Lode Runner,
RE: “Instead of counterattacking in a traditional sense or blocking, you use your opponent’s vulnerabilities to your advantage and you base your attack on that alone. I call that passive.”. And if that’s what the internal arts were like, you’d be correct. Neijia very much do indeed execute counterattacks, even pre-emptive ones. Also, taking advantage of the opponent’s vulnerabilities does NOT equal passive. A boxer executing a bob & weave followed by a hook to the head is taking advantage of his opponent’s vulnerabilities.
RE: “I would hazard a guess that even in ancient China not every thug was “Lawful Evil.””. I get the reference, but I wasn’t comparing today’s circumstances to ancient China, nor China in any other time period. I don’t live there. I was comparing it to earlier periods in the history of the U.S.
RE: “despite what the six o’clock news wants you to believe, we live in a pretty **** peaceful society.”. Oh yeah? Where the heck do you live? Not 3 weeks ago, a man was murdered in his home not a block from where my parents live in an upper middle class suburb. One of my school acquaintances was raped last week (the first week of the college semester) outdoors, on the campus.
RE: “During the course of our lives, we might need these skills to save ourselves some bruises, or maybe even save our lives once or twice if we’re unlucky enough to get into such a situation, but unlike many cultures in the past (including many in ancient china, I presume) learning a deadly martial art is not necessary for our survival.”. I’m sorry, but this sounds like the typical liberal-style drivel of the naiive uninitiate to violent crime. It’s really easy for idealistic young adults to espouse this type of attitude if they’ve never faced the pointy end of a knife or the barrel of a gun, or even the enraged bare hands of someone intent on killing them or doing them serious bodily injury. I’ve been there personally more than once. I’m alive to write this because I learned deadly fighting skills, both with and without weapons.
RE: " Now OTHO, if I DO maim or kill someone I could face some pretty dire consequences… even if I was justified. Neither going to jail nor being sued to smithereens sounds very pleasant to me.". Me either, but being dead at the hands of a street thug while my wife is raped and killed sounds even less appealing. As they say, better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6.
RE: “There might be a lot of muggers and serial killers in the world, but there are at least a thousand times as many hotheaded punks and mean drunks and I really don’t think that me breaking their bones is going to do either of us any good.”. Wow. You sound like quite the gambling man. Tell me, how is it that you know which type is going to be the one that attacks you? And besides, a hotheaded punk may very well deserve a minor injury for attacking a non-hostile person minding his own business.
RE: “…if I really wanted to learn an effective form of lethal self-defense I would learn how to use a handgun (and draw it quickly) and carry it always.”. That’s why I hold a Double X Marksman’s rating with a handgun. Also why I teach seminars and private training in knife combat.
RE: “Where the Karate student must check his blows and avoid hitting vital spots, the Taji student can still use his methods of deflection and redirection at full power and easily knock his opponent into a wall or onto the ground or otherwise momentarily stun him thus affording a timely escape.”. Deflection and redirection are a part of Taijiquan, but are you under the impression that this is its only, or necessarily even primary, method of response?
RE: “I know it’s not Judo but I was under the impression that it wasn’t about uber-deadly punches and kicks (or similar direct attacks) at all. Was this a mistaken impression?”. Yes.
All three sister internal arts, as well as other internals, contain extremely deadly and very direct attacks. Taiji’s penetrating punch or Laogong palm, Bagua’s Li palm, boring palm, or any of the eight gua-related palms, and all five of Xing Yi’s elemental fists, for that matter, can be purposefully deadly strikes to vital targets. Your impression of Taiji seems to be (understandably) that of most of America. That is, of old folks wearing Mandarin silk pajamas moving in slow motion and very large circles in the park at dawn. Or perhaps maybe as far as that of middle-aged hippies or New Age enthusiasts teaching it as a way to get into harmony with your inner child, who occasionally show a few harmless projections as applications. It seems to me that you might need to heed my earlier suggestion of familiarizing yourself with what Taiji really IS when in combat.
