I am reading all your post and it all affirms to the concept in employing a) skill, b) determination, c) Awareness and d) Cunningness.
· For me, cunningness and treachery are good weapon if we want our objective to be materialized. Of course I presumed that everyone are skilled in their own way to put into application of what they know as an art. A guy is not a black belt but good in knife handling so, he has the skill of a knife and his choosen weapon is a knife. The same to the pistolero, although he is not good in hand-to-hand combat but he is skilled in hand-gun so his choice is a gun.
· With the example of Edmund about the Yemeni is good demonstration of cunningness (cleverness or craftiness) or treachery to accomplish an objective.
· Is ambush to an enemy called treachery or cleverness? This is an old way of tactics use by military or civilian of whatever use. And on this tactics non is well trained to escaped from it, the one who ambushed might not all wiped the target but inflict big damage. In the street, if done by a common BG to ambush its’ prey then for sure the ambusher can do great damage to the ambushed even in the end the person or group ambushed can recover but they suffer casualty. In the military usually if ambushed was done, everybody dive or prone on the ground and shoot back or move fast , but still not a 100% solution to self defense. Maybe, an ambush is also an skill to whoever may do it against an enemy and this also done by the BG. This can be applied to martial arts player or to an individual shooter.
· Also, not only on the street where an attack will be done on the rear but also this is an old tactics of the military to attack on the enemy rear sometimes or to an area where the enemy is not expecting. All of these are good examples to consider on our individual defense awareness on the street.
· Showing Friendliness and being weak to an enemy or agressor is sometimes a way of taking advantage to an enemy and we might call it a practical skill to learn. Well, there were times also that showing weakness, the more an enemy or a BG will take advantage but it is a good weapon to a more confrontational situation. Example, someone hold up you and you let them get all your belongings usually they will not hit you, but if you fight back and you don’t have the necessary physical skill against them you will end up to be shot or stab, which one you prefer then? Thus, not all being a martial arts expert or shooter expert can be a good defense in the street. There are more ways to prevent bloody confrontation or defend ourselves.
· I, being so observant to what is happening arround me. Why is it that even there is one person involve in any crime scene, there are many responding officers to go to the area, or a squad of SWAT Team will respond. Can a few of them is enough to control an only one man doing the crime, when in fact they are so called well trained shooters. And mostly if not all the time. The intention of responding officers is shoot to kill the the suspect and most crime ended that way but the root cause of the crime was not solve. The tactics is always blitzkrieg style of Hitler. You kill a fly by cannon bullet. Its an overkill.
To summarize, we need to employ all of the above 4 items i.e., skill, determination, awareness, and cunningness to our individual means of self defense. Not to be too much preoccupied in looking around the best kind of karate, kungfu, bjj, judo, stick fighting and shooting schools etc., for it takes several seconds to launch a bullet or a knife thrust to our target.
Thank you again in exchanging ideas with all of you.
[This message has been edited by stdalire (edited March 13, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by stdalire (edited March 13, 2000).]