Exactly Enough

A sound bite from a new book I am reading that triggered another light as to self-defense and my martial training/practice. The entire quote was, " ... there is no excuse for anything more than just exactly enough." The hard part is knowing that point, to know when it is just exactly enough.

Knowing when enough is enough falls into many different actions. One may know that pushing a person back and away from your own body is enough to discourage any physical intrusion or trespass. It is also important to recognize when enough is enough within your own actions. If you feel anger and allow yourself to explode verbally or even physically then you don't know when enough is enough for you own actions.

If you are very unlucky and find yourself in some physical confrontation where you MUST protect yourself this becomes more critical to the actions you take. If you have been listening, really actively paying attention to what you read, you already have started to study about violence and know the many variables you encounter in deciding to take protective actions against another human.

If you help an attacker meet with both gravity and the earth allowing you to leave quickly for safety and you stop there you have found, hopefully, that point of "just exactly enough." If you don't and you allow your monkey to tell you to teach this person the error of their ways and continue by kicking them, etc. then you have lost that point and gone beyond - you will suffer the consequences of not know when enough is enough.