[QUOTE]Originally posted by TaiChiStorm
[B]Thanks to all of you!!
I am looking forward to the next situation when I say "Make a move then!!
You see…I am not very experienced in sparring and even in MA
While I don’t doubt that this phrase has worked for LEGEND, you have to be extremely careful of upping a potential fight that you’re not ready for. A lot of times people don’t necessarily want to fight and only want to make their ego feel better in a given situation. Having confident yet diplomatic de-escalation skills is important here, not “challenging” tones or words.
You see, IF someone doesn’t necessarily want to fight but feels that his ego is on the line, and you DON’T give him a possible way for him to recover it, then more times then not you’ll bring him into the fight even though he may not have wanted to.
If you are going to say “make a move then!” you’d better be damm sure you are experienced enough in fighting to take on the possible consequences. If you have no fight experience, people who DO fight can usually tell.
Now some people may just be trying to look tough, and if you say “make a move!” they will possibly back down when given the challenge… but some individuals will slam you in the face before you can finish that sentence. Be careful. Fighting ego with ego brings in a lot of unstrategic elements. This may be hard for some to accept, but you’re going to have to in order to be realistic in your training and your altercations.
This is not to say cower, and act submissive in the face of a threat, because this too can trigger an assault. What you need is cool and diplomatic skills in the situation. You should look like you don’t want to go through the hassle of a physical fight, but are still confident about yourself in the situation. Don’t get angry, don’t insult, don’t challenge.
Try to take the anger levels down, and if that simply can’t work, then you may decide whether to throw the first blow of the fight, and take it from there.
Here is an example of how fights start.
I’ll use a real example of something that happened to me recently.
I’ll include the real version and an “ego” version…
First the “ego” version.
some men are bowling in a local bowling alley. One man is bowling in a lane next to the other two. He’s been driking a bit too much, and one of the men next to him is ignorant about “bowling etiquette.” and constantly bowls without giving the man next to him the right of way.
Finally the drinking man comes up to the other man.
“Hey you can’t be just going everytime like that!” he says.
The third man (seeing the trouble happening) comes right up into the drinking man’s face.
“You got a damm problem? Man?” he says.
The drinking man, now being challenged, is forced to stand his ground.
“Your friend keeps cutting me off when I’m about to bowl!”
“You ask nicely then, don’t come around yelling at us, you understand??” the third man orders.
Now things have turned ugly. The drinking man has no way of avoiding the fight because he MUST (in his mind) defend his ego.
“You got a F*%# problem with me? I’ll yell at you if I F*&%$ feel like it, bi1ch!”
“Make a move then!!” the third man exclaims.
Just then the drinking man launches a sucker punch that glances off the third mans’ jaw. They clinch, throwing haymakers at each other, and end up falling over the ball return device…
Now… here’s the same situation again. This one happened to me personally. My friend was Japanese, didn’t speak English all that well, and didn’t know the rules of letting other bowlers go first.
The drinking man came up to my friend.
“Hey you’re not supposed to be going evertime like that, man!”
Seeing the potential trouble, I put myself in between my friend and the drinking man. I kept my hands in front of my chest, and began calmly scratching my elbow, rubbing my hands together, etc. (this is a passive encroachment stance, where your hands are now up to protect against sucker blows, etc. but are not threatening in any way.)
The drinking man looked at me.
“He keeps going before I can go!.”
I nod my head, and keep a confident presence about myself.
“Oh, my bad.” I nodded. “I’ll let him know. I don’t think he knows.”
The drinking man looked at me, then him, then me again.
“Okay… well thanks.” the drinking man nodded. He then even smiled.
“No problem.” I nodded back with a confident smile, and we returned to bowling.
No problems throughout the night.
MOST fights happen because people are simply “afraid” in the encroachment and think that “showing their bravery” means they have to challenge and act ‘tough’.
There’s no easier way to get into a fight …
Ryu
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