From: mary@Cayman.COM (Mary Malmros)
Newsgroups: rec.martial-arts
Subject: Re: The rat, MA, and others
Date: 19 Aug 92 16:02:17 GMT
	<1992Aug18.124330.11108@walter.cray.com>
	<1992Aug19.112909.16441@relay.nswc.navy.mil>
Organization: Cayman Systems Inc., Cambridge, MA
In-reply-to: snorthc@nswc.navy.mil's message of 19 Aug 92 11:29:09 GMT


In article <1992Aug19.112909.16441@relay.nswc.navy.mil> snorthc@nswc.navy.mil (Stephen Northcutt) writes:

[snip]

   Lauren, you can sit at your keyboard and judge me, my God, rats and
   cockroaches, but you would be wise to realize that in your nice warm
   office it is so easy expound on the virtues of rats, but when you run into
   a *SURPRISE* city rat, you won't think; your gonna react: fear and flight,
   attack, or freeze in your boots pretending you are calm.  You are going
   to feel a visceral reaction.  This is a good thing.  This is a thing
   a martial artist can and should use.  You can practice kata from now
   till the day of Lord, but you should treasure the unexpected. :-)

Well, yes, but think a little about your reaction.  As I said in an earlier
post, I do run into city rats all the time, and I don't "react: fear and
flight, attack, or freeze".  They're going about their usual business 
of raiding dumpsters or garbage cans, and I'm going about my usual business,
and we give each other the nod and continue on our way.  I treat them 
the way I treat any non-domestic animal; that is to say, I give 'em
a wide berth, because I don't know what diseases they might be carrying.  
I don't know what diseases a domestic animal might be carrying, either, 
but if it looks decently cared for, chances are it's had its shots and
is reasonably healthy, so the risk is a lot lower.  I certainly wouldn't
run at a rat and swing my foot at it; at first, it may sound like that's 
the right thing to do in self-defense, but when you do that you're putting
yourself in the rat's range, so to speak.  If one comes too close, I'll 
stomp at it and try to scare it, or peg something at it.  I do the same
thing with squirrels, too...a lotta people think they're just adorable
and feed 'em popcorn, but they'll carry the same diseases as a rat.  

   >Triumphant? That you, 
   >  who outweighed this creature by something like a mere factor 
   >  of at least 80:1, were able to kill, cripple, or injure 
   >  something that wasn't attacking?  

   Well none can say the rat wasn't attacking.  

Your description was rather vague.  You said it came towards you, not
that it was attacking.  I know this isn't the same as the situation you
described, but if you corner an animal (or if they think they're 
cornered), they'll usually charge you to get loose.

   And this leads to my
   second point, the rat was in no danger from me.  

But you said you kicked at it.

[snip]

   Check it out, this
   critter, tuned to survival, can quite effectively take a chomp out
   of a person.  Even if I was as sadistic and cruel as you would have
   people believe, I couldn't have caught that rat.

   The third point that came to me, follows from the first two, in terms
   of out an out survival the rat is clearly better equipped than man, he
   trains all day (or should I say night) every day.  

No, he survives all day every day.  The rat doesn't "train" for survival, 
he just does it.  He certainly doesn't practice fighting techniques 
all day every day.  There is no training, only the real thing, and he 
fights as seldom as he can manage it.  He spends most of his time 
scrounging garbage cans and staying out of the way...in other words, 
surviving.  

Now, living (as opposed to surviving) is something that a human being
can aspire to.

--
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 Mary Malmros     | Cayman Systems Inc, 26 Landsdowne St, Cambridge, MA 02139
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Newsgroups: rec.martial-arts