To quote Marc "Animal" MacYoung, "You have two problems, your technique failing or your technique working."
He's referring to the double edge sword of self defense. Your self defense strategy fails, whether it be martial arts, knives or even guns, and you get robbed, injured or worse. This is a problem. The next is that your strategy succeeds, which amounts to heaping what may be an extreme amount of violence on someone and getting chewed up by the the legal system both criminal and civil.
This illustrates the point that engaging in any kind of violence, no matter what it is, is incredibly risky and there are very few good outcomes. Even if everything works out perfectly and it was a pure case of unavoidable self defense you still have post traumatic stress to contend with, unless you're just a sociopath.
This is reality. Violence confessed by the experts is just about the crappiest coin toss you can imagine, but you have better odds with a coin toss.
What does this mean for karate?
It means karate is a hobby, and 99.9999999 percent of the time it is basically to the eyes of everyone else in the world just you screwing around in pajamas on nice flooring. So relax and just have fun. Take your time, and just avoid trouble.
He's referring to the double edge sword of self defense. Your self defense strategy fails, whether it be martial arts, knives or even guns, and you get robbed, injured or worse. This is a problem. The next is that your strategy succeeds, which amounts to heaping what may be an extreme amount of violence on someone and getting chewed up by the the legal system both criminal and civil.
This illustrates the point that engaging in any kind of violence, no matter what it is, is incredibly risky and there are very few good outcomes. Even if everything works out perfectly and it was a pure case of unavoidable self defense you still have post traumatic stress to contend with, unless you're just a sociopath.
This is reality. Violence confessed by the experts is just about the crappiest coin toss you can imagine, but you have better odds with a coin toss.
What does this mean for karate?
It means karate is a hobby, and 99.9999999 percent of the time it is basically to the eyes of everyone else in the world just you screwing around in pajamas on nice flooring. So relax and just have fun. Take your time, and just avoid trouble.
