Non-violence: The Big Lie
Joe Talmadge
day. Needless to say, his opinion was wrong (:-), but it got me
thinking about the popularity of "non-violence" philosophies in the
various martial arts in the United States.
This seems bizarre to me. It seems like in most systems, the students
proudly point to some legendary fighter (often, the grandmaster of the
system) who trained in their system. The late Angel Cabales,
grandmaster of serrada, was a streetfighter with a fiery temper; he
killed several people, and hospitalized who knows how many others.
The kajukenbo founders and their first students were said to be
well-known fighters in Hawaii. And the list goes on. How many
masters used to go out and get into streetfights just to give
themselves a "tune up" (as one eskrima master jokingly puts it)? I
realize some arts, like silat or aikido for example, may be different
(but wasn't O-Sensei a figher also, at one time?).
Given that this is the case, where do these guys get off turning
around and preaching non-violence to, and demanding non-violence from,
their students? Is this philosphy just put in here in America, where
the public (presumably) demands it? Are the masters corrupting their
grandmaster's philosophy?
Further, who is to say that all this streetfighting isn't largely
responsible for these guys' proficiency in the first place? Focusing
on the destination while ignoring the journey is dangerous.
Lastly, my experiences with many of the less popular martial arts
seem to back this up. There's currently no non-violence philosophy
incorporated in many eskrima styles, and certainly none in muay Thai
-- these philosophical issues are at the discretion of the instructor.
However, I have this sneaking suspicion that if eskrima were to become
popular, I would be hearing about "The Non-Violent Art of Filipino
Karate Stickfighting and Knifefighting".
This post isn't meant to express disapproval at non-violent
philosophies -- I hold to such a philosophy myself. But I do wonder
how the "offspring" of streetfighters have become so tame, and what
this has done to the systems.
cheers,
Mike Krause
whenever possible, but if it comes to a fight, then do what is necessary
to stay alive and uninjured. This includes being as violent as necessary
to get the job done. The non-violence trend I believe comes from fighting
too much or wanting to appeal to the more non-violent American mentality.
I've never met one person who did not believe their martial skills could
not be used for violent action, though some would probably not use them
unless things were life-threatening.
Stephen Chan
> This seems bizarre to me. It seems like in most systems, the students
> proudly point to some legendary fighter (often, the grandmaster of the
> system) who trained in their system. The late Angel Cabales,
> grandmaster of serrada, was a streetfighter with a fiery temper; he
> killed several people, and hospitalized who knows how many others.
Musashi Miyamoto is another example of a great swordsman who
"whacked" a lot of people.
I remember reading at the end of one of the books of
Go Rin no Sho something like 'the way of the sword is the craft of
killing your opponent with a sword, nothing more nothing less.'
(I wish I had the book here, it was a very revealing quote)
> Given that this is the case, where do these guys get off turning
> around and preaching non-violence to, and demanding non-violence from,
> their students? Is this philosphy just put in here in America, where
> the public (presumably) demands it? Are the masters corrupting their
> grandmaster's philosophy?
I think that Steve Gombosi alluded to this in his posting
about mushin:
s...@craycos.com (Steve Gombosi) writes:
> But can a person who has not subdued his "monkey mind" (as the Zen folks
> would put it) act with moral intent? In the world of Japanese martial
> arts, this is *precisely* the distinction between "Do" and "Jutsu". Skill
> fades as the body fails (I'm acutely aware of this right now ;-) ),
> development of character does not. A skillfull thug is still a thug -
Aristotle had an interesting theory about character
development. If your "natural" tendency is to go in one direction, then you
should consciously aim yourself in the opposite direction - so that
things kind of average out to the golden mean.
Maybe non-violence is an example of this strategy?
There's the example of great teachers who cultivate their
students, watching them develop until they reach to the apex of their
physical abilities - they are young, strong, confident, they're
equiped to live & enjoy their lives.
Then for whatever reasons, war, duels, whatever, their lives
get snuffed out.
Does this strike you as a waste?
Maybe if you're a thoughtful person, and you see the things
which are dear to you destroyed by the application of "Martial Arts",
you come to realize the value of non-violence?
Martial artists are often a crowd who revel in their power -
especially the good ones, because they may be pumped up with a
sense of power & invulnerability.
But you hear these stories about people who die and get revived,
or they miraculously survive a supposedly terminal illness. Their
perspective on life is very different because they've actually come
face to face with their mortality.
My personal experience is that when you practice some of the
nastier martial arts, you quickly get a feeling for just how
vulnerable & fragile life really is - getting maimed or killed is no
longer an abstraction.
When you have an audience, or referees, or when you fight
because someone else orders you to do so, then people can make noises
about who "wins" and who "loses".
But if you think about it for a while, you see that that's
really The Big Lie. When you get involved in violence, there aren't
really winners & losers, there are only points on the injury continuum
between _healthy_ and _dead_.
My practical reasons for studying MA are that, on the injury
continuum, I'd prefer to hang around the "healthy" end. To that end,
non-violence seems to be a good policy.
Stephen Y. Chan Programmer Analyst CMU Telecommunications
ste...@cmu.edu (412)268-5115 [me] (412)268-4987 [FAX]
Kestutis P. Boyev
them is the confusion about what a "martial artist" really is. I would
argue that someone who learns and practices combat techniques is not
necessarily a martial artist. This means that there must be some other
quality that sets a martial artist apart from a street fighter or a
soldier. This also means that even though you may have studied Shaolin
Long Fist all of your life or reached third dan in Spinning Back Kick
Jitsu, you are not automatically granted the classification "martial
artist." (in my world-view).
In a life-long process such as the study of martial arts, how much progress
are you making if all you are doing is learning more and more effective
means of beating the tar out of violent people (assuming you only beat on
violent people). Does anybody on the net truly think that the reason gener-
ations of thoughtful, philosophical buddhist and taoist monks holed them-
selves up in mountain temples for entire lifetimes is because they sought
relief from the threat of bodily violence? Some buddhists are even--gasp--
NON-VIOLENT! And it was buddhists who introduced martial arts into China,
Japan, Korea, and (secondarily) Okinawa. (I realize that WuDang stylists
may have an arguement against the 'buddhist origin theory. I agree with
WuDang).
What is missing from your implied definition of 'martial arts' is the idea
that, not only can you bust the jawbones of your drunk assailant with the
skills you acquire, but you may end up REFINING YOUR OWN CHARACTER if
you're not careful. Self-cultivation, the attainment of enlightenment,
a peaceful inner existence, and the refinement of virtue are all goals
that have TRADITIONALLY been primary in the oldest martial arts. It
is not some new twist that has been added when asian martial arts made
it to the ethically superior shores of 20th century America.
So now we have implied the image of a human being with many refined skills,
one of which is fighting. Remember that the word "kungfu" simply means
"practice." We got this guy walking around, an enlightened consciousness
who can really kick some ass. What does he do, now that he fears no man;
now that he can defend himself from all unarmed assailants, and all
assailants armed with anything from a Swiss Army Knife to a M1 Abrams? The
martial artist does not fight. S/he discovered long ago that violence can
easily be avoided. S/he finds constructive uses for her/his power.
yours in nov-violence,
K. Paul Boyev
University of Illinois College of Medicine
Home of the Spleen of Steel
:wq
:post
:post
kago that violence is usually easily avoided. He finds constructive uses
for his power.
Mikel Evins
>Given that this is the case, where do these guys get off turning
>around and preaching non-violence to, and demanding non-violence from,
>their students? Is this philosphy just put in here in America, where
>the public (presumably) demands it? Are the masters corrupting their
>grandmaster's philosophy?
>
>Further, who is to say that all this streetfighting isn't largely
>responsible for these guys' proficiency in the first place? Focusing
>on the destination while ignoring the journey is dangerous.
I think these are very interesting questions. We are, most of
us, studying fighting arts, aren't we? Now, for myself, I'll
say I like violence; I don't even mind getting hurt every
so often. What I don't like is an encounter where someone really
intends to injure or kill me. Thus, I like sparring with a
good deal of contact, but I don't really like fights.
The grandmaster of our Shao-Lin lineage, Sin Kwang The'
fought quite a bit in Indonesia, even picking up a beauty of
a scar on his abdomen from a poisoned knife. He also
fought here in the U.S. in the early 70s or so, and
we are told that he once defeated T.T.Liang in New York.
We are not taught a nonviolent philosophy in the
pervasive way that aikidoka usually are, for example.
There are messages on both sides of the issue in the
ancillary material that we learn. We learn very
nasty techniques (gouges, joint-breaks, throat strikes,
etc.). We also learn stories about prowess in battle,
and the foundation of Shao-Lin styles in context of
challenge matches.
On the other hand, we also learn stories that can impress
upon us the dangerous nature of fighting. Grandmaster
The's predecessor left China with a price on his head
after having killed 11 of Chiang Kai-Shek's soldiers.
The story is that he was so affected by what he had
done that he refused to teach the system for decades.
Grandmaster The' maintains that there are exactly two
ways to become 'very good' at fighting: one is to
fight for your life regularly, the other is to teach.
He recommends teaching (from the point of view of
someone who has learned both ways).
Finally, there is the Shao-Lin tradition, famous in
America because of the Kung Fu TV show, but genuinely
part of the tradition it would seem, that to avoid
is better than to hurt, and to hurt is better than to kill.
I think in the case of the Shao-Lin system this
philosophy is consistent with the spirit of its
Mahayana Buddhist heritage. Buddhist practice is
to seek the appropriate action in any situation;
a peaceful response is usually preferred, but,
as a meditation teacher once told me, 'sometimes
anger or violence are appropriate'.
Dave Smythe
>we are told that he once defeated T.T.Liang in New York.
I believe this is a braino on Mikel's part; the person was William C. C. Chen.
D
--
========================================================================
Dave Smythe N6XLP dsm...@netcom.com (also dsm...@cs.stanford.edu)
Mikel Evins
>In article <66...@apple.Apple.COM> mi...@Apple.COM (Mikel Evins) writes:
>>we are told that he once defeated T.T.Liang in New York.
>
>I believe this is a braino on Mikel's part; the person was William C. C. Chen.
Thanks for the correction, Dave. I might need to have
you come by and adjust my poor battered brain cells.
Looks like they need their 50,000 thought tune-up.
Todd Ellner
all of their salutes and class mottos said about the same thing:
1) I'm a nice guy, but if you screw with me I'll kill you
or
2) We won't start it, but we'll finish it.
Sounds fair enough to me.
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Todd Ellner to...@reed.edu
"What has the study of biology taught you about the Creator Dr. Haldane?"
JBS Haldane:"I'm not sure, but He seems to be inordinately fond of beetles."
Mr. X
have, over the years, seen so many people who IMNSHO don't really understand
themselves, rant and spew all this nonviolence bullshit. It's not that there
is anything wrong with the ideas per se', but rather with their reasons for
believing them and babbling about them the way in which they do. A lot of it
seems to involve internal conflict regarding the desire they have for gaining
personal power, their enjoyment of said power and the guilt they feel for
wanting and enjoying something which many (most?) of us are taught is violent
and therefore wrong. So here we have a bunch of folks running around preaching
this hippocritical nonviolence crap so that they may assuage their guilt and
justify their activities. IOW, they sugar coat the image and make it appear
to be something it is not, and this is, whether intentional or not, just a
little bit dishonest.
And what is so funny about all this is that there is nothing to hide in the
first place! I personally do not buy into the tacit assumption that violence
is inherently bad, wrong, evil. It, like all other things in this world, has
its place and value. This does not mean that I am necessarily fond of it, but
I understand it and accept it for what it is, have become somewhat intimate
with it and feel I have put it in a proper place where it may be accessed if
need be, and left alone otherwise. IMO it is in the act of becomming intimate
with violence and the arts by which it may be employed, that an honest
perspective on it and its twin, nonviolence, come into existence in a person.
I feel that the cast majority of people will come to a basically nonviolent
posture when their persons are in balance.
Questions? Comments? Flames?
-Andy V.
Joel H. Stave
os...@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (Mr. X) writes:
|> HA! This topic always makes me laugh a bit. The reason for this is that I
|> have, over the years, seen so many people who IMNSHO don't really understand
|> themselves, rant and spew all this nonviolence bullshit. It's not
that there
|> is anything wrong with the ideas per se', but rather with their reasons for
|> believing them and babbling about them the way in which they do. A
lot of it
|> seems to involve internal conflict regarding the desire they have for
gaining
|> personal power, their enjoyment of said power and the guilt they feel for
|> wanting and enjoying something which many (most?) of us are taught is
violent
|> and therefore wrong. So here we have a bunch of folks running around
preaching
|> this hippocritical nonviolence crap so that they may assuage their guilt and
|> justify their activities. IOW, they sugar coat the image and make it appear
|> to be something it is not, and this is, whether intentional or not, just a
|> little bit dishonest.
|>
There is another reason to "rant and spew" (that's a great phrase). Since
we are teaching people how to use their bodies and minds as weapons, it is
important to teach them to use these weapons responsibly. One way of doing
this is to try foster the attitude that beating someone senseless is a Bad
Thing and people should avoid getting into fistfights except in self defense.
Otherwise we are just producing skilled bullies.
I *do* have a desire to gain "personal power" and enjoy the fact that I have
gained some measure of skill, but I still think that beating people up is
wrong.
...or am I just one of those confused, babbling, hypocritical fools you
mentioned?
Joel Stave
st...@apollo.hp.com
Celso Enrique Alvarado
>...
>
> Maybe if you're a thoughtful person, and you see the things
>which are dear to you destroyed by the application of "Martial Arts",
>you come to realize the value of non-violence?
>
>
> My personal experience is that when you practice some of the
>nastier martial arts, you quickly get a feeling for just how
>vulnerable & fragile life really is - getting maimed or killed is no
>longer an abstraction.
>continuum, I'd prefer to hang around the "healthy" end. To that end,
>non-violence seems to be a good policy.
>
>Stephen Y. Chan Programmer Analyst CMU Telecommunications
I dunno, but I "wish" I could claim to be TOTALLY non-violent.
Lets face it fellow martial artists... MOST of us take the arts NOT
to destroy others or hurt them, but to one day use it to
defend ourselves...IN A VIOLENT MANNER.
Its the law of nature. plain and simple. be it man or mouse, if your
life is threatened, you (as martial artists) will attempt to defend
yourselves.
