Penn and Teller last night

There are plenty of people in denial of that reality. It is less likely to happen to you if you live in a rich neighborhood. But to people who do not it is a daily constant.

 

I think these sorts of situations are relatively rare and can mostly be addressed with soft skills. I don't think that my single leg, no matter how much I drill it, will prepare me for an assassin or a gang violence situation. At that point I think hoofing it is the best option.

My issue with it is 'what constitutes a fight?' Most boxing instructors for example, will have had a few 'fights' but I don't think that's what P&T were talking about.

I think that's going to be seriously, seriously skewed by the analysis of data. My guess is that the particulars of a situation will decide the outcome of the study.

Still modern though!

They said that most of the things that you do in a martial arts class could get you seriously charged. An arm bar is unquestionably an effective way of breaking an arm, however, it's not something that I would feel very secure about deploying in say, a bar fight. I certainly wouldn't want to wait around for the police afterwards. :vanish:

I've trained in a variety of alive martial arts and not once have they addressed self defense. I've learned how to punch, kick (it's all in the mind), takedown, throw, lock, etc., etc. but never once in any of my classes has a teacher said 'ok guys, we're going to study the legalities of self defense.' Never once have we sat down to address threat levels, or situational awareness. We haven't really done anything about fear management either, but I think that there's a disconnect between saying aliveness imparts effective techniques and saying that it teaches effective danger management.

Some people like couches. I would definitely say I've been injured more in martial arts class than anywhere else. That's why I'm a cranky son of a gun.

 

Running away is still the best bet. If you get away, you got away, if you don't, you still have the option of fighting back.

Most people have never been in a fight. Why would martial arts instructors be much more likely to have been in a fight?

Compared to the number of crimes that are reported, it is rare to see a martial artist being recognised for defending themselves. There are several reasons for this that go beyond 'martial arts sucks' but it's a valid point.

Then your exposure to martial arts is minimal. That crap is EVERYWHERE.

So...you agree with this point them that it is a modern invention.

6 is the only one I disagree with because too much of it depends on context. In the right context any technique can be justified by a self defence argument.

This answer doesn't address P&T's point at all.

But it's still true, right? I've certainly suffered (and am suffering) from more injuries than my non-martial arts friends have. The trade-off in terms of self-protection is awful.

 

I generally don't like to chime in on these type of rows, but I need to say, because of the dire consequences involved, that I've known of circumstances where the above statement is a reversal of the truth. One of the worst things one can do if he is unfortunate to be in a bad situation in a group context is to act tough when accosted - this is particularly true of 13, 14 year olds, where the alpha is trying to establish dominance or place himself within the hierarchy of the group.

I've heard several times of guys getting shot to death because some fellow inadvertently 'dissed' a little kid and wasn't aware that he (and everyone else there) was armed.

The wannabe was 'obligated' at that point to put down the challenge to his standing within the group - and the gang means their whole world. There is also a lack of impulse control and lack of understanding of consequences at that age.

 

Their rarity depends on where you live.

Sure but that was not their point. They tried to portray the ranking system os solely being something about making money.

Submissions in a self defense setting are about getting compliance from someone to stop engaging in violence. Unless you are talking about chokes which can just temporarily incapacitate someone. Saw someone use an Arm Bar as a Security guy at a club quite effectively. It was not the MMA drop to the ground Arm bar, it was more Akin to something out of JJJ, but it helped him deal with someone until they calmed down enough to realize they needed to cut it out.

Ok, but that doesn't address the intentionally misleading way that they portrayed it. Anyone who engages in physical activity is more likely to get injured. Whether it's Soccer, Baseball, Judo, etc. However, laying around on your duff all day is a great way to die of heart failure.

 

This is again, situational. Is this someone who has been seeking you out repeatedly? Are they just going to keep doing so? You have to evaluate that as you go about it, but in many instances when you are finally are in a situation where you cannot run it will be in a situation of their choosing, whereas if you dealt with it before it got to that point they wouldn't choose you to be their ego step stool in the first place.

That's not what I said.

Again, we are just throwing out our "I thinks" and not talking about data. I don't think it's a valid point at all.

Now it's time to suggest that the reason I don't agree with you is some flaw in my own experience or intellectual capacity. No. I have plenty of exposure. The reality is even religion itself is taking a hit, mysticism is right there with it.

Yes, but I don't agree with the blatant lies they put in their presentation suggesting that the rank system is solely about making money. Because it's not.

Lets look at that again.

7) Most martial arts training is more fear management than danger management, meaning that many martial arts students are being misled into a dangerous, false sense of security.

Yes, I addressed this point entirely. I don't feel they are correct at all. And point of fact I feel they are being intentionally dishonest.

This is how good quality propaganda takes root. Perhaps a grain of truth put next to a whole lot of crap. Penn and Teller were suggesting that Martial Arts training ITSELF was more likely to hurt you then not training. But what they were talking about was true of ANY PHYSICAL ACTIVITY. This is where what they did amounted to outright lying. Sure doing any physical activity INCLUDING martial arts means you are more likely to injure yourself. They didn't put that in context because they were trying to guide to a certain end to fit their agenda. People in media pull this all the time.

