations of minorities (not just racial) have been prosecuted in the US on the simple stipulation that they should have retreated (or responded with nonviolent protest) when violent majorities unleashed hell and prejudice upon them. Consider the customary white response to slave violence, or the white labor union response to black migration into northern states (which always led to a "race riot"----code for the burning of black neighborhoods, pillaging, and lynching by white assailants). I was always more of a Malcolm X fan than, say, a fan of that socialist *****, Ghandi.

I think this is why Malcolm X isn't in most history books, but MLK is. You can gloss over the moral duty to violent resistance--when threatened with physical force (I'm not talking grabbing a posse and looting innocent civilians or engaging in "you're such-and-such a kind of person, and so are guilty even if you haven't directly threatened me" kinds of tactics). MLK's message is uplifiting, but if Bull Connor had just steamrolled nonviolent protestors or mowed them down with machine guns (and some did indeed die), many are sacrificed as a "moral lesson." Personally, I don't think anyone should lie down at the feet of an aggressor to make a moral point for "self-defense".

Take it one step further. You can only claim that you lost a fight in "self-defense" if your assailant chooses to let you live. That's a risky assessment to suffer. You have the moral right to survive violent encounters.

Whenever I practice a technique, I don't think "Here's how I'd respond in self-defense if someone attacked me."

I tend to think--"Someone's attacking me. My wife and son are standing behind me. And it's not me that he wants. He wants them." Fleeing isn't an option, and neither is "self-defense."

I'll be ****ed if he makes it through me. I'm going to put him down for good. If he lives, then I messed up, or I knocked him out too early.

Granted, thinking this doesn't make me invincible, but I think it's the proper spirit for martial arts.