SOME would say that the only way a person could properly lay claim to
being "non-violent" is the person who upon being attacked, would just
rather sit there and be hurt than even begin to think about the
revolting thought of fighting back. (opinion)
So this is the big question:
1) is a non-violent person one who strictly decides to only use
his/her skills when necessary? (defense)
OR
2) is a non-violent person one who completely despises any violence and
could NEVER do ANYTHING to hurt another person?
(i.e. would obviously NEVER take any "martial arts")
This question is truly bothering me. I personally feel that I fit under
the number 1 category, but I don't feel right claiming to be non-
violent.
And YES, i have met such individuals who were so pacifistic as to claim
that they would never raise a finger against another being.
Please post your opinions.
Celso E. Alvarado
--
" I love LISP !!!!!!!!!! (not) "
- Celso E. Alvarado : gt4...@shaft.gatech.edu
"Its a Latin thing, you just wouldn't understand..."
Dave Smythe
abstract idea, hit 'n' now. (It's probably not very interesting anyway :-)
In article <1992Apr30.1...@cbfsb.cb.att.com> os...@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (Mr. X) writes:
>I personally do not buy into the tacit assumption that violence
>is inherently bad, wrong, evil. It, like all other things in this world, has
>its place and value. This does not mean that I am necessarily fond of it, but
>Questions? Comments? Flames?
>
> -Andy V.
The primary purpose of "the state" is violence. If we were altruistic by
nature, we wouldn't need the state. Think about it: treaties, taxes, welfare,
police, armies, laws, etc. all exist because there needs to be some organized
sanction applied "fairly" to individuals or groups to coerce the behavior
that "most" people desire. What if I prefer to give to my favorite charities
and not welfare? Violence! But most people wouldn't have a problem with
throwing me in jail against my will for not anteing up to the government.
But, if everyone gave what was needed, you wouldn't need government. The
fact that government exists shows that experience seems to indicate that
the overall society works more "fairly" if it sanctions (violence) extreme
"nonconformists". The crucial problem is: who decides what "fair" and
"satisfactorily conformist" mean? For example, Hilary Clinton would love
to see you thrown in jail and have your kids taken away if you spanked
them! Should the state have this kind of power? Does the state have the
wisdom to decide what is reasonable? Is there even a "general case"?
In any event, the state decides that extreme violence against you is
more acceptable than dubious "violence" against your children...
The problem is that the violence rarely benefits any one individual. Plus,
violence to benefit any one individual causes violence by the state (as in
the case of self defense). I think the problem here is what the role of
the state should be; it doesn't feel right, but I'm not sure how to fix it.
When it gets to the point where those sworn "to protect and defend" do
nothing but make arrests after a crime has been committed, plea-bargaining
is the norm, prison is looked at as "rehabilitation" rather than punishment,
restitution is not emphasized, self-protection/defense is severely
sanctioned (i.e. hard to prove), and "criminals' rights" are respected
over those of the victim, something is *REALLY* messed up...
Stephen Chan
> In a life-long process such as the study of martial arts, how much progress
> are you making if all you are doing is learning more and more effective
> means of beating the tar out of violent people (assuming you only beat on
> violent people). Does anybody on the net truly think that the reason gener-
> ations of thoughtful, philosophical buddhist and taoist monks holed them-
> selves up in mountain temples for entire lifetimes is because they sought
> relief from the threat of bodily violence?
Well, I kind of figured that being a wandering monk could be a
dangerous lifestyle.
> Some buddhists are even--gasp--
> NON-VIOLENT! And it was buddhists who introduced martial arts into China,
> Japan, Korea, and (secondarily) Okinawa. (I realize that WuDang stylists
> may have an arguement against the 'buddhist origin theory. I agree with
> WuDang).
While some monks probably brought MA skills with them, I doubt
that they were the only conduits of martial skills.
> you're not careful. Self-cultivation, the attainment of enlightenment,
> a peaceful inner existence, and the refinement of virtue are all goals
> that have TRADITIONALLY been primary in the oldest martial arts.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I'd say that in historical terms, the primary goal of MA is to
stay alive! To me, when I look at the evolution of particular martial
arts, (ex: Aiki-JuJitsu -> Aikido, or Chen style Taijiquan ->
orthodox Yang style Taijiquan -> modern short forms) I see how teachers
have altered the emphasis of the art as the possibility of serious
hand to hand combat became more remote.
"self-cultivation, the attainment of enlightenment, a peaceful
inner existence and the refinement of virtue are all goals that
have TRADITIONALLY been primary in the oldest" _Asian_
_philosophies_. But at what point did these philosophies get
folded into a particular martial tradition? Are they
necessary to be an effective fighter?
For this kind of question, I don't think you'll find the
"truth" with historical arguments. Nor can you come up with an
convincing argument by throwing out an _arbitrary_ definition of
"Martial Artist" and then arguing backwards from there.
John F. Sasso
Just study Aikido, and you won't have to worry about this.
HEY! Who threw that! ;-)
John F Sasso
--
"The only way to true inspiration is the study of TedDo. And lots
of MauMau, of course." The Elvis Lectures
"I am not the False Bob, I am a free man." The Book of FalseBobs
"Since the introduction of MauMau, HP sales have skyrocketed." Book of MauMau
Mr. X
>>...
>>
>> Maybe if you're a thoughtful person, and you see the things
>>which are dear to you destroyed by the application of "Martial Arts",
>>you come to realize the value of non-violence?
Mmmmmm methinks not, except in some cases.
>>
>>...
>>
>> My personal experience is that when you practice some of the
>>nastier martial arts, you quickly get a feeling for just how
>>vulnerable & fragile life really is - getting maimed or killed is no
>>longer an abstraction.
BINGO! Now THIS is well put. Very well indeed.
>> My practical reasons for studying MA are that, on the injury
>>continuum, I'd prefer to hang around the "healthy" end. To that end,
>>non-violence seems to be a good policy.
This one's pretty good too...
>>
>I dunno, but I "wish" I could claim to be TOTALLY non-violent.
Oh YUCK! What on earth would you want to do THAT for? Are
you sure you know what you are wishing for?
>
>Its the law of nature. plain and simple. be it man or mouse, if your
>life is threatened, you (as martial artists) will attempt to defend
>yourselves.
That's about the long and the short of it.
>
>SOME would say that the only way a person could properly lay claim to
>being "non-violent" is the person who upon being attacked, would just
>rather sit there and be hurt than even begin to think about the
>revolting thought of fighting back. (opinion)
The Mennonite Ideal.
>
>So this is the big question:
>
>1) is a non-violent person one who strictly decides to only use
> his/her skills when necessary? (defense)
>
>OR
>
>2) is a non-violent person one who completely despises any violence and
> could NEVER do ANYTHING to hurt another person?
> (i.e. would obviously NEVER take any "martial arts")
>
Could be defined any way you want to. Indeed I can see them BOTH
being quite valid definitions simultaneously.
>
>This question is truly bothering me. I personally feel that I fit under
>the number 1 category, but I don't feel right claiming to be non-
>violent.
Don't be silly. First of all there is nothing wrong with being
violent per se. You, as so many other people, have had you head
filled with all this horse shit about how evil it is to be VIOLENT.
Oooooooooooooooo... don't even SAY that word, it's EVIL.
We pop people in the nose and we break arms and we kill each other.
It's a violent world, a violent universe. Countless collisions
between objects, both living and non living going on all over the
place at all times, without cease. Methinks another POV is on order
because the way you see things I'm not sure you'll ever be able to
settle your mind.
You kill every day of your life, don't fool yourself. It cannot be
avoided. One tries their best to get from day to day without hurting
or killing any more than he or she must, and THAT is OK. Goodness
of a person is not 100% defined by what they do. Some of it lies in
the attitude by which they undertake their actions.
E.g., euthanizing a terminally sick parent who requests it, while being
a violent act, is nonetheless an act of kindness, of respect and love.
A GOOD act. Context and attitude define the goodness or badness of
most actions more than anything else that I can think of.
>
>And YES, i have met such individuals who were so pacifistic as to claim
>that they would never raise a finger against another being.
>
Me too. Mennonites.
-Andy V.
Edward J. Hartnett
>
>Lets face it fellow martial artists... MOST of us take the arts NOT
>to destroy others or hurt them, but to one day use it to
>defend ourselves...IN A VIOLENT MANNER.
>
>So this is the big question:
>
>1) is a non-violent person one who strictly decides to only use
> his/her skills when necessary? (defense)
>
>OR
>
>2) is a non-violent person one who completely despises any violence and
> could NEVER do ANYTHING to hurt another person?
> (i.e. would obviously NEVER take any "martial arts")
>
>
>This question is truly bothering me. I personally feel that I fit under
>the number 1 category, but I don't feel right claiming to be non-
>violent.
>
>And YES, i have met such individuals who were so pacifistic as to claim
>that they would never raise a finger against another being.
>
>Please post your opinions.
>
>Celso E. Alvarado
>
my MA is when I've (on several occasions) stopped two other people from
fighting, not by beating them up, but by stepping between them and talking
them out of it. How did I use my MA? No way in hell would I have done it
if I wasn't confident that I could defend myself in case one of them
took a swing at me. In pre-MA days I would have stood on the sidelines.
In fact, one of the major reasons I started studying was something that
happened when I was 18, first time in the big bad city of Philadelphia.
I saw a nice friendly man beating the crap out of his wife on the street.
I was just too scared to go help her, or do anything except call the
police. (I wasn't alone - there were dozens of people watching). So I
said, 'screw this, I'm not going to go through this again!' and here I
am, 7 years later, and I'm happy to say that I've saved at least a few
people from that fate.
I guess you could almost call it a violent blow for non-violence. This,
it seems to me, is the most common and most wonderful application of
MA. Sometimes it's worked because the two people involved knew I
studied MA, and so were very anxious not to mix it up with me, and
other times, I presume, it worked just because of my confidence.
Does that make me non-violent?
Ed Hartnett
Yilmaz W. Rona
> Don't be silly. First of all there is nothing wrong with being
> violent per se. You, as so many other people, have had you head
> filled with all this horse shit about how evil it is to be VIOLENT.
> Oooooooooooooooo... don't even SAY that word, it's EVIL.
>
> We pop people in the nose and we break arms and we kill each other.
> It's a violent world, a violent universe. Countless collisions
> between objects, both living and non living going on all over the
> place at all times, without cease. Methinks another POV is on order
> because the way you see things I'm not sure you'll ever be able to
> settle your mind.
>
> You kill every day of your life, don't fool yourself. It cannot be
> avoided. One tries their best to get from day to day without hurting
> or killing any more than he or she must, and THAT is OK. Goodness
> of a person is not 100% defined by what they do. Some of it lies in
> the attitude by which they undertake their actions.
>
> E.g., euthanizing a terminally sick parent who requests it, while being
> a violent act, is nonetheless an act of kindness, of respect and love.
> A GOOD act. Context and attitude define the goodness or badness of
> most actions more than anything else that I can think of.
>
I think that the responsibility of a martial Artist is no to be non-violent,
but rather to use his skills and abilities to promote the common good. To
clarify, with our increased abilities, comes the responsibility for the welfare
of those around us. Sometimes the welfare of those we protect is served by
bashing someone's head, sometimes it isn't. But you, the martial artist, have
have the responsibility to judge the apprpriate level of violence to handle a
given situation.
Basicaly, I don't seek to end my willingess to be violent, but rather to
control it, so that I am violent only when it's appropriate.
Sometimes it means telling the $#@% who lives in my suite who is constantly
asserting that he is a superior fighter to me, and he will fight me anytime to
prove it, that he is indeed superior, and that I quake in my boots whenever he
walks by. As long as I agree to his verbal claims, he is not a threat to me or
anyone else, so no violence needed.
Othertimes, it means locking the arm of some drunk stranger who is harassing
and threatening an attractive female stranger, because that increases your
chances of hooking up .. I mean it allows you to control a dangerous situation
and minimise the injuries involved.
Control and responsibility are the key. Your skills as a martial artist, put
you in a position of responsibility over others. Because of your power, your
descisions affect the lives of all those around you.
Yilmaz Rona
Mr. X
>
>There is another reason to "rant and spew" (that's a great phrase). Since
>we are teaching people how to use their bodies and minds as weapons, it is
>important to teach them to use these weapons responsibly. One way of doing
>this is to try foster the attitude that beating someone senseless is a Bad
>Thing and people should avoid getting into fistfights except in self defense.
>Otherwise we are just producing skilled bullies.
I agree with you fully on this, but this is different from what I
believe the thread was speaking of, or at least it was certainly
different from what I was speaking of.
What you have said here is what an honest, non deluded instructor
demonstrates to their students. What I am opposed to is this namby-
pamby-touchy-feely-oooh-look-at-me-I'm-so-mystical-and-special-because
-I-am-SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-PC-nonviolent. THAT is, IMNSHO, SHIT.
No more, no less.
>
>I *do* have a desire to gain "personal power" and enjoy the fact that I have
>gained some measure of skill, but I still think that beating people up is
>wrong.
Again, we agree.
>
>...or am I just one of those confused, babbling, hypocritical fools you
>mentioned?
Not by what you have written here. And BTW, I don't say that these
folks are bad or awful, just out of touch with something that they
shouldn't be out of touch with, whatever that may be.
Adios mi amigos!
-Andy V.
Mr. X
>
>I think that the responsibility of a martial Artist is no to be non-violent,
>but rather to use his skills and abilities to promote the common good. To
>clarify, with our increased abilities, comes the responsibility for the welfare
>of those around us. Sometimes the welfare of those we protect is served by
>bashing someone's head, sometimes it isn't. But you, the martial artist, have
>have the responsibility to judge the apprpriate level of violence to handle a
>given situation.
>
>Basicaly, I don't seek to end my willingess to be violent, but rather to
>control it, so that I am violent only when it's appropriate.
>
>Sometimes it means telling the $#@% who lives in my suite who is constantly
>asserting that he is a superior fighter to me, and he will fight me anytime to
>prove it, that he is indeed superior, and that I quake in my boots whenever he
>walks by. As long as I agree to his verbal claims, he is not a threat to me or
>anyone else, so no violence needed.
>
>Othertimes, it means locking the arm of some drunk stranger who is harassing
>and threatening an attractive female stranger, because that increases your
>chances of hooking up .. I mean it allows you to control a dangerous situation
>and minimise the injuries involved.
>
>Control and responsibility are the key. Your skills as a martial artist, put
>you in a position of responsibility over others. Because of your power, your
>descisions affect the lives of all those around you.
>
> Yilmaz Rona
This was a very good post. Sounds a lot like me... no *wonder* I
like it! :)
-Andy V.