 

There are circumstances, they do not however present the totality of the situation. I have had guns pulled on me. In many cases they are being pulled on you by people who don't have the nerve to use them. (Many, not all.) Far more often then this they are just there to hit you with their fists. The funny thing I learned in the ghetto was that most of the deadly dangerous types respect their position and don't engage in random violence. They understand that killing someone is a step past the point of no return. They have friends in prison. They get it. And at that point they have nothing to prove. The people who will send you to the hospital with a beating are not to that point yet. And if you volunteer to give them a living punching bag to beat up in front of their friends they will happily continue to do so. Even more so because they know they can win points with no risk.

I lived with guys like that. Again however a lot of gang members don't walk around with guns. When I lived in the nasty neighborhoods violence was pretty much a daily issue. You see far less guns then you might think.

There is another aspect of self defense that I think I would point out here. In your scenario the victim initiated this verbal confrontation. That happens all the time. Growing up on the streets I learned not to do that. And you can diffuse a lot of things by simply not creating them. But that's not enough. I learned that the hard way. Many times.

 

You keep asking for data from other people, then fall back on anecdotes and tales of living on da streets. I'm not sure if you realize that you're doing that.

 

there you go, patronizing again.

you have no idea where i've lived or currently live. you have no idea what i've been exposed to, now do you.

and for those people that don't live in a rich neighborhood, how exactly is martial arts supposed to help them any better than a gun?

 

The burden of proof for the claims made by Penn and Teller is not on me. I didn't make those claims. There is a frequent problem particularly in the media that when someone has an agenda, just state something as a fact in the hopes that nobody will bother to ask you for the details. Penn does this all the time. And it's very common to people in his Libertarian background. Make an assertion with an authoritative and/or mocking tone and people will tend to assume that since you sound confident you must therefore actually know what you are talking about. And not do the critical thinking to ask further questions. (That's one of the reasons people behave like that too. Because you have apprehension about confronting them because you don't want to be talked to in the assertive/mocking tone for daring to question them.) Their episode about 911 conspiracies (not endorsing those conspiracy theories, to get that out of the way) consisted of him yelling and screaming and cussing at people who held an opposing view to him and not engaging the particulars at all. Bill O'Reilly at FOX is a master of this art.

I offered data I learned first hand on my own.

 

An anecdote does not an argument make my friend. :]

You're certainly in no position to decry other folks positions as non-scientific or any more ill informed than your own. Grass houses, stowing thrones, all that.

 

I openly encourage people who live in bad neighborhoods to investigate the often unknown legal freedoms they have to carry firearms openly. (Depends on the state. It's legal here. And when we were in Occupy many of us did. Violence as a result was non-existent in some of the camps who did.)

However, depending on a firearms or any tool solely as your self defense plan doesn't work either. If you don't have your gun, and in many cases you won't, you need other options.

 

It's funny how the conversation again needs to shift back to your analysis of me as a person rather then sticking to the topics at hand. That doesn't make an argument either "my friend". (Ad hominem, etc.)

And yes, I am certainly in a position to ask for data, to decry people engaging in obviously dishonest and misleading journalism and misrepresenting reality. It's actually part of what I do for a living as a journalist and sometimes paid political analyst.

 

btw I don't wish to get caught up in this argument but latest thinking in marketing is that anecdotes and stories are just as powerful as statistics, perhaps even more so. Statistics form good foundation/credibility, but story-telling is a way to emotionally connect people.

If we were in the same room together, this would probably be a very different discussion

Not a critisism of any of you. Just an observation

I grew up in a violent neighbourhood too, not as violent as What Works? In that environment what would have been best would be to fight back, not to go to far AND to be humble. You'd have been safest that way.

 

That's not data.

 

Not you as a person, how you argue. I'm sure you're an ok dude.

If you're asking for folks in this thread to support their points with data, then you should be willing to do the same. We've all got stories and anecdotes that support our position, but to come to a general conclusion you need to move beyond that. Maybe that's why you're a journalist and not a scientist. PPP

Note that I am saying this in the spirit of teasing, not as any sort of actual insult.

 

I went back and re-read what lead to you saying this. I want to point out that I was not directing this comment specifically at you. But at a good portion of the population who goes around assuming everything will be fine. It's like people who don't wear seat belts because most of the time they don't get into car accidents. People who live in more violent communities see it more often.

 

I like you Philosoraptor, so please don't take this as evidence against you

It might even interest you

This is an article by a leading expert on strategy, Professor Cynthia Montgomery, of Harvard Business School: Four Steps to Build Brand Awareness Through Storytelling

 

Effective communication is not the same thing as effective analysis. I like you too Donn1e, will you go out with me y/n? <3

 

Thanks.

I am not asking people in this thread to do so so much as addressing the obvious dishonest tactics that they used when they did this show.

Mankind in general has an annoying habit of pulling statistics out of thin air that are not corroborated by any actual tabulation. It's just a guess. And hey, that's fine. But qualify that as a guess. Politicians, advertisers, etc generally depend on the public's trust that people don't say things without knowing what they are talking about. And that has been a pretty big disaster for mankind overall.

Penn and Teller like to call themselves people who call out falsehoods. Just as news correspondents like Bill O'Reilly do. But both engage in a great deal of total dishonesty while doing so because truth is not really important to them. Fitting their agenda is.