Best style of martial arts for self-defense?

[Dale]

I would like to hear your definition so that I can nit-pick that for you and tell me if you would like it.

I already gave it.

My definition would be that a fight starts at the first physical contact with malicious intent.

At this point, it would be obvious that any definition I give is going to be nit-picked and blown out of proportion because you cannot actually get to the point.

Here is the point, and I made this point after your first post. I disagree with your use of superlatives in your description. That “almost all” fights start with a punch and that boxing has an “obvious advantage”. If you had said “many” fights start with a punch then I would have no objection. If you had said boxing was “useful” then I would have no objection. But you way overstated your case.

You feel like you are being nit picked because you are sticking to an absurd position. In support of your absurd position on almost all fights starting with a punch you are attempting to define the start of a fight as the first punch. But you realize that simply defining it that way would be circular so you are trying to avoid the appearance of circularity by making a definition that you intend to be interpreted circularly but isn’t blatantly circular. You are getting frustrated because I am not cooperating with the ruse.

I agree that many fights start with a punch, especially between two males who have typical modern cultural upbringing in what constitutes manly conflict. I don’t think that most fights between two females nor between a male and a female begin that way. I am less clear on how fights between more than two combatants start. But I think that the categorical assertation that “almost all” start with a punch is wrong and I think that your attempt to make it a tautology is flawed.

But let’s accept your intended definition, so that only a punch is considered something that can cause harm. Now, consider this scenario: your personal favorite female (mother, wife, daughter, etc) is walking and is grabbed by an assailant who restrains her and takes her to a nearby secluded spot and proceeds to disrobe her. At this point everything has been done firmly but not in a way to cause any harm to her. Now, she gets an arm free and punches her assailant.

Are you comfortable telling your mother, wife, or daughter that she is the one who started the fight? I am not. A malicious grab or a push, to me, can be every bit as threatening and dangerous as a punch, perhaps more so. But by your definition she started the fight.

I think your definition is a bad one, and I think your “almost all” assertion that it was intended to support is also bad.

 

[Evo]

This is nothing more than a personal argument, Hayao, if you wish to argue, take it to personal conversation, it is not a forum thread discussion. Closed.