From: marcs@yang.earlham.edu (Marc Seebass(Thunderbolt))
Newsgroups: rec.martial-arts
Subject: Re: Fights and blackbelt confidence
Date: 26 Jan 93 01:09:34 GMT
 <C19zr4.4xA@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> <1jq09jINNktr@srvr1.engin.umich.edu>
Distribution: world
Organization: Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana

In article <1jq09jINNktr@srvr1.engin.umich.edu>, ftit@ob.engin.umich.edu (Sergej Roytman) writes:
> 
> In article <C19zr4.4xA@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>, shulick@navajo.ucs.indiana.edu (Sam Hulick) writes:
> |In article <30324@optima.cs.arizona.edu>, hogue@cs.arizona.edu (Justin C. Hogue) says most sayishly:
> |>In article <memo.881091@cix.compulink.co.uk> bburgar@cix.compulink.co.uk writes:
> |>>I'd be interested to know (from a wide sample of people) how fights start.
> |>>
> |>  This oughta make you think....
> |> At an arcade, two guys my size hog the game from me and some kids.  After 
> |[story]
> |
> |While we're on the topic, I know blackbelts aren't invincible or
> |anything, but I think it's a confidence thing.  I know that, personally,
> |after I had gone through years of training and had become a blackbelt,
> |I'd feel pretty good about myself and sure as hell wouldn't hesitate to
> |talk back to someone who was giving me a hard time.  Now I'm just a
> |white belt, and when someone starts hassling me, I remain unobtrusive
> |and just take it, which I don't really like doing.  This doesn't mean
> |that when I'm a blackbelt, and someone bugs me, I'd throw them across
> |the room.  As our instructor said, avoid a fight at all costs, but if
> |you have to fight, do what you must.  I don't think I'd be egging him
> |on, but if someone started making rude comments about my best friend,
> |I'm not going to sit there and not say anything (as I do now. me wimp!
> |:).  Any one else feel this way?
> |
> 
> My experience with black-belts is very limited, but it seems to me that
> the more advanced one is, the less likely he is to be drawn into a
> fight.  I don't know what the idea behind your art is, but in my dojo
> we are sometimes told (and sometimes figure it out for ourselves -- it
> ain't hard) that this technique, applied thus and at full strength, can
> kill a man.  Now to geek-out for a moment, ability to kill is a
> symmetric relation; if I can kill you by doing something you can kill me
> the same way.  When I think about whether or not it would be worth it
> to fight in a given situation, the question becomes, would I be willing
> to die for this?  After all, if you're fully comitted to a fight, severe
> damage to one or both of the combatants is the most probable result.
> Sometimes the answer is yes.  More often it isn't.
> 
> I guess what gave me these ideas in the first place was something that
> Master Funakoshi said in one of his books: "When two tigers fight, one
> is certain to be maimed, and one to die."  Sometimes it's worth it and
> sometimes it isn't, but it seems that more and more things begin to seem
> too trivial for someone to die over as one becomes more experienced.u
> Anyway, I haven't done anything regrettable yet, and hope that my mental
> discipline will keep pace with my physical development to prevent me
> from doing something rash in the future, when I'll actually *be* an
> advanced student.
> 
You hit the nail on the head here. I haven't gotten into a single fight 
scince I've been a black-belt, and I have been in situations where I could 
have. The confidence to stand up to people allowed me to avoid some hairy 
situations, and the wisdom to walk away from uneccessary fights. 


----Marc Seebass

-- DEATH TO AMIGA CHECKS!!!!!

"For every complex question, there is a simple answer-- and it's wrong." 
--H.L. Menken 
Newsgroups: rec.martial-arts