Reply #130: Wow

[ForrestGump]

Well, I am happy that you thwarted Julio (they did catch him, later?) and that you took control of the six f***wits. I would never say I was ashamed to be male -- it's not like I had a choice, for one -- but I am certainly not too proud of being human, and the environment created through threat of some of the negative and destructive human behaviors most perpetrated by men (rape perhaps being the big one) is as big a source of collective shame as any could be. I am sorry that you had to go through any of that, no matter how you ended up prevailing.

Unfortunately, I don't think that a lot of women would have reacted as you did in either case...men, either, for that matter. I know some tough women, but what exactly 'tough' is can vary markedly from situation to situation and I am pretty sure -- though you can never really tell 'til it happens -- that at least some of these capable women would essentially have 'frozen.' And, yes, that's exactly what the attacker's anticipating, which is why fighting hard and mean right from the outset is the best way to escape....wait and not only will your resolve likely flag, but chances of him compounding your dilemma or geting you to a more private spot rise quickly. And, of course, the trouble these days is that so many baddies are prepared to kill even when their crime-in-progress is theft or the like: murder used to be a huge deal and now it's all too common in association with far less major crimes.

My brother and his best friend, a small and retiring type (my brother's almost as large as me and not incapable of taking care of himself), were accosted by a knife-wielding attacker one time, years ago: the meek little dude (he must be barely 5' or 5'2", I'm guessing) literally leaped on the attacker, totally ignoring the knife (no, not a good thing, but he so surprised the bad guy that he got away with it) and thrust his fingers into the dude's eyes before taking him down to the ground, where he kneed him and kicked his fallen body while screaming at him. He was, he later told me, overcome by rage and had no idea exactly what he was doing. He was just furious, and basically wanted to kill. I'm guessing he had a fair bit of frustration to vent, and this poor f***er pulled a knife on the wrong short person. My brother, in the meantime, could do nothing but stand there, just amazed at the spirit of Bruce Lee entering his slight friend's body...he was ready to surrender in the face of superior weaponry (this is very much a good idea, when the bad guy has a knife and you have nothing, but nobody counted on the little guy becoming the Incredible Hulk). I think that if you are not consciously prepared to shove your fingers into someone's eye sockets -- well beyond the Three Stooges stage -- in defense of your life or someone else's, then you'd better not be counting on confronting the bad guys when there's a choice to not do so. The reality is that I think most of us are capable of killing without too much compunction, given circumstances dire enough, but that very few of us -- trained or untrained in martial arts -- would actually ever be able to do something as icky as a fully-committed finger jab to the eyes (not that you have to do much more than a little hard-and-fast bump to produce agony there...going in deep and scooping out the eyeball is just showing off). We have too much empathy, sometimes, for our own good.

When I was attacked for real, finally, my first two counters (stop-hit type, actually...I intercepted his attack with mine) were an attack at his bladder -- I reacted essentially automatically, but behind it was knowledge that this was a good, open target AND that I might just make the bastard wet himself and quit in shame -- and an upward kick to the groin intended to make his gonads one with his hypothalamus...luckily, in the heat of action my primary empathy was with myself and I was keenly aware that if I didn't take this SOB down he was really, really going to hurt me. I don't know where his gonadal unit was that night -- his consciousness was somewhat altered, so maybe he just didn't feel it, or perhaps his lack of gonads was responsible for his psychological problems -- but I ended up taking him down with punches, mostly to the head...and, yes, smashing my fist into his face again and again was, even at the time, NOT a pleasant feeling (or sound), but I knew that I'd passed the point of no return: show him any mercy now and he'd be on me (he was trying, but none of his punches connected with my vital centerline) and I'd be missing at least a tooth or two, if not significantly more. It was over in a few seconds, though it felt much longer and things really did seem to happen in slow motion -- even in the almost total darkness, with a terribly confined arena and extremey uneven ground, it was like his punches were coming in slow motion and I was really heartened not only that my responses (all attack, my attack providing some simultaneous defense) were almost automatic. I stopped when I had him well and truly down and out, but the reptilian portion of me undoubtedly wanted him dead (for a variety of reasons). He had, after all, threatened my life more than once and he would later come after me again, this time with a very large blade. We need to be able to call on our internal reptiles, the Lizard King, but not let them take over or we'll be (almost) as bad as the bad guys.

The reality is that, as trained as I have been, I cannot guarantee that I won't freeze -- even if only for a critical half-second -- or fail to commit 100% to a fiercely offensive defence, if I am attacked again. None of us know for sure, not even some of the really good fighters in competition. But taking martial arts courses sure ups the likelihood of overcoming the inhibition to hit and to hurt.

I really like the men's-shoes-by-the-door thing. :D