Hello,

I think that the reality of todays world makes fighting more dangerous in many ways and often represents a lose-lose no matter what.
In todays world you are likely to face multiple opponents and often a weapon. Also, even if you win you can be sued and still lose even if you were not the aggressor. When you consider that a person can break into your home and sue you if they injure themselves, fighting often offers similar potential issues.

To me it seems the smarter avenue is to avoid confrontation when at all possible.

Now as to making something work in a real situation; my opinion is that it is often not the technique or the skill of the person which is the determining factor but the mental aspect. Kind of like the old saying that "it's not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog".

Many of us today may practice our art for recreation or part time, I highly doubt that most people are training with the expectation of needing to use their skills in real life. When I used to train Pekiti there were some really scary dudes and I told them if I thought I would be facing them on the street for real I would train differently. I did train for reality, at least I think I did, and have had one or two occasions to use what I trained as a Police Office and a Correctional Officer before that, but not as much as some people think.

You want to know what helped me?? Being able to take a hit. I would say that is one of the biggest failings most martial artists have. It is also one reason that Boxers are so good at "fighting" they are used to taking punishment and working through that to continue onward.

Much of what I do in Silat will not work if you do not apply it fully. No, I am not saying it is too dangerous for the street or that type of crap. What I am saying is that if you do not train to fully apply your techniques then they often will not work. The difference between applying a lock and taking someone to the ground and stopping halfway. Also, if you train halfway you will fight halfway. This does not mean you need to be hurting each other in training but you have to train to endure some pain.

I know Phil and he has fought and trained some others to fight as well. I also do not do things the same way he does but he has found some viable approaches that work for him and those he has trained. I think that in person he may do things a little differently than in a demo.

I think that if one trains to crowd your opponent while keeping structure you can make a lot of things work. Having said that, you will need to be able to take some punishment and keep on going if you opt to go that route. A lot of things can go wrong if your opponent knows what they are doing but if you can drive in and disrupt their balance and keep the pressure on...............................

Of course it is easy to type something and say it can work and I understand the desire to validate theory with actual application. However, in many cases that actual application is not needed or desired and can result in criminal charges even when you act in self defense. Just throwing that out there for what it's worth.