How I failed to avoid trouble
Published: Sat, 10/27/18
This year I had a plan to create four distance learning programmes. I did manage the Foundation Programme at the beginning of the year. I have also completed the Self-protection programme although that did get take me rather longer than it should have done. A couple of weeks ago I realised that there are twelve weeks left until the end of 2018. So, I won’t be managing four programmes in 2018 but I am working on one more project before 2019. I have so far completed two pieces of writing on the theme of Principles Based Martial Arts and I will do twelve by the end of the year. The topic of the first one was the principle of using your opponent’s body as your weapon in so called ‘unarmed combat’. The Second one is simply entitled A Void and I have included an extract below. I am not at all sure if the finished result is going to be a book or an extended distance learning programme or something else altogether. I will have to see
how turns out, all I am concerned about at the moment is that I create another twenty to twenty five thousand words of meaningful writing on a topic dear to my heart. It also means that my members are continuing to get some exclusive content to study each week if they a have already completed the Foundation and Self-protection programmes. I have offered this series of articles to my current members, if you missed the invitation would like to be on the list for the full chapters then please let me know asap.
Let me know what you make of the extract if it is of interest.
Regards
Graham
Extract from Principles of A Void
The last time I got into anything resembling a real fight was over 25 years ago. I was not in a good place at the time emotionally and energetically and I was tending to attract trouble towards myself. In this particular situation I had walked to the village shop and on the way passed some local teenagers, one of whom was notorious for causing trouble. I somehow managed to have an exchange of words with this kid on my way past. Once I had made my purchase I had the option of returning home via the footpath and across the field. The scenic route was the same distance to walk and would have avoided walking back the way I had come and saved me from encountering the teenager again. I chose to walk back the way I had come. I encountered the young man again and he started a fight with me. I picked up a few bruises while I put him on the floor and pinned him there. I told his friends to restrain him once I let go or I would seriously
hurt him. There were complications later which ended up involving the police. The matter was finally resolved with an apology from the kid who attacked me. A show of contrition which I was perfectly happy to accept since I recognised my own level of responsibility in the whole unfortunate business.
The main lesson to focus on here is my failure to avoid trouble. Conflict was more than likely because I knew that I had done a certain amount to create antagonism in the first place. I had a very simple choice of choosing between one route or another to go home. To put it in Stav terms, on leaving the shop I was at a chaos point on the web where a choice needed to be made. Choose the route likely to bring me into confrontation, or choose the route likely to avoid confrontation. I quite intentionally chose the route into likely confrontation and I was not disappointed. It is also possible that even if I had avoided my antagonist that evening we might not have met and had a set to another time. The original encounter on the way to the shop was perhaps the first chaos point on the web when I could have made the choice to either ignore the lad or just me more civil than I was at the time. And that situation may well have had its
origins in choices months before which had taken me down the line of developing anger and aggression within myself rather than a line of harmony and inner peace.
It is often said that the best self-defence is to avoid trouble whenever you can. I can’t fault that advice as far as it goes. However, as I have described above, we might avoid one particular situation by simply taking one path instead of another. However, we won’t necessarily avoid the consequences of following a whole series of lines along a particular direction on the web. As soon as I properly understood the situation I had created I worked hard on myself to follow the lines which would take me back to a harmonious and peaceful state.
PS. Of course there is no substitute for actually training, next CQC course in Beverley on the 15th of December http://www.beverleystav.uk/sd151218.html