About MArtial arts,.. I don't practice any, but I have learnt that avoiding a blow is better than blocking it, and if avoiding the blow is not possible, I can usually redirect it out of harms way. I have never had to throw a punch at anyone. But once this bully got an urge to smash my teeth in and I managed to avoid or deflect all of his attempts. Several times he found himself on the ground. When he would throw his punch in rage, I would grab his wrist and redirect the force to the side. I never took martial arts, but it always seemed logical to me that if someone pushes, pulling will always send them off balance. if I pushed in return, the bigger would prevail, and In my youth I was almost always the 'smaller' guy.
I once sat in on a Karate lesson that my friend was taking (with a group of about 20 other students. When I saw them doing the punch/block thing I made a comment that it was such a waste of energy to block, and winding up to make a punch was counter intuitive. the Teacher heard me and said that it was a fundimental instinct to block, and karate was about doing thing in a natural way. I told him that was stupid. He asked if I would like to learn to block, I said I didn't need to. He then told me to get up and try to block one of his punches. I was game, so I got up, stood in front of him, he was nice and showed me the moves and all, then when he said 'Ready' made strong punch towards me, I turned slightly to the side, gragged his wrist and pulled and redirected his momentum to the side of me. He took a tumble. and I stood there looking at him. He was not a happy Teacher. He told me to get out and never come back. LOL And I never had the intention to embarass him, I just thought that blocking a punch was wrong.
Anyway, enough reminissing.
Cheers!