Tom Swiss (not Swift, not Suiss, Swiss!)
>and threatening an attractive female stranger, because that increases your
>chances of hooking up .. I mean it allows you to control a dangerous situation
>and minimise the injuries involved.
(big B->) Hi Yilmaz.
To consider the more serious side of what you said, I think that
it is important that a knowledge of the martial arts gives us the
ability, and in my mind, the responsibilty, to defend not only
ourselves, but others as well. I haven't been in an actual fight since
I started training; but several times I've stepped into and stopped
potential violence because I knew I could take care of myself if
things got rough.
===============================================================================
Tom Swiss/t...@flubber.cs.umd.edu| "Born to die" | Keep your laws off my brain!
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
This is a .signature antibody. Vaccinate your .sig!
Machine-independent, adj:
Doesn't run on any existing machine.
Mary Malmros
I dunno, but I "wish" I could claim to be TOTALLY non-violent.
Lets face it fellow martial artists... MOST of us take the arts NOT
to destroy others or hurt them, but to one day use it to
defend ourselves...IN A VIOLENT MANNER.
Ok...guess I'm a statistical outlier. "Self-defense" was way down on
my list of reasons to start studying, and it's still way down on my
list. Now, if you want to talk about "avoidance of trouble", well...
before I started studying, I could not have understood how studying
martial arts would help me do this. Now it's a pretty important
reason for me to keep studying.
[snip]
SOME would say that the only way a person could properly lay claim to
being "non-violent" is the person who upon being attacked, would just
rather sit there and be hurt than even begin to think about the
revolting thought of fighting back. (opinion)
So this is the big question:
1) is a non-violent person one who strictly decides to only use
his/her skills when necessary? (defense)
OR
2) is a non-violent person one who completely despises any violence and
could NEVER do ANYTHING to hurt another person?
(i.e. would obviously NEVER take any "martial arts")
Hm, you want us to vote for 1 or 2? Well...sorry, my answer's more
complex. I would define violence as an actual or attempted use of
force with a moral intent to do harm. The intent is what is important.
There can be use of force, coercive use of force, even with intent
to injure, but without intent to harm. Does that make any sense?
If someone takes a swing at me, and I block the punch, I am
intentionally using force in a coercive manner, and you can even
say that I'm trying to injure (at least I'm trying to smack my
attacker's arm as hard as I can, to maximize the chance that the
block will be effective). But I'm not trying to harm. I don't
necessarily wish harm on this person. I just want to get him
out of my face, and I may need to hurt him to do it. BUT I DON'T
WANT HIM HURT. I may have to do it, but I don't want to.
I can also see a slightly different situation in which I would
have a violent intent. Suppose this attacker has come after me
before. Suppose I have every reason to believe he'll do it again.
Suppose I've done the whole cops/courts/restraining order route
and nothing is working. At that point, I can see myself thinking,
"I hope I put this guy in the hospital for a good while so I don't
have to worry about him." I can see myself wishing to harm him
so that he'd leave me alone. It's a higher degree of the previous
case -- my ultimate objective is the same, to get him to leave me
alone. But there's a difference. In the first case, I need to
hit him hard because if I don't, that fist will connect, and when
I hit him I might hurt him, but my objective is not to hurt him, it's
just to keep from getting hit myself. In the second case, I want
to maximize damage to him.
I disagree with Andy. I think that violence IS bad. It may be
necessary sometimes, but I experience it as bad, corrosive,
harmful to the perpetrator or harborer of violent intentions as
well as to others.
Aaaaaaagh...what a semantic tangle I just created. Sorry about that.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mary Malmros | Cayman Systems Inc, 26 Landsdowne St, Cambridge, MA 02139
ma...@cayman.com | Phone 617-494-1999 Fax 617-494-5167 AppleLink CAYMAN.TECH
Lauren Radner
>Lets face it fellow martial artists... MOST of us take the arts NOT
>to destroy others or hurt them, but to one day use it to
>defend ourselves...IN A VIOLENT MANNER.
>SOME would say that the only way a person could properly lay claim to
>being "non-violent" is the person who upon being attacked, would just
>rather sit there and be hurt than even begin to think about the
>revolting thought of fighting back. (opinion)
>
>So this is the big question:
>
>1) is a non-violent person one who strictly decides to only use
> his/her skills when necessary? (defense)
>
>OR
>
>2) is a non-violent person one who completely despises any violence and
> could NEVER do ANYTHING to hurt another person?
> (i.e. would obviously NEVER take any "martial arts")
Both.
Also...
...there's a middle ground, you know. If attacked, given sufficient martial
arts knowledge and training, you can use your skills to control the attacker
without causing undue injury to him/her, and without allowing undue injury,
we hope, to yourself. Such training also allows for the possibility of
intervention to prevent injury to others, if you are of such a mind (no, I
don't want to get embroiled in a moral discussion about minding my own
business, here).
I don't think that most martial artists are training so that one day, if
attacked, they can defend themselves "IN A VIOLENT MANNER".
I think they are perfecting, among other things, the ability to use precisely
what is necessary to control and defuse the situation. I think part of martial
arts training is to get used to *evaluating* a situation not just blindly
reacting to it. Even a "true pacifist", if suddenly attacked, is likely to
stike out or push back or *something* instinctively at least *once*, don't
you think? It's hard to program political stances into your animal brain.
Even someone who just generally doesn't want to hurt anyone - if they *haven't*
had any training - may have no choice but to do maximum physical damage to an
attacker in an attempt to escape, because they have no idea what *else* to do,
besides EVERYTHING and ANYTHING to get away.
When you were little and got in fights, I'll bet you were a lot more physical
about it than you are now. When you were five years old, you probably hit and
pushed and kicked and whatever, and now you probably don't get much past
yelling and maybe pounding your fist on a table or something.
When you were little, you probably lost your temper a lot more often, and
you probably didn't have any 'middle ground' like "annoyed", "irritated",
"disgruntled" - you probably just went right off the end of the scale.
Either you were ANGRY or you weren't.
Why don't you still push and kick and shove whomever you're mad at? Because
you've been 'trained' by society in alternate and more appropriate and
effective ways to deal with the situation.
Why doesn't every potentially annoying thing send you into a screaming fit
of rage? Because you've got more to compare that annoyance to, more ways
to evaluate it, a scale to place it in, a way to judge an appropriate level
of response.
I think martial arts is - among MANY other things - conditioning and
socialization for the more violent kinds of fights that society doesn't help
train you for.
Martial arts help you evaluate the most appropriate level of response, and
give you more options for how to respond. I think non-ma-ers, in some kind of
situation where they've been attacked, are still at the five-year-old-on-the-
playground level of ability to evaluate the most appropriate response, and/or
select options to deal with the situation.
Sorry - my keyboard seems to be stuck in ramble mode with the MUSE key locked
on.
-Lauren
Micheal Lunny
use violence on somebody you are going to hurt them (hopefully
8-)). Pain is something thats fairly easy to place in our scheme
of morality. Its a bad thing. Deliberately causing someone pain
is therefore also a bad thing. This will be the end result of an
act of violence. I think I have established a causal link
between violence and a bad thing to do (in todays society of
course).
One of the things we (the human race) have hopefully done as time
has passed is to place our actions in a wider context than just
our own personal needs for gratification/whatever. Thus while in
the past corporal punishment was an acceptable way of getting
children to behave according to plan newer, hopefully more pro-
ductive and less damaging ways are used today. (No T.V. until
you rebuild the house you burnt down Jimmy). We have as a
species become cautious about hurting people to achieve our ends.
Looked at in that way, non-violence is a more mature attitude to
life and our fellow human beings, something that many of the peo-
ple who founded martial arts and formed its philosophy would not
have appreciated because of the times they lived in.
Our desire to not hurt each other unless absolutely neccessary is
perhaps not in keeping with the philosophy of some MA's but they're
only a way of dealing with confrontation in an immediate fashion not
a way of life.
--
| mpl...@vax1.tcd.ie | Today you achieved nothing.
| , | So today you achieved as much as most people do
| Micheal Lunny | in their entire lives. Satisfied?
Edward J. Hartnett
<snip>
>
>...there's a middle ground, you know. If attacked, given sufficient martial
>arts knowledge and training, you can use your skills to control the attacker
>without causing undue injury to him/her, and without allowing undue injury,
>we hope, to yourself. Such training also allows for the possibility of
>intervention to prevent injury to others, if you are of such a mind (no, I
>don't want to get embroiled in a moral discussion about minding my own
>business, here).
>
on this at all, and it's a dangerous attitude. One real-life case in that book
recently discussed here, "American Law and the Trained Fighter", was a case in
which two guys go outside to fight, one hits the other in the face, he falls,
hits the curb with his head, and dies. One puch and the guy is dead.
The point is, who knows what might happen if you hit a guy? Maybe he'll reel
backwards into the path of an oncoming truck. Maybe he'll hit his head, maybe
you'll hit some magic spot by a fluke, and he'll die from that.
Furthermore, the other side of the same coin is this: do you have enough faith
in your abilities that you believe you could win a fight with a stranger
because your skills are so superior? How do you know? Maybe you'll just have one
chance to get in a strike, and if you don't do it, the bad guy will win! If
I'm attacked, I figure that I'm going to be a violent as possible, because
that's my best chance to win (i.e. to survive). I'm not saying I would knock
the guy unconscience, then proceed to break every bone in his body. Obviously
(and hopefully) there might be a point at which I have beaten him enough to
stop him from hurting me, without having done anything too nasty to him,
but my point is, I can't know that will happen. I have to assume that using
my training might well kill or cripple someone. Indeed, it is this very
realization, I think, that make MAs so reluctant to fight.
>-Lauren
>
>
Ed Hartnett
K Scheffler
>Hurm. Violence does not have any moral colouring then? If you
[.....]
>act of violence. I think I have established a causal link
>between violence and a bad thing to do (in todays society of
>course).
Pain is a *relatively* bad thing. If the alternative is death,
dismemberment or anything equally unpleasant then (the infliction of)
pain is the lesser evil, and to be preferred. Of course, if there's
an evil lesser than than, like no TV, it's even more preferable.
For what it's worth, I feel that if was a good enough fighter to be in
controll of an opponent and in no danger, I needen't ever strike back :
I can wait for him to get tired, and the same end is served :). Falling
short of this, violence has to be used instead. But the better you are,
the less harm you *need* to cause to defend yourself. Who would hurt more
than that amount?
=========================================================================
= v...@uk.ac.ed.dcs =
=========================================================================
Paul Elkins
>day. Needless to say, his opinion was wrong (:-), but it got me
>
along similar lines.
>The kajukenbo founders and their first students were said to be
>well-known fighters in Hawaii. And the list goes on. How many
It seems that all of the "masters" that I have run across have
a certain period of violence in their history. Although I have
trained with many excellent students who have no such history,
It is debatable whether this is required to become such a "Master"
>masters used to go out and get into streetfights just to give
>themselves a "tune up" (as one eskrima master jokingly puts it)? I
>realize some arts, like silat or aikido for example, may be different
>(but wasn't O-Sensei a figher also, at one time?).
>
>Given that this is the case, where do these guys get off turning
>around and preaching non-violence to, and demanding non-violence from,
>their students? Is this philosphy just put in here in America, where
>the public (presumably) demands it? Are the masters corrupting their
>grandmaster's philosophy?
>
These masters often teach non-violence etc. It seems that they have
undergone a change of heart somewhere along the way. My guess is
that the ones who don't undergo such a change, largely die before
becoming "respected masters".
>Further, who is to say that all this streetfighting isn't largely
>responsible for these guys' proficiency in the first place? Focusing
>on the destination while ignoring the journey is dangerous.
>
The closer to full combat, the quicker the art is learned, (or else
the practioner becomes diabled or dies). Real combat also tends to
eliminate the B.S. from martial arts. On the other hand real combat is
also dangerous.
The key to training is developing the skills of fighting, without
incurring the risks!
There is always a trade off. I'm willing to take a little long to
master my art, and trememdously reduce the risk of injury during training.
Good training provides most of the benefits of real combat, while reducing
most of the risks. (This in no way addresses the Moral implications
of Real Combat, just it's effect on learning Martial Arts.)
>
>This post isn't meant to express disapproval at non-violent
>philosophies -- I hold to such a philosophy myself. But I do wonder
>how the "offspring" of streetfighters have become so tame, and what
>this has done to the systems.
>
Personally, I would not train from a "Real Fighter" that had not already
passed through, the "violent stage", to the other side. What effect this
has on martial artists ability is debatable, IMHO not worth the risk.
-Monta
--
The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information
Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service.
internet: bbs.oit.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80
wharfie
>The point is, who knows what might happen if you hit a guy? Maybe he'll reel
That's a great reason not to hit them.
wr
Mr. X
>on this at all, and it's a dangerous attitude. One real-life case in that book
>recently discussed here, "American Law and the Trained Fighter", was a case in
>which two guys go outside to fight, one hits the other in the face, he falls,
>hits the curb with his head, and dies. One puch and the guy is dead.
I think you are mixing apples and oranges here. Lauren (hi Lauren!)
said that she thought that MA can be used to RESTRAIN another person
without causing undue harm. You were talking about two hormonally
crazed idiots going at it with the intention of kicking the
other's ass. Lauren was, I believe, talking of using various
restraining techniques (Locks) that render the attacker inable to
prosecute an attack against you or anyone else.
Personally I find this to be a very well put use of someones MA skills.
-Andy "sunburned but VERY happy" V. B^)=)
David Johnson
good purposes. This applies the martial skill also.
I think the whole point of the "Lie."
As far teachers preaching non-violence after having picked many fights before.
I say they have either repented or they are hypocrites. That is not hard to
figure out. There is also the possibility that there are circumstances that
we are not aware of that necessitated the violence.
