Bhassler wrote:Rory Miller puts it pretty succinctly when he says that many martial artists spend decades finding solutions but never stop to really look at what the question is-- i.e. how do attacks happen in the real world? I think that's the big takeaway from the article, not that a knife attack is a hopeless situation...
As Rob said, a lot of this becomes pretty apparent to folks with experience, but the elephant in the room is that most people who train in MA don't have that kind of experience, and they want to get applicable skills that will help them survive the sort of event that makes a person "experienced." Some of those not-experienced people may have spent years or decades in their art and need a reality check, and there are also many people who are looking for valid instruction but don't know what to look for. Every other McDojo in the world is run by a guy with made up credentials and a bunch of stories about life on da streetz, so it might be useful to have some corroborating info. It's also worth noting that what many people consider to be real experience is just a background in Monkey Dancing, which is a whole other discussion and not the same as self defense.
Thanks for your thoughtful and objective response.
By way of qualification, in case anyone is still reading this thread, I should make it clear that I hadn't meant it to be a direct criticism of the earlier post by Strange, though I can see how someone might have jumped to that conclusion. The BS to which I was referring was the unrealistic guff I sometimes get from inexperienced and over-optimistic MA-ists about knife defence. I have nothing but respect for Ryabko.
