"If Ashida wished you to know his real name, I am sure he would write to you and tell you himself." --Danny Sainty
"So, you supposed martial artists, what are you trining for? Who are you training to fight? Apparently no one. Because even in a hypothetical situation, you puss out, Ha! Ha!" --Ashida Kim
I can say this, in ALL my years bouncing and in the military that I can count on one hand the times I have NEEDED to "pre-emptive" hit anyone.
And ALL of them involved the fact that the person DID something that warranted it.
EX:
While talking his hand disappears ( reaching for something).
He turns away one side of his body ( classic sucker punch on the way).
I see his attention go BEHIND me.
Etc.
Psalms 144:1
Praise be my Lord my Rock,
He trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle !
With street experience you can know if it's going to escalate to violence, but you can never know when. I believe striking first will put you in an extreme advantage to escape, succeed, win. However, even if striking first affords you victory, it may hurt you legally or financially and in that case it can be better to expect a fight but take the first hit yourself. As we all know, the first person to strike loses in a legal battle or when the cops arrive. The old question, "Who started it?" always comes up.
I've been in many street fights but once I became proficient at kung-fu, I've never thrown the first punch and still won or avoided every street\bar fight I've be involved in. It all has to do with experience. You can take the hit, roll the punch, block the strike, bob and weave, duck, step back and then take your opponent down. In the case of multiple attackers, striking first will give you a much needed head start to escape or continue your attack on another opponent.
All in all, it really depends on the situation. Striking first can give you a much needed advantage but the situation should be evaluated first. This can only be done with experience IMHO.
"If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow."
"He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever."
- Ancient Chinese Proverbs
From the way you guys talk, I certainly hope you are as good as you say. I have been into court on many occasions, being sued, charged with assault, causing bodily injury. On the other hand I have been shot, more than once. Stabbed, more than once. Beat all to hell, more than once. Most of that was because I did not take the initiative. No one is so good that they can give an opponent a break. How many of you have even been in a situation where you could be harmed? My skills are solid. I am a bad man when I fight. Old, but I can still get down. I am a realist however, and I realize that nothing is garanteed. Even an untrained fighter can mess you up if he gets the chance. You can never take anyone for granted when it comes to an exchange of violence.
Jackie Lee
even if i have to cross the room coz i know he's coming for me eventually. not always a bad idea to just get it on while the odds are somewhat even rather than difusing the situation then getting jumped later. which may or may not happen anyways, but you may as well get in while you can and hopefully you can dead the issue right there. you have to be able to read people, sometimes talking it out is better, for sure. but the do not need to be physically aggressive in order to warrant an attack IMO. there are times when you just need to clean house and do it now.
The way a lot of you talk on here, its like you expect all fights to be with some kind of homicidal predator, but in my experience there is a lot of violence from normal people. Normal people who've had a bad day, or are drunk, or are just d*ck heads. Although all violence is potentially life threatening, I think murderous intent is rarely present. I think often someone just wants to ruff you up a bit. Yeah you could die, but you could die doing a lot of things.
But I'm from England... I guess maybe America is more dangerous.
Last edited by RenDaHai; 01-24-2012 at 07:32 PM.
Greetings,
Yes, Ronald Duncan of the Koga ninja school.
Elders have the right to hit first.
mickey
Yeah but you should prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Hopefully people with deadly skills also have the intellect to know how far to go, or not go. It's usually pretty obvious. But unless you know that it will be a one on one fist fight you must assume a weapon and mutiple attackers are present until you can see otherwise. Know what I mean?
I was working as a bouncer once when this fellow kept trying to fight with me. He had seen me remove a fellow the week before and kept telling everyone, I wish that jap would try that stuff on me. I didn't mind except being called a jap. Anyway, he just kept on building up to it until he finally made a try. He tried to sucker punch me but I got him in a wrist lock that rolled him into an arm bar with it. No way that anyone gets loose from that one. Had my knee against the back of his neck and his butt up in the air. It was in front of his lady and friends so it didn't make him happy. I got him to agree to stop all hostilities and offered to buy him a cold beer. He agreed, but no sooner than I let him go he tried to sucker punch me again. I had to beat him down and ended up with him in the same wrist lock, arm bar. Two friends came over and was trying to get in behind me and I turned my back to a table where they could not do so. I told them that I was not going to fight all of them so I was going to break the guys arm and then to them. They kept on, being egged on by their ladies. I told them again and he even asked them to stand down. They didn't, so rather than turn him loose I snapped his wrist and kicked him across the room. The other 2 were not as tough as I had expected and when I popped the first one the second backed off. My boss was upset at me, thinking I really didn't have to do that, but I had no help and the end result would have been something I didn't even want to consider. I might have been able to whip all 3 of them. Who knows. But I had no idea about what any one of them could do or was capible of doing. I whipped 4 dudes in a pool hall once. I was rather scathed for the efforts too. You do what you need to do.
Jackie Lee
cool story bro!
Kung Fu is good for you.