--
David Johnson
XLNT Designs, Inc. (XDI)
da...@xlnt.com
the hapa haole
(or more precisely the hakka haole)
(or even more precisely, the hapa hakka hapa haole, or h^4)
Jonathan Byrd
Hurm. Violence does not have any moral colouring then? If you
use violence on somebody you are going to hurt them (hopefully
8-)). Pain is something thats fairly easy to place in our scheme
of morality. Its a bad thing. Deliberately causing someone pain
is therefore also a bad thing. This will be the end result of an
act of violence. I think I have established a causal link
between violence and a bad thing to do (in todays society of
course).
the ability to sense pain is a natural phenomenon, and any semi-sane
person will agree that pain is something to avoid, but you have not
established that this biological fact is bad in a moral sense.
pain can also be a very beneficial thing, as it can cause one to cease
an activity that is detrimental to one's health. pain is a feedback
mechanism, and a fundamental part of our innate capacity to learn.
any attempt to judge a simple biological fact as morally "bad" or
"good" must rely heavily on questionable teleological argument.
and now for the ticklish part of my argument:
in an earlier article, lauren radner wrote:
...there's a middle ground, you know. If attacked, given sufficient
martial arts knowledge and training, you can use your skills to
control the attacker without causing undue injury to him/her, and
without allowing undue injury, we hope, to yourself.
by avoiding the infliction of pain, you may be throwing away the most
powerful tool you have for instant behavior modification. if i were
attacked, the last thing on my mind would be minimizing the pain i
inflict on my attacker; i would be trying to inflict as much pain as i
possibly could until i was completely certain that the attack had
stopped.
if pain is a natural way to stop someone from doing something that
harms himself, shouldn't it also be used to prevent someone from doing
something that harms someone else? when one cannot appeal to a higher
level of thought, it seems most economical to use this universally
understood, built-in learning tool.
--
jonathan byrd
j...@apollo.med.utah.edu
Edward J. Hartnett
Yes, of course. That was my point. You don't want to get in a fight, because
Judyth T Gibson
>rather die than hurt someone else. I think that this takes great
>strength of character, and the willingness to get stepped over,
>stomped on and maybe even killed.
> If you hold non-violence to be so important, then you should
>emulate them.
> But if you don't think that this extreme position is necessary
>to be a "good" person, then don't stress yourself out.
Sorry, can't help myself. To paraphrase from Cerebus (since I
don't have it directly in front of me!)
Might makes right
Right makes might
Might for right
fight, Fight, FIGHT
Anybody recall the "punch um inna face bit" that the bug says???
>
>Stephen Y. Chan
"This calls for a plan which requires psychology and extreeme violence."
The Young Ones
Judy
Edward J. Hartnett
Sorry, mail seemed to chop my posting. The rest of that was...
because of the unpredictible results which may be very unpleasant. I was replying to
Lauren, who felt that MA training would allow the MA to respond in a fight with
less leathal force than a non-MA, who would have to go all or nothing, with no
middle ground. My point was, so would an MA. I know I'm not confident enough of
my techniques to think I could control every variable in such a situation. I frankly
doubt that anyone could, no matter how proficient. All you can hope for is to have slightly
more of an edge in a fight.
To give an example, let's say some big guy grabbed you, or otherwise initiated hostilities.
You, as a trained MA, have a chance right there to drive your fingers thru his eyes into
his brain, or some other grisly alternative, but since you don't want to blind or kill,
you break free and execute some terrific grab or take down or whatever. But, unbeknownst
to you, this guy is a blackbelt too, and though he was stupid in his initial attack (as
he assumed you were a helpless victum), he manages to get free of your hold or take-down,
and breaks your knee and jaw. You are now at his mercy. You threw away your only chance to
win.
An unlikely situation? I sure hope so. But it's not hard to imagine more likely ones.
For a big guy (like myself, for example), one punch might be enough to break your face.
Is any MA so good that they think that no one can land even one technique, ever? Obviously
not. This is the worst-case scenario, but isn't that part of what MA is about, preparing
for the worst-case?
That is why I say such an attitude is dangerous, the attitude being: I know MA, so I can,
by dint of my superior skills, win the fight without using too much violence. I believe that,
unfortunately, if you are attacked, you must respond with as much as you can muster, and pray
it will be enough.
Ed Hartnett
Yilmaz W. Rona
> When you were little and got in fights, I'll bet you were a lot more physical
> about it than you are now. When you were five years old, you probably hit and
> pushed and kicked and whatever, and now you probably don't get much past
> yelling and maybe pounding your fist on a table or something.
>
> When you were little, you probably lost your temper a lot more often, and
> you probably didn't have any 'middle ground' like "annoyed", "irritated",
> "disgruntled" - you probably just went right off the end of the scale.
> Either you were ANGRY or you weren't.
>
> Why don't you still push and kick and shove whomever you're mad at? Because
> you've been 'trained' by society in alternate and more appropriate and
> effective ways to deal with the situation.
>
> Why doesn't every potentially annoying thing send you into a screaming fit
> of rage? Because you've got more to compare that annoyance to, more ways
> to evaluate it, a scale to place it in, a way to judge an appropriate level
> of response.
A couple of years back, this 6-year old kid told me, "Grownups never have any
fun. If they throw a temper tantrum once in a while, they won't get so angry,
and then they can have fun!"
I agree. When you get stressed out about something, throw a temper tantrum. You
don't have to do it in public, you can do it behind a locked door, but do throw
a temper tantrum when really bothered. Most people hold the rage inside, and it
eats them up, till they don't know how to let their hair down. Hey, a temper
tantrum a day keeps the shrinks away.
Yilmaz Rona
Paul Elkins
>Y'know, I've studied at a fair number of schools over the years, and
>all of their salutes and class mottos said about the same thing:
>
>1) I'm a nice guy, but if you screw with me I'll kill you
>or
>2) We won't start it, but we'll finish it.
>
>Sounds fair enough to me.
How about : I'm not afraid of you, so I don't HAVE to hurt you.
If someone "feared for their life" an appropriate response might be
"death and destruction".
If someone was attacked by a four year old, an appropriate response might
be to push them away. There was no fear.
While it is difficult to accurately judge potential threats, martial arts
should provide a fearless (clear) mind, so that in the situations where
"death and destruction" are not absolutely necessary, they are not employed.
In today's societies it would appear that MANY conflicts do not require
a complete "death and destruction" response. The greater your training,
the greater the opportunity to dissolve conflicts with minimal damage.
Stephen Chan
> Sorry, can't help myself. To paraphrase from Cerebus (since I
> don't have it directly in front of me!)
> Might makes right
> Right makes might
> Might for right
> fight, Fight, FIGHT
I knew that people followed Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, Buddha,
[insert name of Hindu guy], and Rational Actor Models.
But I never met expected to know someone who used cartoon
Aardvarks as moral inspirations...
Stephen Y. Chan Programmer Analyst CMU Telecommunications
wharfie
>let's say some big guy grabbed you, or otherwise initiated hostilities.
>[...] but you don't want to blind or kill [so] you break free [but] he
>manages to get free of your hold or take-down,and breaks your knee and jaw.
What if you try to get his eyes, but he bites your fingers? You
missed your chance! A real martial artist, always prepared for the worst,
would have gunned him down when he stepped off the bus!
>if you are attacked, you must respond with as much as you can muster
I believe that if you are attacked you should cause the attack to
become harmless, rather than respond with an even stronger attack of your own.
"Got one of those flashes,
I've been here before, I've
been here before..."
Mr. X
>because of the unpredictible results which may be very unpleasant. I was replying to
>Lauren, who felt that MA training would allow the MA to respond in a fight with
>less leathal force than a non-MA, who would have to go all or nothing, with no
>middle ground. My point was, so would an MA. I know I'm not confident enough of
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Too broad a statement. While *I* may not be good enough to do
the midlle ground shuffle, I have met and know many MA's that can.
>my techniques to think I could control every variable in such a situation.
Nobody can control them ALL. But some can control enough.
I frankly
>doubt that anyone could, no matter how proficient. All you can hope for is to have slightly
>more of an edge in a fight.
>
Tis all you need. But we are talking of not fighting, of restraining
and controlling an opponent in a minimally violent manner. There are,
just as in a fight, basically 2 components: avoiding the attack and
making your response. The only difference here is in the response.
Avoiding the attack is perhaps 51% of the battle right there. All
you have to do after that is decide how to direct your assailant.
>To give an example, let's say some big guy grabbed you, or otherwise initiated hostilities.
OK, we can get hypothetical...
>You, as a trained MA, have a chance right there to drive your fingers thru his eyes into
>his brain, or some other grisly alternative, but since you don't want to blind or kill,
>you break free and execute some terrific grab or take down or whatever. But, unbeknownst
>to you, this guy is a blackbelt too, and though he was stupid in his initial attack (as
>he assumed you were a helpless victum), he manages to get free of your hold or take-down,
>and breaks your knee and jaw. You are now at his mercy. You threw away your only chance to
>win.
In this case your judgement failed and you lose. This is the price
that you risk if you are going to run around loving thy brother more
than thyself. A ridiculous attitude IMNSHO, but that's OK with me,
do what you want.
I have many friends that I would (and have) risk injury for, including
my cats, but I do this out of CHOICE, not some ridiculous sense of
moral obligation. Such a sense laces this entire discussion and makes
me a bit queasy, but that's my problem.
>
>For a big guy (like myself, for example), one punch might be enough to break your face.
Gotta catch me first, and I can assure you I'm pretty slippery B^)=)
>Is any MA so good that they think that no one can land even one technique, ever? Obviously
>not. This is the worst-case scenario, but isn't that part of what MA is about, preparing
>for the worst-case?
Don't be silly, ANYONE can be taken. Even (EEGADS!) Bruce Lee...
>
>That is why I say such an attitude is dangerous, the attitude being: I know MA, so I can,
>by dint of my superior skills, win the fight without using too much violence. I believe that,
>unfortunately, if you are attacked, you must respond with as much as you can muster, and pray
>it will be enough.
>
First off I disagree with this, not in principle, but degree. I would
say that statistically speaking, a well trained MA could indeed see
LOTS of bar action and get through it relatively unscathed. Sure,
shit CAN (and sometimes DOES) happen. No guarantees in this life.
Second, I must reiterate what I had previously propounded (Love the
way the rolled off my tongue, thanks Mr. Elms!) that I see nothing
wrong at all with killing or viciously maiming another person to
save one's skin or that or another, providing that use of such force
is necessary and not done lightly. The problem here resides solely
and squarely in your mind. It sounds that you have been filled with
loads of moralistic nonsense that limits your choices and therefore
your power, but let's not get any further into THAT discussion.
>
> Ed Hartnett
-Andy V.
Tom Swiss (not Swift, not Suiss, Swiss!)
>A couple of years back, this 6-year old kid told me, "Grownups never have any
>fun. If they throw a temper tantrum once in a while, they won't get so angry,
>and then they can have fun!"
>
>don't have to do it in public, you can do it behind a locked door,but do throw
>a temper tantrum when really bothered. Most people hold the rage inside,and it
>eats them up, till they don't know how to let their hair down. Hey, a temper
>tantrum a day keeps the shrinks away.
I though that's what sparring was all about. B->
Seriously, there are a few people in my dojo I love to spar when I'm
having a bad time of it, because I can get rough enough to get it out
of my system (without doing permanent harm to each other).
Breaking is also useful. Snap a few board and feel the tension melt
away.
When a more immediate response is called for, I tend to throw things.
Pencils usually, because I'm usually stuggling with some math problem when
I get that frustrated!
===============================================================================
Tom Swiss/t...@flubber.cs.umd.edu| "Born to die" | Keep your laws off my brain!
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
This is a .signature antibody. Vaccinate your .sig!
Maier's Law:
If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be
disposed of.
Edward J. Hartnett
>In article <1992May4.2...@colorado.edu> e...@khonshu.colorado.edu (Edward J. Hartnett) writes:
>
>>because of the unpredictible results which may be very unpleasant. I was replying to
>>Lauren, who felt that MA training would allow the MA to respond in a fight with
>>less leathal force than a non-MA, who would have to go all or nothing, with no
>>middle ground. My point was, so would an MA. I know I'm not confident enough of
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> Too broad a statement. While *I* may not be good enough to do
> the midlle ground shuffle, I have met and know many MA's that can.
What, against absolutely anybody? If the number 1 best MA attacked the number 2 best MA in
the world (not that I think you can rate them like taht), don't you think the #2 guy
decreases his chances by not being as violent as possible?
>
>>my techniques to think I could control every variable in such a situation.
>
> Nobody can control them ALL. But some can control enough.
>
>I frankly
>>doubt that anyone could, no matter how proficient. All you can hope for is to have slightly
>>more of an edge in a fight.
>>
> Tis all you need. But we are talking of not fighting, of restraining
> and controlling an opponent in a minimally violent manner. There are,
> just as in a fight, basically 2 components: avoiding the attack and
> making your response. The only difference here is in the response.
> Avoiding the attack is perhaps 51% of the battle right there. All
> you have to do after that is decide how to direct your assailant.
What's the difference between fighting and restraining? You try to restrain me, I call
that a fight. Your opponent won't care whether you're not really fighting, he'll try
and beat the tar out of you anyway.
>
>>To give an example, let's say some big guy grabbed you, or otherwise initiated hostilities.
>
> OK, we can get hypothetical...
>
>>You, as a trained MA, have a chance right there to drive your fingers thru his eyes into
>>his brain, or some other grisly alternative, but since you don't want to blind or kill,
>>you break free and execute some terrific grab or take down or whatever. But, unbeknownst
>>to you, this guy is a blackbelt too, and though he was stupid in his initial attack (as
>>he assumed you were a helpless victum), he manages to get free of your hold or take-down,
>>and breaks your knee and jaw. You are now at his mercy. You threw away your only chance to
>>win.
>
> In this case your judgement failed and you lose. This is the price
> that you risk if you are going to run around loving thy brother more
> than thyself. A ridiculous attitude IMNSHO, but that's OK with me,
> do what you want.
What's a ridiculous attitude? Not going all the way? I agree, that was my point.
>
> I have many friends that I would (and have) risk injury for, including
> my cats, but I do this out of CHOICE, not some ridiculous sense of
> moral obligation. Such a sense laces this entire discussion and makes
> me a bit queasy, but that's my problem.
>
I don't follow this. Who brought up moral obligation? As far as I'm concerned we're talking
of the practicality of restraining someone vs. the practicality of being maximally violent.
Obviously neither of us wants to kill anyone.
>>
>>For a big guy (like myself, for example), one punch might be enough to break your face.
>
> Gotta catch me first, and I can assure you I'm pretty slippery B^)=)
Hey, I'm not trying to be a tough guy here. We're talking about the worst-case. If you can
run, go ahead, I would. But if you're caught, are you going to try and restrain your attacker
with mimimal violence, or are you going to be as nasty as you can, as quick as you can, to
try and survive with minimal risk to youself? That is what this discussion is about.
>
>>Is any MA so good that they think that no one can land even one technique, ever? Obviously
>>not. This is the worst-case scenario, but isn't that part of what MA is about, preparing
>>for the worst-case?
