Is anyone into any kind of martial art?

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the choreography is brilliant, by there are a lot of fists and feet in there as well - including fists and feet alone against weapons.

In other words: anything can be a weapon, including fists and feet

It'll be ok. Sometimes I just need to take a little time to gain perspective. Too much, too quickly, overwhelmed. Better now

But since you will probably be surrounded at any given time by objects that could be used as a weapon, why not use them instead? Hands can be broken or infected when you punch jaws. Feet leave you open for attacks in your genitals. But stepladders can be broken on your opponent's head.

I am not saying you should not train to use your fists and feet: I am saying people act as if that is the most efficient way to fight. And it is not: the person holding a weapon (or even a stick) will aways have an advantage, as long as both opponents have similar degrees of skill. Even Batman carries an utility belt full of batarangs and gas bombs with him.

In other words, stealth and pragmatism win fights. There is no place for "honor" and "grace" when we are talking about survival.

I think we're talking past each other. My point was that Mr. Chan was using fists and feet, as well as weapons, in contrast to your statement that 'fists are for apes.'

And my point was that weapons and tools are what win fights. Fists are not nearly as effective, which is why I say they are for apes.

P.S.: I searched for "talking past each other" on Google (give me a break; I am not a native English speaker ) and I have to agree: we really are doing that. You are giving too much importance to Jackie Chan and I am giving too much importance to the inferiority of fists when compared to sticks and rocks (and machine guns and nuclear WMDs).

Weapons tend to malfunction when one needs them the most. That is why they have a hand-to-hand Combatives program in the Army. You can't really train to fight with weapons if you don't know what weapons you will be having.

I said weapons. Guns are not the only kind of weapon there are. A wooden bat, for example, is not going to malfunction (and it is not oficially a weapon, but it is very good as an improvised one). The idea is to fight dirty: use whatever you have available, kick/punch them if they get too close and try to do a quick job.

The few fights I had happened back in elementary school and were not real fights. I attacked my "oponents" when they were not looking (for example, back on third grade, I kicked the head of a boy while he was fighting another boy) and I used objects whenever I had the chance (for example, on second grade, I hit another boy in his head repeatedly with an umbrella while I held his collar to keep him from running). I also had a very strong shove; a boy I shoved slided about 2 meters before he managed to get up.

I was a treacherous little bastard. Nowadays, I am neither treacherous nor little, but I am still a bastard with some increasingly genocidal tendencies.

Well wooden bats break. That would be considered a malfunction. (If you had an Adamantium bat though, that would be something...) You also get disarmed. I'm not advocating "fair fighting" at all in a scenario that risks one's life, but usually when people fight (e.g. bar fight) it's not about killing the other person. It's more about establishing dominance, like how animals of the same species attack but don't necessarily kill one another. It's a "fight", not a "hunt". Most of them are actually resolved in the staredown, which establishes dominance before any physical altercation even occurs. Because if you fight someone at some social scene (like a bar or a club or something), the rules are kind of unwritten, but they are still there. I probably won't hit someone on the balls if he doesn't attempt it first. I probably wouldn't bite if he doesn't bite. I wouldn't pull out a pair of nunchucks if he doesn't. It's just a stupid fight for social dominance. If I lose, I'll take the beating and probably go to the hospital or something. You always follow some kind of law of proportionality in order for "self-defense" to be applicable. If someone shoves you in a public place and you just pull out a .45 and blow his brains out, then you're just a murderer. Being "treacherous" probably wouldn't be an acceptable excuse in court.

The reason I used the example of the Army Combatives was because they do not advocate fair fighting at all. They teach you how to use the weapons that you will probably have with you: Assault rifles, handguns, knives, and of course, hands, elbows, feet, knees, and head; not rely on improvised weapons you probably won't have, like beer bottles, step ladders, and chairs. They say that the one who wins is the one whose buddies show up first with guns. But of course they are training for war, where everyone is probably a hostile threat that must be eliminated. Every scenario is self-defense.

The problem is that we are raised on movies and pop culture. We think that fights actually happen the way they do in the action movies, when they rarely do. If people were always trying to kill me, I wouldn't even try to learn all that fancy stuff. I would start carrying well-maintained firearms (and a backup weapon) and practicing how to take care of weapon malfunctions, how to minimize the, etc., and I would always walk around with trusted bodyguards. Self-defense.

If you break a wooden bat on somebody's head, the only thing that is going to malfunction is the head. The bat served its purpose.

Honestly, if I ever got into a fight, it would be in self-defense. I would definitely go for the overkill, regardless of the situation, but if you kill an unarmed thief and argues that it was in self-defense (and I do not carry weapons, which is one less aggravating factor to consider), the witnesses are not going to disagree. They are acceptable targets.

As for war; if my country ever got into one, I would just desert. There is no way I would risk myself for a politician's fight.

What if you miss and hit a wall or a foundation post or something?



Anyway, your problem, at least in American courts, self defense largely doesn't matter. If you get in a fight with your attacker and kill them, you'll probably be charged with assault and at least manslaughter. The fact that you managed to kill him unarmed would probably be suspicious, too. Because to successfully kill someone unarmed, you'd have to have shown premeditation in regards to your training. People have gone to jail over using, say, hollowpoint bullets or handloads in their handguns in a self defense shoot, because prosecutors argued "ah, he MEANT to kill him!" Witnesses pretty much don't matter, what's said on the police report matters more. It depends on a lot of things, but if you did kill someone (or even hurt them) in self defense, more often than not your life after isn't very easy.

An overkill case is the Trayvon Martin case. Do I believe Zimmerman was defending himself? Yeah, it looks that way. He got beat up by Trayvon, but he used overkill with his gun. Now he's gonna be in jail for some amount of time (I'm guessing they'll drop it to Agg. Manslaughter) over his "overkill" self defense.

If you miss somebody's head when swinging a wooden bat, you deserve to get beaten.


You are talking to the guy who wants to live in isolation and/or genocide the whole human species. Do you really think I would care about the legal consequences if I ever decided to do something crazy? In fact, I do not even know how the Brazilian legal system would treat the situation. That shows how many f***s I give.

[img][655:540]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TzYI7lkc808/T5cEdFN7a4I/AAAAAAAACJQ/-y-FWAFIjLg/s1600/Some+Men+Just+Want+to+Watch+the+World+Burn.jpg[/img]

P.S.: This recent bitter/misanthrope thing I am having is only a few days old. Hopefully, it will go away soon. Or I will get some nuclear weapons (although nanorobots would be much better).

UPDATE: It is gone. Whatever it was, it is over now. I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused with my trollish behavior this weekend. Self-hate does not give me the right to start bothering other people.

And despite what I said yesterday...
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMMV_RoEMxE[/youtube]
I do not really want to set the world on fire. It is where all the fun takes place, after all.

Ever feel the need to hold yourself back from taking a test, because you're not confident that you'll pass? Even if it means you'll have to wait a long while for the next test?

i was in the kendo club in high school.

but these days i have no time to do it.

I've been wishing that I could do more with sword lately, either kendo or iaido, but there are no dojos in my area (I'm in a pretty rural section of NorCal).

I'm not so sure that Zimmerman's case was self-defense. At the very least, he lied to the police; his verbal statement immediately after the event does not at all match what was heard on the 911 recordings.