Know When to Hold-em, Know When to Fold-em

Note poker but in self-defense. As you are aware there are rules in self-defense. They are not necessarily the ones your self-defense instructor told you but the ones society imposes on you if you are dragged into court to convince the judge, jury and prosecutor that you used self-defense properly. 

Marc MacYoung, in the book “In the Name of Self-Defense,” states pretty succinctly, “You have to know when to stop!” He also states and I came to realize that a lot of what martial artist are taught regardless of whether the moniker of self-defense is there or not, is illegal and will get you in a lot of trouble if you use it in a defense situation. 

Mr. MacYoung, over the last few years along with some other professionals such as Rory Miller, has rung my bell a lot causing this little light bulb to click on in my brain bringing me to the conclusion that what I had practiced and taught is NOT SELF-DEFENSE!

The concept of knowing when to fold-em or STOP makes self-defense very, very difficult to learn and to teach. It brings to my mind the criticality of “knowing” what self-defense is and how it applies in “reality, reality, reality.” 

Mr. MacYoung provides some real world examples of what and how easy it is to cross that line, the line that is printed with “STOP HERE NOW!”

My example for this post is the cross over kick in my system. Usually this kick is applied, bunkai, when you have taken an adversary down to the ground and you cross over the kick while restraining the adversary by his hand and arm and kicking them in the throat, face, chest, etc. to “finish the job.” There are so many examples in this one statement that say, “Oh Shit, you crossed the line dude!” Once you cross the line, in most instances, you are screwed, screwed, and screwed. (note: trying to put a little written color into my post like Mr. MacYoung in his book - makes for a fun read of his stuff while learning, great combination)

Bibliography:

MacYoung, Marc. “In the Name of Self-Defense: What It Costs. When It’s Worth It.” Marc MacYoung. 2014.

The full verse: “No when to hold-em, know when to fold-em, know when to walk-away and know when to run!” sounds like good self-defense advice, yes?