>
> Don't be silly, ANYONE can be taken. Even (EEGADS!) Bruce Lee...
I'm not being silly, that was my point.
>>
>>That is why I say such an attitude is dangerous, the attitude being: I know MA, so I can,
>>by dint of my superior skills, win the fight without using too much violence. I believe that,
>>unfortunately, if you are attacked, you must respond with as much as you can muster, and pray
>>it will be enough.
>>
> First off I disagree with this, not in principle, but degree. I would
> say that statistically speaking, a well trained MA could indeed see
> LOTS of bar action and get through it relatively unscathed. Sure,
> shit CAN (and sometimes DOES) happen. No guarantees in this life.
> Second, I must reiterate what I had previously propounded (Love the
> way the rolled off my tongue, thanks Mr. Elms!) that I see nothing
> wrong at all with killing or viciously maiming another person to
> save one's skin or that or another, providing that use of such force
> is necessary and not done lightly. The problem here resides solely
> and squarely in your mind. It sounds that you have been filled with
> loads of moralistic nonsense that limits your choices and therefore
> your power, but let's not get any further into THAT discussion.
>
>>
>> Ed Hartnett
>
> -Andy V.
Hey, Andy, are you reading the same thread I am? What the hell are you talking about?
I'm confused. What moralisitic nonsence? That it's not nice to kill and maim people?
What is the problem that rests solely in my mind?
Ed Hartnett
Lauren Radner
back to doing real work !
In article <1992May4.2...@colorado.edu> e...@khonshu.colorado.edu (Edward J. Hartnett)
writes:
>In article <1992May4.2...@colorado.edu> e...@khonshu.colorado.edu (Edward J. Hartnett)
writes:
>>In article <28...@unisql.UUCP> wr...@unisql.UUCP (wharfie) writes:
>>>In article <1992May3.1...@colorado.edu> e...@khonshu.colorado.edu (Edward J. Hartnett) writes:
>>>>The point is, who knows what might happen if you hit a guy? Maybe he'll reel>>>
>>> That's a great reason not to hit them.
>>> wr
>>
>>Yes, of course. That was my point. You don't want to get in a fight, because
>
>Sorry, mail seemed to chop my posting. The rest of that was...
>
>because of the unpredictible results which may be very unpleasant. I was replying to
>Lauren, who felt that MA training would allow the MA to respond in a fight with>less leathal force than a non-MA, who would have to go all or nothing, with no
>middle ground. My point was, so would an MA.
...you have missed part of my point - I said *sufficient* martial-arts
training...
I do not think *I* at *my* level could selectively deal with *all* situations
in some sort of armchair-quarterback-after-the-fact least-level of violence to
get the job done. But there are plenty of people who could. My instuctor
certainly has done so numerous times (he was a sheriff for many years,
undercover cop, and has done other things which afford numerous such
opportunities, eg, bodyguard, and, with a friend, cleaned up one of the rougher
streets/neighborhoods around here to make it safe for the friend's business,
other businesses, and families, etc.). He, however, is 7th dan and the highest
practitioner of our style still living, so he is a little unusual. However,
others of the students in our school have been in situations where they 'pulled
their punches', so to speak, and *chose* what level was most appropriate to
diffuse, control, and end the situations they were in. I have never been in
such a situation myself (yet?) (I live too much of a Wonderbread lifestyle, I
guess) so I can't refute you with a "Nunh UNH, 'cause *I* have..." from
personal experience, but others on the net have already posted their own
stories of such before.
To put it concisely, no, I don't think "martial arts training" is sufficient.
I think *years* of it, and *practice*, and *good instruction* and *skill*, and
a certain kind of mind that not all of us have... etc. Certainly, any martial
artist can *choose* to go full-force. *Lesser* skill levels might *react* with
full-force death-dealing techniques that had been 'programmed into our body' -
*until* some part of our mind catches up with what is happening. Then decision-
making will enter into it.
>I know I'm not confident enough of
>my techniques to think I could control every variable in such a situation.
Don't raise a straw man. Nobody can control EVERY variable in such a
situation. What if there's an earthquake? However, with study, I
think it is possible to gain considerable control over many of the
variables which *can* be controlled and which *matter*.
>I frankly doubt that anyone could, no matter how proficient.
Sorry, I have evidence to the contrary, and others on and off the net
do as well. You don't have to believe me - and you probably won't -
but maybe if you talk to a number of other ma-ers, you will encounter
some whose word and anecdotes you trust. For starters, you might want
to talk to some folks at the police station - even non-ma-er law
enforcement officers make daily decisions about how much force is
appropriate to use - and yes, sometimes they make the wrong choice
(please, no Rodney King threads).
>All you can hope for is to have slightly
>more of an edge in a fight.
I think any ma training will give you that. Even if only an attitudinal one.
I think the level of proficiency *I* am talking about can give you control of
a fight. The level I am talking about is not common. The level I am talking
about isn't bought in a year or two, either.
>
>To give an example, let's say some big guy grabbed you, or otherwise initiated
hostilities.
>You, as a trained MA, have a chance right there to drive your fingers thru his
eyes into
>his brain, or some other grisly alternative, but since you don't want to blind
or kill,
>you break free and execute some terrific grab or take down or whatever. But, unbeknownst
>to you, this guy is a blackbelt too, and though he was stupid in his initial attack (as
>he assumed you were a helpless victum), he manages to get free of your hold or
take-down,
>and breaks your knee and jaw. You are now at his mercy. You threw away your only chance to
>win.
Then, I guess there'd be nothing left for me to do but to let the circus ponies
trample him to death. Where'd I get the circus ponies? From the same place you
got a black belt who started a fight for no reason, started it stupidly, attacked
what he thought was a helpless "victum", managed to get free of my hold or
take-down, decided to start fighting 'like a black belt', was able to
immediately break both my knee and my jaw, and somehow is under the delusion
that because of a broken knee and jaw, I am now at his mercy.
I won't even get into the discussion of how meaningless a designation
it is to say "this guy is a blackbelt too".
>
>An unlikely situation? I sure hope so. But it's not hard to imagine more likely ones.
...then maybe you should have tried going with one of those.
>For a big guy (like myself, for example), one punch might be enough to break your face.
>Is any MA so good that they think that no one can land even one technique, ever? Obviously
>not.
No. Is any MA so bad that he thinks that in all cases a single
technique will put him/her out of action? Obviously not.
If somebody lands one of these show-stopping techniques on you, then,
by your own definition, you're out of the game anyway at this point,
right? So what difference does it make how much retaliatory force you
might have used? If they fail to land this technique, then the game
is wide open. We can both play at "what-ifs" forever. There are
plenty of people who have controlled a fight due to their martial
arts knowledge, in exactly the manner which I am describing. For you
to say they don't exist, or it's not possible is simply wrong. Maybe you
and I are still at the level where our first instinctive reactions are going
to create excruciating damage to an attacker before we can say "oh,
shucks, he was only drunk and tripped on me, darn it, and now I've
broken both his knees...", but others are certainly far beyond this level.
Maybe you haven't met them yet, but I have. Maybe you *do* know some and
just haven't asked them!
Part of martial arts training is training *not to be surprised*. Part of it
is training to *recover from surprise swiftly and take appropriate action*.
>This is the worst-case scenario, but isn't that part of what MA is about, preparing
>for the worst-case?
I don't think your example is a worst case. I think your big,
hulking, stupid black belt (whose teacher ought to be shot for
continuing to train and promote someone who would use his skills to
attack without reason, to attack someone perceived as helpless, and
to attack *stupidly*) is not a worst case. Just a stupid dangerous
case. Worst case for me involves a lot less control of the situation
and a lot less opportunity. Like, eighteen guys with uzis, from
fifteen feet away, who have decided they want to kill me slowly by firing
as many rounds as they can in my extremities and moving towards my vital
organs, because it will be fun.
>
>That is why I say such an attitude is dangerous, the attitude being: I know MA, so I can,
>by dint of my superior skills, win the fight without using too much violence. I believe that,>unfortunately, if you are attacked, you must respond with as much as you can muster, and pray
>it will be enough.
>
>
> Ed Hartnett
I think this is an appropriate attitude - IF JUSTIFIED. There are way
too many deluded teenage mutant ninja turtles running around with 6 months
of training, a false sense of security, and probably a black belt. With more
and correct training, when you respond with as much as you can muster, you
will be responding with control, subtlety of technique, deflections, preventions,
etc., rather than with tracheotomies, or jump spinning somersaulting double
back flip squealing dragon testical rips (except for Mary, of course, who
does these reflexively if someone so much as *sneezes* in the same *county*).
At any rate, that's what *I* think.
-Lauren
Lauren Radner
>Hey, I'm not trying to be a tough guy here. We're talking about the worst-
>case. If you can run, go ahead, I would. But if you're caught, are you going
>to try and restrain your attacker with mimimal violence, or are you going to
>be as nasty as you can, as quick as you can, to try and survive with minimal
>risk to youself? That is what this discussion is about.
... you seem to miss the point that it is possible (with my loophole of
"sufficient <by my definition> training") to restrain your attacker with
minimal violence and with minimal risk to yourself.
-Lauren
Lauren Radner
>
>In article <1992May2.1...@maths.tcd.ie> m...@maths.tcd.ie (Micheal Lunny) writes:
> Deliberately causing someone pain
> is therefore also a bad thing.
>the ability to sense pain is a natural phenomenon, and any semi-sane
>person will agree that pain is something to avoid, but you have not
>established that this biological fact is bad in a moral sense.
>
>pain can also be a very beneficial thing, as it can cause one to cease
>an activity that is detrimental to one's health. pain is a feedback
>mechanism, and a fundamental part of our innate capacity to learn.
I agree !!
>and now for the ticklish part of my argument:
>
>in an earlier article, lauren radner wrote:
>
> ...there's a middle ground, you know. If attacked, given sufficient
> martial arts knowledge and training, you can use your skills to
> control the attacker without causing undue injury to him/her, and
> without allowing undue injury, we hope, to yourself.
>
>by avoiding the infliction of pain, you may be throwing away the most
>powerful tool you have for instant behavior modification. if i were
>attacked, the last thing on my mind would be minimizing the pain i
>inflict on my attacker
I agree again!
I said "you can use your skills to control the attacker without
causing undue INJURY..." - I didn't say a *darn* thing about trying
not to cause the guy *PAIN*... It's better to make the guy *feel* like
he's dying (ooooo! those nasty *monkey* techniques !) than to kill him!
Maybe next time he'll think twice before trying <whatever-it-was> again!
>
>if pain is a natural way to stop someone from doing something that
>harms himself, shouldn't it also be used to prevent someone from doing
>something that harms someone else? when one cannot appeal to a higher
>level of thought, it seems most economical to use this universally
>understood, built-in learning tool.
Sounds good to me...
-Lauren
Edward J. Hartnett
agree that you shouldn't break the kneecaps of some drunk old man because he
grabs your arm. And obviously if you get someone down and out, you shouldn't
proceed to mutilate them.
As for your comment along the lines of: if he lands that killer punch you
can't retaliate anyway, my response is: I'm not talking about retaliation, I'm
talking about ending the fight as quickly as possible. If you hesitate, you
give him that much more time to get in that killer punch.
I also think that your attitude about black-belts never attacking someone
without reason is perhaps more true in America than elsewhere. I lived in
Europe for a year, and there is was common folk-knowledge that a lot of the
mobsters in the city were expert martial artists (no guns allowed, and they
were tough to get, and just having one on you would put you away for a long
time). (And no, I don't know why gun control laws work in Dublin, but not in
NYC). So if these mobsters knocked off a store somewhere around town, and
someone in the store objected, or looked at them funny, or whatever, they
would use their stuff. (Not to give a bad impression of Dublin, BTW, it's a
very nice place, with an increadibly low crime rate).
Besides, earning a black belt doesn't always make you smart, or nice, or reasonable.
I had an instructor once who was the most sadistic person you'd ever
want to meet. He loved to knock students out during sparring. Really, he
did. He was a security guard during the day, and had a very nasty attitude.
If you showed him any disrespect (even jokingly), or (heaven-forbid) called
him a name (I sure never did, but another student did, with some justification)
he would literally threaten your life. Now what kind of attitude is that? So
don't get the idea that all black-belts are great people, or even necessarily
smart people. I do agree, however, that with one exception, every advanced
MA I've met has been pretty mellow and nice. But that's just the ones that
go into teaching, and at the schools I pick out because of that very reason (i.e.
the instructors have a good attitude).
Anyway, all I was saying was that it's a dangerous attitude to think you can
control a fight, because you can't. No matter what your skill level, you don't
know what might happen that has nothing to do with how good you are, like the
guy has friends, or pulls a knife when he realizes he's starting to lose, or
actually turns out to be a very good MA with a rotten attitude who likes to
pick fights. (Remember this whole thread started with a discussion of MA masters
who did just that in their youth). My entire and only point was that the safest
thing for you to do is be as violent as possible as quickly as possible, and
hope to end the fight as quickly as possible. Not that it's safe to do so, or that
it will always work, or whatever, only that IMO it seems the safest course.
Ed Hartnett
Scott Workinger
A very popular thread, indeed. Perhaps there is some small confusion
between what constitutes a martial art and the code of conduct of a
martial artist. There is a long history of "chivalry" and the martial
arts. Both Europe and China had "knights". (In China, Knighthood was
not an exclusively male institution.) Of course Japan had Bushido.
What I would like to suggest is that ethics is a different subject from
martial arts, although it is a subject of crucial importance to the
martial artist. Greater power brings greater responsibility. Perhaps that
is why martial artists in the past have often given thought to ethical
concerns. However, to suggest as one poster did, that a person is not a
martial artist because he does not conform to that poster's ethical
standard is missing the point. It creates the rather strange possibility
that a "non-martial artist" could, in some cases, be more competent at the
combative arts than a "martial artist," potentially relegating "martial
arts" to some dysfunctional backwater lacking relevance in situations of
actual conflict.
Like any other art or technology, the martial arts is morally neutral.
Only human behavior has moral consequences.
Personally, I think that to become a "martial artist" who adopts a
nonviolent philosophy is begging a rather important philosophical question.
