Assaulted and Knocked out!

[white owl]

That's what my Mom always said an Mom's are usually right.

[TraditionalDan]

Hi Kez, it's Dan here from the Brighton dojo.

I've only just come back on here from a while back, and I must say your story is quite touching.

These cowards will probably continue to live their lives this way, and will one day run into someone who hasn't had so much to drink, has a blade/gun, or the law. These people always get it coming to them, I've seen it. For them, they may never learn, and go on digging themselves a deeper hole.

Besides you were tipsy, and these guys picked on two ladies and a guy. Very dishonourable.

You say you had a perforated eardrum? Did he attack you with a power slap? If so this guy may have learnt this technique in the hope of using it in one of his drunken brawls.

I guess where some of us practice martial arts to fulfill our combatitive needs, these people go out and drink (for confidence, wouldn't have the bottle to join a dojo) and then fight.

As some have said, use this as an opportunity to go forward, learn from the experience. What you are feeling is quite normal. Also, if you are ever likely to face an aggresive person, it is usually out on the town around all the clubs. Bear this in mind for next time you go out.

[Dobbersky]

Kez

I would have thought twice in going in but I definately would have gone in to defend my friends and family and I'm 6ft and 120Kg and a Wythenshawe Lad lol.

You already had my respect but you doubled it.

Osu!!!!

[Shotokan-kez]

Thank you Dobbersky!!

Well Wythenshawe, my partner lives there lol. I had to go in they were my friends.

Osu

[KarateOx]

Just to put in my .02 cents in, this is the time when the true results of your martial arts training comes in. I mean, it is easy to practice and live the martial arts when it is a perfect world. It is easy to say we practice to develop our selves, to learn to defend ourselves, etc., when things are running fine. However, you just had an extremely traumatic experience. This is probably a life changing experience for you, and will not be easily forgotten, and it shouldn't. However, what I am talking about is the strength we gain from martial arts training. NOW is when you are supposed to draw from it. NOW is when all those endless repetitions, hours of training, and sore muscles should carry you. It was not your martial arts fault you got hit. It just happened. Such is life. We can go back and dissect the situation, and discuss whether you should have drank as much as you did, whether you should have kept a keen eye, whatever. We can do that, but like Tallgeese said, it would be a bit of armchair quarterbacking, and it won't change a thing. What happened happened. This is the hand you were dealt. The only one you have to play.

So, now what?

[tonydee]

Hi Kez,

Nasty experience, and glad to see you getting yourself together after it. Much has been said that I heartily agree with. My main other thought is this: martial arts training's higher purpose is to transcend the fear of pain, injury and death, not the possibility.

To walk courageously in to an obviously hostile situation speaks volumes about your progress down that path: your character and loyalty to friends.

When I was young, I looked to my training to make me invulnerable, and worried about getting caught off guard, or coming off second best in a real-life altercation (be it on the street or when visiting another martial arts venue). All that walking wide around corners. Timing the overlap of your stride and hand positions to cover any possible attacks of everyone walking past you on the street. Tuning in to the tension in others' bodies, where their attention is focused. I should never have read The Exorcist - I started dreaming about whether I could prevail in a fight against the devil incarnate, should he perchance wander down my street one night . Hey, I was young! All that stressful nonsense that typically only leaves you projecting hostile body language towards everyone around you.

Now, I just don't worry about it. You could be killed or hurt by an accident while training, a drunk driver, food poisoning, a virus or any of a million other things anyway. Freedom to enjoy life comes from realising that you're doing things to improve yourself, living the life you want to be living, doing things to statistically improve your odds of influencing outcomes for the better, interacting with people in a way that is dignified and enriching and generous rather than suspicious (whether they deserve it or not). Martial arts should be liberating - even if it means accepting risk, accepting that injuries happen, accepting justice isn't always served but knowing you'll be doing what you can to be on the honourable side of things.

Life passes everything into memory, but we choose what memory does to us as people. If physical injury is fleeting, we can be glad and move on. If physical injury is permanent, we must accept and move on. We've all known about humanity's history of attrocities, and understand there are mentally unbalanced and dangerous people out there, it's not worth letting personal experience of that skew things permanently. It's all relative, and these animal acts are tragically meaningless. To be dragged down to their level, or depressed by the reality of it, is a natural tendency but leads nowhere. It should be transcended through understanding the influences that create such people - domestic violence, abuse, crime, peer pressure, bullying, poverty etc. - adding any influence you can to minimise these throughout your society, and yet accepting it much as you'd accept being in the path of a hurricase is bad luck. Attitudes, effort and intent are the basis for self-judgement, not outcomes. Our attitude to others is important, not their attitude to us - which is only a random sampling of humanity reflecting their own issues.

That said, we should act using our experience and insight to predict and influence outcomes positively at all levels - self defense and personal.

Regards,

Tony