The martial arts is nothing more or less than the art of applying
violence. (Someone produced a rather pithy quote from Musashi on this
subject.) As I see it, the crucial questions are when, where and how
is it appropriate to employ which forms of violence? The pacifist would
say never, nowhere, nohow. Of course, the only reason that the pacifist
has the opportunity to make this point is that he lives in a society which
has been protected by people who have been willing to apply violence in
its defense. To my way of thinking, this makes the pacifist's point of
view morally indefensible, since he relies upon his opponents'
willingness to engage in behavior that the pacifist considers morally
objectionable. Of course some people will maintain that it is always
unnecessary to use force in self defense. To them, I can only say that
we have a very different perception of how the world works. It is a great
mistake to think that all the people in the world relate to it in the
same way as oneself. Others would say that they would rather die than
defend themselves with violence. To them, I can only say, 'That is your
privilege; however, I have a different point of view and you will find
it quite impractical to prevent me from acting in my own defense without
violating your own principles.'
Gregory E. Garland
[....]
|>
|> As for your comment along the lines of: if he lands that killer punch you
|> can't retaliate anyway, my response is: I'm not talking about retaliation,
|> I'm talking about ending the fight as quickly as possible. If you hesitate,
|> you give him that much more time to get in that killer punch.
|>
What hesitation? You seem to be under the impression that not destroying
your opponent somehow involves being 'nice' to the guy and 'letting' him
have more shots at you.
|> My entire and only point was that the safest thing for you to do is be as
|> violent as possible as quickly as possible, and hope to end the fight as
|> quickly as possible. Not that it's safe to do so, or that
|> it will always work, or whatever, only that IMO it seems the safest course.
|>
Your safest course is to do whatever your training leads you to do without
bothering to think about it. If that means smash-kill-destroy first and
ask questions later, then that's the safest course for you; if it means
neutralize and control your opponent with a joint lock, then take that.
--
Greg Garland - Alive, occupying space, and exerting gravitational force
MS 62-024, Harris Semiconductor Sector, PO Bx 883,
Melbourne FL 32905. g...@beep.mis.semi.harris.com
"Never let the facts interfere with your perception of reality."
Yilmaz W. Rona
> What hesitation? You seem to be under the impression that not destroying
> your opponent somehow involves being 'nice' to the guy and 'letting' him
> have more shots at you.
>
> |> My entire and only point was that the safest thing for you to do is be as
> |> violent as possible as quickly as possible, and hope to end the fight as
> |> quickly as possible. Not that it's safe to do so, or that
> |> it will always work, or whatever, only that IMO it seems the safest
course.
> |>
>
> Your safest course is to do whatever your training leads you to do without
> bothering to think about it. If that means smash-kill-destroy first and
> ask questions later, then that's the safest course for you; if it means
> neutralize and control your opponent with a joint lock, then take that.
There's another factor that nobody has mentioned yet. The revenge factor. The
more injury or humiliation you visit upon others, the more motivated they and
their friends are to come after you and revenge themselves upon you.
Basicaly, you have two extreemes:
In order to increase the chance that you personaly survive the fight,
you must tend to use the most devastating techniques you know.
In order to end the matter which precipitated the fight as quickly as
possible you must use the least devastating techniques you know, or even better
not lift a finger.
The trick is to find a happy medium between these conflicting but very
important goals. Good luck!
Me, I've always been an extreemist. Before of the don't lift a finger
mentality, but ever increasingly of the crush, maim, kill and torture with
great gouts of gushing blood spu... My, I do go on about the weather don't I?
;-)
Yilmaz Rona
Yilmaz Rona
Brian Ehrmantraut
> Part of martial arts training is training *not to be surprised*.
Words to live by...
This in its higher form leads to "the art of fighting without fighting"
(shades of "Enter the Dragon" :-)
--
Brian A. Ehrmantraut
BELL: voice:(408) 492-0900 fax: (408) 492-0909
USnail: Auspex Systems, 2952 Bunker Hill Lane, Santa Clara, CA 95054
Mary Malmros
In article <1992May5.1...@hemlock.cray.com> rad...@cray.com (Lauren Radner) writes:
[snip]
In article <1992May4.2...@colorado.edu> e...@khonshu.colorado.edu (Edward J. Hartnett)
writes:
[more snip]
>To give an example, let's say some big guy grabbed you, or otherwise initiated
hostilities.
>You, as a trained MA, have a chance right there to drive your fingers thru his
eyes into
>his brain, or some other grisly alternative, but since you don't want to blind
or kill,
>you break free and execute some terrific grab or take down or whatever. But, unbeknownst
>to you, this guy is a blackbelt too, and though he was stupid in his initial attack (as
>he assumed you were a helpless victum), he manages to get free of your hold or
take-down,
>and breaks your knee and jaw. You are now at his mercy. You threw away your only chance to
>win.
Then, I guess there'd be nothing left for me to do but to let the circus ponies
trample him to death. Where'd I get the circus ponies? From the same place you
got a black belt who started a fight for no reason, started it stupidly, attacked
what he thought was a helpless "victum", managed to get free of my hold or
take-down, decided to start fighting 'like a black belt', was able to
immediately break both my knee and my jaw, and somehow is under the delusion
that because of a broken knee and jaw, I am now at his mercy.
YAH!!!! CIRCUS PONIES!
Take that, you black belt weenies! You may have the Dim Mak, the
Plaid Hand of Agony, and the secret Meikdo Wallet Vacuum, but LAUREN
has a herd of circus ponies!!!
[more snip]
>That is why I say such an attitude is dangerous, the attitude being: I know MA, so I can,
>by dint of my superior skills, win the fight without using too much violence. I believe that,>unfortunately, if you are attacked, you must respond with as much as you can muster, and pray
>it will be enough.
>
>
> Ed Hartnett
I think this is an appropriate attitude - IF JUSTIFIED. There are way
too many deluded teenage mutant ninja turtles running around with 6 months
of training, a false sense of security, and probably a black belt. With more
and correct training, when you respond with as much as you can muster, you
will be responding with control, subtlety of technique, deflections, preventions,
etc., rather than with tracheotomies, or jump spinning somersaulting double
back flip squealing dragon testical rips (except for Mary, of course, who
does these reflexively if someone so much as *sneezes* in the same *county*).
Oh, you're just jealous. Clearly you've never seen a properly executed
jump spinning somersaulting (let us now draw the curtain of charity
on this little scene)
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mary Malmros | Cayman Systems Inc, 26 Landsdowne St, Cambridge, MA 02139
ma...@cayman.com | Phone 617-494-1999 Fax 617-494-5167 AppleLink CAYMAN.TECH
Mary Malmros
In article <1992May5.2...@leland.Stanford.EDU> swor...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Scott Workinger) writes:
[snip]
Personally, I think that to become a "martial artist" who adopts a
nonviolent philosophy is begging a rather important philosophical question.
The martial arts is nothing more or less than the art of applying
violence.
Not by my definition. My definition of "violence", which I posted
a short while ago, includes the will and intent to do harm. If I
knock you flying, have I committed a violent act? It depends if I
hit you because I wanted to hurt you, or if I hit you because you were
attempting to harm me, or if I hit you to get you out of the way of
a speeding truck. Three different situations...to me, only the first
is "violence".
Stephen Chan
> I have many friends that I would (and have) risk injury for, including
> my cats, but I do this out of CHOICE, not some ridiculous sense of
> moral obligation. Such a sense laces this entire discussion and makes
> me a bit queasy, but that's my problem.
>
Well, morality _is_ about choice.
> Don't be silly, ANYONE can be taken. Even (EEGADS!) Bruce Lee...
Oh, say it isn't so! I saw "Enter The Dwagon" last night, and
I swear that he was invulnerable.
> It sounds that you have been filled with
> loads of moralistic nonsense that limits your choices and therefore
> your power, but let's not get any further into THAT discussion.
Sorry, I have to make a comment on this one - you've made some
comments in the past which I want to respond to.
At the most basic and immature level, morals are negative
statements - "Thou shalt not [blah blah]".
For various reasons, lots of folks whine & groan about how
this treats them like children, and it limits their freedom [blah blah
blah]
But the flip side of morals is the set of positive
affirmations about what it means to be "good". All those "Thou shalt
[blah blah blah]"
Lots of people are so turned off by the negative aspects of
morals that they totally discount the positive aspects.
To me, this is like people who complain about MA training
being rigid. At the beginning of MA training, you are taught to
discard those movements which are inefficient, unproductive and just
all around bogus. Maybe they consider this a limitation on their freedom.
But the reason you do this, is so that you can discover which
movements are efficient, productive and have, for lack of a better
term, the right "spirit".
Morality is not concerned with the most efficient method of
gaining advantage. Morality is concerned with what it means to be a
"good" human being.
When someone attacks you, are you somehow transformed into a
lower form of animal, so that you no longer think about what it means
to be a human being? In My Not Humble In The Least Opinion, studying a
MA involves learning how to maintain your status as a rational human
being in the face of hostile circumstances. To a particular way of
thinking, that's what the ability to maintain Mushin/Zanshin during
combat is all about - though people with a different frame of mind
would claim that its all about efficiency.
Anyway, enough sermonizing...
> -Andy V.
Jonathan Byrd
I said "you can use your skills to control the attacker without
causing undue INJURY..." - I didn't say a *darn* thing about trying
not to cause the guy *PAIN*... It's better to make the guy *feel* like
he's dying (ooooo! those nasty *monkey* techniques !) than to kill him!
Maybe next time he'll think twice before trying <whatever-it-was> again!
boy, oh boy, now we're getting somewhere!
dare we discuss techniques that maximize pain? well, i suppose if we
temper the discussion with the idea that we should minimize permanent
injury, we won't seem too sadistic. ;->
okay, i'll start: the other day, i was reading a text on forensic
medicine, concerned largely with trauma inflicted by people using
blunt instruments, sharp instruments, and firearms. pretty gruesome
stuff. anyway, the material stated that kidney injuries are often
painful to the point where they can immediately incapacitate a person.
you might think that injuring somebody's kidney is not a good way of
minimizing permanent damage, but even if the kidney is completely
destroyed, people can survive on one healthy kidney.
as much as i favor hand techniques to the head, i must admit that they
don't have a good pain : damage ratio. head blows undoubtedly have
the most lethal potential. even if the blow does no permanent damage,
a person who falls unconscious is likely to strike their head again on
the ground, resulting in serious injury. a couple of years ago in
salt lake city, a young man died in a dance-club altercation from a
secondary head injury just like this.
joint attacks are safe in that they have little risk of killing, but
the risk of a lesser degree of permanent damage is very high.
a good reverse-punch to the solar plexus is about the most humane
striking technique i can think of. the result is rarely more severe
than a momentary loss of breath. while your attacker is trying to
suck some wind, you can escape, or notify the police, or both.
take-downs are also good for ending a fight, but few people can do
them well. on a few occasions, i have been taken down so hard that i
was knocked senseless. i have a lot of respect for judo students.
it is unfortunate that the two easiest techniques to perform (kick 'em
in the knee and punch 'em in the head) are among the least humane.
--
jonathan byrd
j...@apollo.med.utah.edu
Scott Workinger
|>
|> In article <1992May5.2...@leland.Stanford.EDU> swor...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Scott Workinger) writes:
|>
|> [snip]
|>
|> Personally, I think that to become a "martial artist" who adopts a
|> nonviolent philosophy is begging a rather important philosophical question.
|> The martial arts is nothing more or less than the art of applying
|> violence.
|>
|> Not by my definition. My definition of "violence", which I posted
|> a short while ago, includes the will and intent to do harm. If I
|> knock you flying, have I committed a violent act? It depends if I
|> hit you because I wanted to hurt you, or if I hit you because you were
|> attempting to harm me, or if I hit you to get you out of the way of
|> a speeding truck. Three different situations...to me, only the first
|> is "violence".
You are, of course, able to define the words in which you communicate
any way in which you like; however, if you choose to redefine a word,
you should not be surprised when other people choose to continue their
discourse with the same old meanings. You also risk muddying the water.
We can use different words but the point remains. The martial arts is
nothing more or less than the art of applying physical force in personal
confrontations. The connotation of non-violence as most people apply it
is an unwillingness to apply physical force in personal confrontations,
even in self defense. Perhaps the best known example is Mahatma Gandhi's
application of nonviolent principles in the political struggle to throw
the British out of India. Essentially, he defined the principle of
non-violence as it is applied in modern discourse.
Jeff Cooper's training at his gunsite ranch emphasizes that the purpose of
firearms training is to stop someone who is performing an injurious act.
The perpetrator may die in the process, but that is not the point of the
application of force. By your definition of non-violence, then, shooting
an attacker dead is a nonviolent act. We could go further to say that the
U.S. was behaving in a nonviolent way in fighting World War II since we
were responding to the aggression of other parties and preventing a greater
harm from occuring. The use of the term "nonviolence" in this context
begins to sound rather silly.
We may or may not agree with Mahatma Gandhi's approach to conflict in
particular situations; however, let us at least do him the honor of taking
him and his principles seriously.
I suspect that you first heard this redefinition of non-violence from some
ingenuous colleague. Redefining the words allows people to apply a different
denotation while purloining the connotation and not so incidentally, allowing
them to be buddies with their "nonviolent" friends. Although this is a
common rhetorical technique today, it is very unfortunate because it brings
dishonesty into the discourse.
Let us be honest with ourselves and our acquaintances, even though we may
disagree. A competent martial artist has trained in the application of
force in personal confrontations. When engaged in such activity, sometimes
he or she will injure people, perhaps fatally. We may prefer to resolve
such conflicts with minimal harm to all concerned; however, by their very
nature, we cannot assume that such confrontations will be totally within the
control of the martial artist. If we are acting to restrain an aggressor,
we must realize that any consideration which we extend to the aggressor
potentially raises the risk of injury for the martial artist and any third
parties whom he or she may be acting to protect.
--------------------------
Reality, the ultimate trip.
Mikel Evins
> Sorry, can't help myself. To paraphrase from Cerebus (since I
>don't have it directly in front of me!)
> Might makes right
> Right makes might
> Might for right
> fight, Fight, FIGHT
>
>Anybody recall the "punch um inna face bit" that the bug says???
'Punch 'em inna face; kick 'em inna head!'
And don't forget: [from memory, so forgive omissions and
interpolations]
[Cockroach, stroking chin thoughtfully] "Hmm. The plot
thickens; we need strength of character in these dark
times." [Pointing at hapless sidekicks.]"And what
builds character?"
[Hapless sidekicks mumble timidly.]"Conflict."
[Cockroach grabs sidekicks, his huge mitts wrapping
around their faces.]"What's that again?"
[Sidekicks, muffled]"Fonflif!"
[Cockroach]"Right!"
>SMASH! BASH! PUNCHIE! PUNCHIE! PUNCHIE!<
(Apologies to non-fans of Cerebus and other
benighted souls)
Mary Malmros
In article <1992May6.1...@leland.Stanford.EDU> swor...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Scott Workinger) writes:
In article <MARY.92M...@martinique.Cayman.COM>, ma...@Cayman.COM (Mary Malmros) writes:
|>
|> In article <1992May5.2...@leland.Stanford.EDU> swor...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Scott Workinger) writes:
|>
|> [snip]
|>
|> Personally, I think that to become a "martial artist" who adopts a
|> nonviolent philosophy is begging a rather important philosophical question.
|> The martial arts is nothing more or less than the art of applying
|> violence.
|>
|> Not by my definition. My definition of "violence", which I posted
|> a short while ago, includes the will and intent to do harm. If I
|> knock you flying, have I committed a violent act? It depends if I
|> hit you because I wanted to hurt you, or if I hit you because you were
|> attempting to harm me, or if I hit you to get you out of the way of
|> a speeding truck. Three different situations...to me, only the first
|> is "violence".
You are, of course, able to define the words in which you communicate
any way in which you like; however, if you choose to redefine a word,
you should not be surprised when other people choose to continue their
discourse with the same old meanings. You also risk muddying the water.
Fine, I'll go get Webster next time.
We can use different words but the point remains. The martial arts is
nothing more or less than the art of applying physical force in personal
confrontations. The connotation of non-violence as most people apply it
is an unwillingness to apply physical force in personal confrontations,
even in self defense. Perhaps the best known example is Mahatma Gandhi's
application of nonviolent principles in the political struggle to throw
the British out of India. Essentially, he defined the principle of
non-violence as it is applied in modern discourse.
But doesn't intent matter?
Jeff Cooper's training at his gunsite ranch emphasizes that the purpose of
firearms training is to stop someone who is performing an injurious act.
The perpetrator may die in the process, but that is not the point of the
application of force. By your definition of non-violence, then, shooting
an attacker dead is a nonviolent act.
There isn't what I call a "violent" intention.
We could go further to say that the
U.S. was behaving in a nonviolent way in fighting World War II since we
were responding to the aggression of other parties and preventing a greater
harm from occuring. The use of the term "nonviolence" in this context
begins to sound rather silly.
Maybe, because of the scale. But if someone charges at you and you duck
down and they go flying over you and crash into a wall, have you committed
a violent act? I'm not so sure.
We may or may not agree with Mahatma Gandhi's approach to conflict in
particular situations; however, let us at least do him the honor of taking
him and his principles seriously.
I suspect that you first heard this redefinition of non-violence from some
ingenuous colleague.
Nope, sorry to disappoint you.
Redefining the words allows people to apply a different
denotation while purloining the connotation and not so incidentally, allowing
them to be buddies with their "nonviolent" friends. Although this is a
common rhetorical technique today, it is very unfortunate because it brings
dishonesty into the discourse.
Oh. I see. I didn't realize I'd done a total braindump in that last
post and thereby rendered my motives so transparent. Damn, guess I
gotta give back all them purloined connotations I been stashing ;-)
Let us be honest with ourselves and our acquaintances, even though we may
disagree. A competent martial artist has trained in the application of
force in personal confrontations. When engaged in such activity, sometimes
he or she will injure people, perhaps fatally. We may prefer to resolve
such conflicts with minimal harm to all concerned; however, by their very
nature, we cannot assume that such confrontations will be totally within the
control of the martial artist. If we are acting to restrain an aggressor,
we must realize that any consideration which we extend to the aggressor
potentially raises the risk of injury for the martial artist and any third
parties whom he or she may be acting to protect.
I have no disagreement with this; however, I do feel that there is a
distinction that is based on intent. That was the only point that I
was trying to make in my post, which seems to have been overlooked.
For lack of better terms, I use "violent" and "non-violent" to
distinguish these two kinds of actions. You seem to believe that
the use of "non-violent" should be restricted to include only Ghandi
and those like him. You say po-tay-to...and I don't really care either
way. If you have a better set of terms to suggest, I'll be happy to use
them. I'll call them "fucsia" and "non-fucsia" if you want, mox nix to
me. People have had lengthy disagreements in this group over
terms that describe mere physical techniques (e.g., the recent
front stance/side stance thread). If this is so, why should we
expect a common definition of a much more elusive concept such
as "violence"? I don't expect the rest of the world to accept my
definition of a front stance, so I sure don't expect anyone else to
accept my definition of violence. Hey, they all make fun of my
haircut, so... ;-)
Steve Gombosi
>
>In article <1992May6.1...@leland.Stanford.EDU> swor...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Scott Workinger) writes:
>
> In article <MARY.92M...@martinique.Cayman.COM>, ma...@Cayman.COM (Mary Malmros) writes:
> |>
> |> In article <1992May5.2...@leland.Stanford.EDU> swor...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Scott Workinger) writes:
> |>
> |> [snip]
> |>
> |> Personally, I think that to become a "martial artist" who adopts a
> |> nonviolent philosophy is begging a rather important philosophical question.
> |> The martial arts is nothing more or less than the art of applying
> |> violence.
> |>
> |> Not by my definition. My definition of "violence", which I posted
> |> a short while ago, includes the will and intent to do harm. If I
> |> knock you flying, have I committed a violent act? It depends if I
> |> hit you because I wanted to hurt you, or if I hit you because you were
> |> attempting to harm me, or if I hit you to get you out of the way of
> |> a speeding truck. Three different situations...to me, only the first
> |> is "violence".
>
> You are, of course, able to define the words in which you communicate
> any way in which you like; however, if you choose to redefine a word,
> you should not be surprised when other people choose to continue their
> discourse with the same old meanings. You also risk muddying the water.
>
>Fine, I'll go get Webster next time.
Sheesh, Mary - I didn't know you were studying "jiten-jutsu", too!
;-)
Steve
PS> This is getting ugly - I'm gonna need some SERIOUS firepower. Andy,
can I borrow your brain?
Ben Goodwin
>
>dare we discuss techniques that maximize pain? well, i suppose if we
>temper the discussion with the idea that we should minimize permanent
>injury, we won't seem too sadistic. ;->
>
>okay, i'll start: the other day, i was reading a text on forensic
>medicine, concerned largely with trauma inflicted by people using
>blunt instruments, sharp instruments, and firearms. pretty gruesome
>stuff. anyway, the material stated that kidney injuries are often
>painful to the point where they can immediately incapacitate a person.
>you might think that injuring somebody's kidney is not a good way of
>minimizing permanent damage, but even if the kidney is completely
>destroyed, people can survive on one healthy kidney.
A little excessive for my tastes. I've never done it personally, but
I've been told people piss blood after a nice hard kidney strike. Any
truth to the rumor?
I really only know two good strikes to maximize pain, without injuring
someone permanently that is. :)
1) Ridge hand to the right or left of the Adam's apple. You don't go
for the wind pipe, you go for the nerve plexus in the neck. Try it
lightly on yourself.
2) Nerve plexus under your arm pit. I once caught a guy charging me
with a reverse side kick there. He was down for about 10 minutes.
What a thread!!!
>jonathan byrd
--
============================================================================
| uunet!orionsci!goodwin | you with your hair that's always combed,
| Ben Goodwin | your suit is always white, your car is
| Washington DC (703) 524-0504 | always clean. You I hate!!! -Great Race
============================================================================
wharfie
>them well. on a few occasions, i have been taken down so hard that i
>was knocked senseless. i have a lot of respect for judo students.
A takedown usually means a way of transitioning from standing to
groundwork that does not of itself offer the possibility of scoring - or
in a 'real' fight, of doing damage. For instance, I can drag you down to the
ground by putting all of my weight on your arm and throwing myself down.
This is different from a throwing technique, where the aim is to
cause the opponent to hit the ground with some degree of force. It will
usually involve causing the opponent to leave his feet so that he appears
to "fly" a little first.
Technically, the difference is that to throw him you must control
his balance and at some point during the technique support part of his
wieght yourself, but for a takedown you only need to force him to sit down to
maintain control of his balance.
Throwing techniques are useful for self defense but are guaranteed
to cause serious injury unless your opponent is trained in falling.
Stephen Northcutt
>A little excessive for my tastes. I've never done it personally, but
>I've been told people piss blood after a nice hard kidney strike. Any
>truth to the rumor?
Yes Virginia there is truth to that rumor. Sat. past a "jr black
belt" from Korea was sparring a bigger, far less experienced kid
and while trying to execute a spinning kick got NAILED in the kidney,
I groaned from across the room. Well he was done for, instant shock,
the pain and crying came shortly after. Be not too quick to judge him,
if you have never experienced this blow.
>I really only know two good strikes to maximize pain, without injuring
>someone permanently that is. :)
>1) Ridge hand to the right or left of the Adam's apple. You don't go
>for the wind pipe, you go for the nerve plexus in the neck. Try it
>lightly on yourself.
>2) Nerve plexus under your arm pit. I once caught a guy charging me
>with a reverse side kick there. He was down for about 10 minutes.
Well they are both excellent strike points, don't be too sure
neither one doesn't kill cause they both can, the second blow is
safer than the first.
Some high pain, low damage strike points to consider might include:
shin, dan jun point (2 " below belly button), sciatic nerve on
the thigh (which has a raft of other benefits).
===================================================================
** my dream: voice, video, data, 3 services, 1 network **
===================================================================
Stephen Northcutt (sno...@relay.nswc.navy.mil) Networks Program Manager
william.t.rankin
>In article <JON.92Ma...@zeus.med.utah.edu> j...@zeus.med.utah.edu (Jonathan Byrd) writes:
>>anyway, the material stated that kidney injuries are often
>>painful to the point where they can immediately incapacitate a person.
>>you might think that injuring somebody's kidney is not a good way of
>>minimizing permanent damage, but even if the kidney is completely
>>destroyed, people can survive on one healthy kidney.
Well, thanks to a truck accident (inflight testing of the aerodynamic
properties of a pickup) back in '85, I only have one of those critters
now, so you'd better guess the right (ie correct) side! :-)
>A little excessive for my tastes. I've never done it personally, but
>I've been told people piss blood after a nice hard kidney strike. Any
>truth to the rumor?
Well, I was doing that. After the blood comes renal failure.
potential long term results are blindness, amputations, and death.
I am *very* glad I still have one that's healthy.
The point I'm making is that a kidney shot is not "lost of pain,
I'll piss blood for while, and then I'll be better." It has a
good potential to be a long-term dibilitating injury. Treat it
as a kill shot.
-bill (who still has *some* of his internal organs left)
Mr. X
Please leave this in alt.sex.bondage where it belongs.
-YouKnowWho
Jonathan Byrd
In article <JON.92Ma...@zeus.med.utah.edu> j...@zeus.med.utah.edu (Jonathan Byrd) writes:
>take-downs are also good for ending a fight, but few people can do
>them well. on a few occasions, i have been taken down so hard that i
>was knocked senseless. i have a lot of respect for judo students.
A takedown usually means a way of transitioning from standing to
groundwork that does not of itself offer the possibility of scoring - or
in a 'real' fight, of doing damage. For instance, I can drag you down to the
ground by putting all of my weight on your arm and throwing myself down.
this is not at all what i meant by "takedown," so i guess i was
misusing the term. thanks for the correction.
This is different from a throwing technique, where the aim is to
cause the opponent to hit the ground with some degree of force. It will
usually involve causing the opponent to leave his feet so that he appears
to "fly" a little first.
Technically, the difference is that to throw him you must control
his balance and at some point during the technique support part of his
wieght yourself, but for a takedown you only need to force him to sit down to
maintain control of his balance.
Throwing techniques are useful for self defense but are guaranteed
to cause serious injury unless your opponent is trained in falling.
it sounds like the techniques that i call "takedowns" are actually
combination sweep/throws. they involve twisting or pushing while
simultaneously kicking the enemy's feet out from under them. the main
difference from a judo throw, i suppose, is that we usually followed
them to the ground, and finished them with a striking technique.
as i mentioned in the earlier post, sometimes the finishing strike was
unnecessary.
in one particularly nasty variation, we were taught to grab the
enemy's throat so forcefully as to touch their ears with the index
finger and thumb. this gave us control of the head, so that they
could not tuck their chin in as we threw them. the purpose, of
course, was to smash the back of their head against the ground, or
whatever else was handy. this is probably the most vicious technique
i know, but it is much too complicated for me to actually use.
--
jonathan byrd
j...@apollo.med.utah.edu
David Poore
>haircut, so... ;-)
hmmm...how about: =;-) ?
I realize you might make yer mohawk stand a little higher, and a little
greener, but...don't see such a key on MY keyboard!
David Poore
po...@ds9.scri.fsu.edu
[formerly of the =:-) persuasion]
Mr. X
>os...@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (Mr. X) writes:
>> I have many friends that I would (and have) risk injury for, including
>> my cats, but I do this out of CHOICE, not some ridiculous sense of
>> moral obligation. Such a sense laces this entire discussion and makes
>> me a bit queasy, but that's my problem.
>>
>
> Well, morality _is_ about choice.
Well, in a twisted sort of way I suppose it is, but much more than that
it is about dogma. Morals are codes of behavior that are conjured up
by one set of persons and imposed on another (usually). The only
element of choice WRT a moral is whether or not any given person
chooses to live by it. If they do, the they are "good", otherwise,
they are "bad" or perhaps even worse.
Morals constitute a system of "life by formula", the very idea of
which is so utterly and violently repugnant to me as to be beyond
even the most eloquent attempts at verbal articulation. They require
that no thinking occur below surface level. Morals have proven over
thousands of years in nearly all parts and cultures of this world, to
be spiritual vesicants, consistently perditious beyond measure.
OK, that's it.... I'll stop before I get stones hurled at me.
-Andy V.
Stephen Chan
os...@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (Mr. X) writes:
> OK, that's it.... I'll stop before I get stones hurled at me.
Cor! Stone the crows!
Mary Malmros
In article <87...@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> po...@ds9.scri.fsu.edu (David Poore) writes:
[snip]
David Poore
po...@ds9.scri.fsu.edu
[formerly of the =:-) persuasion]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
YAH!!! MOHAWKS UNITE!!!
Now, if I could only get my sabumnim to stop hassling me about it...
=:-)
Lauren Radner
Steve Gombosi
>
>Sorry, they tell me I'm actually Iroqouis...
>
>>Now, if I could only get my sabumnim to stop hassling me about it...
>
>been any good music since Iron Butterfly's smash hit, Innagaddadavidda
>(sp!?).
Are you still training with Rex? ;-)
Steve
>
>David Poore
>po...@ds9.scri.fsu.edu
David Poore
Sorry, they tell me I'm actually Iroqouis...
>Now, if I could only get my sabumnim to stop hassling me about it...
Hah! Try having an old ex-hippie for a teacher. He thinks there hasn't
been any good music since Iron Butterfly's smash hit, Innagaddadavidda
(sp!?).
David Poore
po...@ds9.scri.fsu.edu
Scott Workinger
Let's try to ground this discussion with an example. Consider Police
officers. A police officer (in most jurisdictions) is supposed to restrain
an individual he arrests without using "excessive force". It's
a dangerous job. Lots of cops die every year in spite of reasonably good
training, preparation, and support. Others are permanently disabled. They
can never be exactly sure of the capabilities or intent of the people that
they arrest. Sometimes they are surprised by third parties. The truth
that these people face on the street is that they can never be completely
sure that they control a situation. They're supposed to give people
a decent break. The truth is that this requirement of the job puts them
in additional danger. The bad ones respond the way those guys in LA did.
(ie. They beat up anybody who looks like trouble.)
As a martial artist you have a wider range of choices than a cop. You can
simply clobber the guy who's giving you trouble and as long as the situation
is clearly one of self defense, you can walk away. You also don't need to
report the incident. Bottom line: you don't need to give the guy an even
break. You don't need to take prisoners.
So what do you do? It depends on your attitude toward your fellow human
beings. Attempting to restrain someone with minimal use of force is a
noble objective. By all means do so if that is consistent with your
ethical principles. But don't kid yourself. If you are attempting to respond
with minimal violence, you are putting yourself at risk because you may only
get one chance to work a technique before something really unfortunate
happens to you. If you're going to wind up dead, let it be because you
were acting according to your principles, not because you're stupid.
wharfie
> Lots of cops die every year in spite of reasonably good training,
> preparation, and support.
Are cops really trained to fight well? Or is their martial arts
training like their pistol qualification - a few hours once a year?
>As a martial artist you have a wider range of choices than a cop. You can
>simply clobber the guy who's giving you trouble and as long as the situation
You have fewer choices because the cop can do *anything* *she*
*wants*.
Dave Smythe
>(ie. They beat up anybody who looks like trouble.)
You forgot "... and acts ..."
>As a martial artist you have a wider range of choices than a cop. You can
>simply clobber the guy who's giving you trouble and as long as the situation
>is clearly one of self defense, you can walk away.
"Clear" to a jury, not to you. How are you supposed to know what is clear
to a jury ahead of time? Answer: you can't. Clobber? Not in CA. "Stop"
perhaps...
>You also don't need to
>report the incident.
Correct, but it will go worse for you when you are fingered by witnesses.
"There were no witnesses," you say? There are *always* at least two: you
and your attacker.
>But don't kid yourself. If you are attempting to respond
>with minimal violence, you are putting yourself at risk because you may only
>get one chance to work a technique before something really unfortunate
>happens to you.
Also, don't kid yourself. If you are attempting to respond with
maximal (or even "more-than-necessary", whatever that is) violence,
you are putting yourself at risk because even though the attack may
be over, a criminal can suck you dry long afterward in court.
Of course, I am going to do whatever I can to defend myself and my family,
but statements like "He tried to take my wallet, so I clobbered him" are
not going to look good in court.
I think it's time for Robert Allen's "I want to live at home" posting.
(Or was that Jeff Pipkins? I forget...)
D
--
========================================================================
Dave Smythe N6XLP dsm...@netcom.com (also dsm...@cs.stanford.edu)
Lauren Radner
>Well, I don't think we really disagree as much as we appear to.
We still have a fundamental disagreement... it'll come up in a minute...
>I also think that your attitude about black-belts never attacking someone
>without reason is perhaps more true in America than elsewhere.
>
> <stuff about various parts of the world and mobster-types being
> skilled black-belt-bullies deleted >
>
>Besides, earning a black belt doesn't always make you smart, or nice, or reasonable.
>
> < stuff about a vicious, nasty instructor deleted>
.... minor point I wish to make - I blame the *instructor* of anyone
with rank and a bad attitude. That student should *NEVER* have been
promoted and should *NEVER* have been instructed further so long as
the vicious/nasty/mobster attitude obtained.
>
>Anyway, all I was saying was that it's a dangerous attitude to think you can
>control a fight, because you can't.
... true of *me* *now* at *this* skill level.
>No matter what your skill level, you don't
>know what might happen that has nothing to do with how good you are, like the
>guy has friends, or pulls a knife when he realizes he's starting to lose, or
>actually turns out to be a very good MA with a rotten attitude who likes to
>pick fights. (Remember this whole thread started with a discussion of MA masters
>who did just that in their youth).
... Here we violently disagree. You know the expression "There's always
somebody out there better than you" ?? Well in some cases "we're" the
the *other* guy's nightmare. I *know* people (yes, *plural*) who *easily*
handle groups of attackers, knife-wielders, friends, and Black-Belt-Bullies,
including bar room brawls with broken bottles, gang attacks, knife-wielders,
fifteen enraged hockey-player-team-mates with an attitude (that one lasted
the length of the block - they ended up in the hospital, he walked away
grinning, they tried to sue him in court, the judge laughed them out of it),
etc. They can and do *choose* exactly how much damage they want to cause.
They are *very* skilled. This kind of situation is just *play* for them.
(Hey, there are definitely some rough neighbourhoods around here, if you
choose to play in them.)
*Granted* - *** I *** am not at that skill level but that skill level
DOES exist. Maybe YOU don't know any such, but *I* do. If you want
to say that it doesn't seem realistic or possible or believable or likely,
you go right ahead, but please don't catagorically deny the possibility
of something just because you haven't encountered it or can't imagine it.
It's *real* close to telling me I'm lying. This is not a discussion of "I
don't think it's possible" "Well I *do* think it's possible" . My position
is not based on hypotheticals. Just as you are far superior in judgement,
speed, strength, control, options, and abilities to some five-year-old who
may want to "beat you up" - even if he's the *baddest* five-year-old on
the playground - the people I know (who are *surely* not the only ones on
the planet) are *that* far superior to the individuals or gangs thereof
who would scare us *spitless*.
Hasn't your instructor, at least, impressed you as someone who could hold
his own against and *selectively* counter most Bad Guys (tm) he might run
into, even if this Bad Guy (tm) has friends, even if he pulls a knife,
even if he's a very good MA with a rotten attitude who likes to pick fights?
Or should we just agree to disagree???
-Lauren
My entire and only point was that the safest
>thing for you to do is be as violent as possible as quickly as possible, and
>hope to end the fight as quickly as possible. Not that it's safe to do so, or that
>it will always work, or whatever, only that IMO it seems the safest course.
>
> Ed Hartnett
>
>
His Holiness G. L. Sikharaman
>
> Sorry, can't help myself. To paraphrase from Cerebus...
>
> Anybody recall the "punch um inna face bit" that the bug says???
"HEE-HEE! Punch 'em inna face! ... Kick 'em inna STOMACH *giggle* ...
... and that goes for your little DOG, too! Heeheehee!"
Of COURSE I learned it by heart. Everything I know about martial arts I
learned from Cerebus. Uh-oh, gotta hide -- the local 4-year-old bully
just walked in ...
-:-
"Did you really have to ask if Cerebus LIKED having saliva
smeared on his fur?"
--
Col. G. L. Sicherman
g...@windmill.att.COM
Jeff Pipkins
>In article <1992May11....@leland.Stanford.EDU> swor...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Scott Workinger) writes:
>
>>As a martial artist you have a wider range of choices than a cop. You can
>>simply clobber the guy who's giving you trouble and as long as the situation
>>is clearly one of self defense, you can walk away.
>
>"Clear" to a jury, not to you. How are you supposed to know what is clear
>to a jury ahead of time? Answer: you can't. Clobber? Not in CA. "Stop"
>perhaps...
>
>>with minimal violence, you are putting yourself at risk because you may only
>>get one chance to work a technique before something really unfortunate
>>happens to you.
>
>Also, don't kid yourself. If you are attempting to respond with
>maximal (or even "more-than-necessary", whatever that is) violence,
>you are putting yourself at risk because even though the attack may
>be over, a criminal can suck you dry long afterward in court.
>
>Of course, I am going to do whatever I can to defend myself and my family,
>but statements like "He tried to take my wallet, so I clobbered him" are
>not going to look good in court.
>
>I think it's time for Robert Allen's "I want to live at home" posting.
>(Or was that Jeff Pipkins? I forget...)
It was mine, but I don't have a copy anywhere. It's pretty simple, though,
and I'll be glad to explain it again, because it is one of my most
fundamental philosophies. I call it -- the high price of living at home.
You see, living at home cost a lot more than just your rent or mortgage
payment. Pretty soon you get a bill for property tax, school zone tax,
state (maybe) or federal (guaranteed) income tax, and you ask yourself,
"why the hell should I pay them? What did they do to deserve so much of
my hard-earned money?" Answer: they don't deserve it, no it's not fair,
but if you don't pay it, THEY WON'T LET YOU LIVE AT HOME ANYMORE.
See how it works? You come in to work, your boss pisses you off, you
want to tell him to (you get the idea), but you bite your tongue and
do as your told. Why? If you lose your job, they quit paying you. Then
you won't be able to make your rent/house payment. Then they WON'T LET YOU
LIVE AT HOME ANYMORE.
You get into a verbal exchange with some redneck and then he grabs your
shirt, you hit him, there's a fight, in the end he is dead or crippled.
You say, "It was self-defense! He attacked me!" Witnesses say the two
of you were starting trouble, a fight broke out, and the other guy's dead.
They haul you in, slap a charge on you, throw you in jail until there's a
hearing to decide how much you have to pay them to let you live at home
while you wait for the trial. Don't have the cash? Too bad, that's the
high price of living at home. And by the way, you were just protecting
your family? That's honorable, but who's protecting them while you're
in jail?
Here in Texas, there's a quirk in the law that goes something like this.
Police arrive at your house. There is a dead body inside. You say, "it
was self defense! He broke into my house, so I shot him!" The court
will say, "You had a duty to retreat, but you made no attempt to run
from him! Guilty!" Now, same scene, this time you say to the cops, "He
tried to steal my $300 stereo system, so I shot him to prevent a felony."
You're questioned, the Grand Jury reviews it, and you get to live at home.
DISCLAIMER: I am NOT a lawyer. This is my view of the TX laws as I
currently misunderstand them.
The point to this story is this: If you make a statement to a cop without
legal consultation, you are not doing a good job of defending yourself from
the law. It's stupid, and it might just revoke your privilege of LIVING AT
HOME. In some states, it could even revoke your right of LIVING AT ALL!
Self-defense means a HELL OF A LOT MORE than just fighting off an attacker.
It means defending yourself from everything, including the law and the IRS.
(Only effective defense against IRS is to pay your PROTECTION MONEY. Their
gang is bigger than anybody's, and the law means NOTHING to them. They
answer to NO ONE. Constitution?! HA!)
Let's say that you get into a harmless little cockfight with somebody in
a bar, and someone breaks it up, or maybe you win and walk out, nothing
is reported, everything is cool, right? Maybe. Then again, maybe he
finds out your address, and pays your family a visit while you aren't there.
Is it really worth that, when you could have just politely backed down and
made an exit? Okay, I can hear someone say, "All the more reason to use
only lethal techniques!" Fine. So he won't bother you again. Instead,
it'll have to be his brother, or his dad, or his best friend, or maybe
his sister, or all of the above. Still think you "won"?
Can you actually control someone to the point that you can fend off a
potentially lethal attack without injuring them? That depends entirely
on the skill differential and weapon differential. Yes, it is possible.
The differential has to be pretty significant, though. A beginner has
no options; you just hit as hard as you possibly can, and try to get
away. A master can show complete control of such a beginner, and can
even choose in advance a specific technique to use against him. Such
masters are rare, but there you have the extremes of the spectrum. Most
of us lie somewhere between those two extremes. Possesion of various
weapons can tip the scales. But if YOU possess a weapon that is illegal,
you may give up your right to live at home. I know, it's better to be
tried by 12 than to be carried by 6. Well, get this: LIVING AT HOME is
a hell of a lot better than either one!
One final illustration, and then I'll end my soapbox.
On my wedding day, en route to the wedding, I was stopped by an irate
redneck who, after the obligatory verbals, pulled out a knife. Use your
head on this one -- how can this situation be "won"? I assure you that
the differential was NOT such that I could have simply controlled him
with confidence that neither of us would get hurt. If I had to fight,
then one of us would be injured or dead when it was over. Conclusion:
if there was a fight, then at the end of it, I would either (a) be dead,
(b) have to go to a hosptial, and therefore miss my wedding (not to
mention having to listen to my new bride's opinion of all of that), or
(c) have to go make phone calls to the police and ambulance, and again,
miss my wedding, or (d) both b & c. (Did I mention that (a) would also
involve missing the wedding?) There was only ONE way I could "WIN"
this situation -- by doing anything I could to make sure that there was
no fight. And that is exactly what I did.
I am now happily married, have two wonderful kids, and we all LIVE AT HOME.
Jeff=Pipkins%FW=Util%Sys=H...@bangate.compaq.com
------------------------------------------------------------------- [sig #42]
I am NOT authorized to represent |
my employer. Use my opinions | "Everybody has a right to pronounce foreign
ONLY at your OWN risk. | names as he chooses." --Winston Churchill
Mark Urbin
>In article <87...@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> po...@ds9.scri.fsu.edu (David Poore) writes:
>>In article <MARY.92M...@martinique.Cayman.COM> ma...@Cayman.COM (Mary Malmros) writes:
>>>YAH!!! MOHAWKS UNITE!!!
>>
>>Sorry, they tell me I'm actually Iroqouis...
>>
Iroquoi Nation. So a Mohawk is an Iroquoi, but not all Iroquoi are
Mohawks...
>>>Now, if I could only get my sabumnim to stop hassling me about it...
>>
>>Hah! Try having an old ex-hippie for a teacher. He thinks there hasn't
>>been any good music since Iron Butterfly's smash hit, Innagaddadavidda
>>(sp!?).
>
>Steve
>>
>>David Poore
>>po...@ds9.scri.fsu.edu
--
Mark Urbin Racal-Datacom Boxborough, MA These opinions are mine.
If even one life can be saved by the presence of a firearm, it legally,
morally and ethically necessary for us to ensure the availability of
such `emergency rescue equipment'.