Really a question for the martial artists amongst us, but open to all..

I have a question on self defense/law that was keeping me awake the other night and was wondering what your take on it is…I train Shotokan karate twice a week, but with primary focus on self defence & kata applications in case you wondered why I was having such thoughts, and yes this is purely hypothetical, it hasnt happened!

So, Say you had to defend yourself against an attacker and it was caught on CCTV, for example sake the attacker aggressively approaches you, your hands are up in (de)fence position (palms open keeping distance), you are heard by bystanders saying “I don’t want to fight etc etc”, he still wants some, he swings wildly, hopefully you default to your crash helmet/cover up your head, you manage to elbow him a few times, he covers up, you arm bar and knee him in the face, he goes down, you back away hands up, all caught on CCTV, with witnesses. Do you..

A run away
B wait around for the police, if its safe?
C run away and report the “assault” later to the police?
D run away and don’t report it?
E other?

Guess I am thinking primarily A, but maybe C and I am really asking legally where do you stand? Someone has attacked you, but (hopefully) come off a lot worse off because of it, hopefully you have manged to avoid the fight in the 1st place, but that’s not been possible in this case. So what do you do in this situation? does the situation change if you are with your wife/kid etc who cant run?

Thoughts?

B or C depending on circumstances.

C would be me heading to the nearest police station, though, not just thinking ‘I’ll tell them tomorrow’. Get your side of the story in early and whilst it can’t argued you were intoxicated.

E: If it’s safe to do so, phone the police yourself and wait for them to arrive. You were threatened and attacked, only then did you defend yourself, the fact that the other fella came off worse should be neither here nor there.

[edit]
Isn’t option A the same as option D?

Bind, gag, in the boot and drive off.

You can leave but I’ve been told the best thing you can do is write down a statement immediately of what happened. Be sure to write down “I was scared and didn’t know what to do, I told him he was frightening me and didn’t know how I would react. ” as long as you don’t use excessive force such as continuing to smash him when he’s unconscious or pleading with you to stop, it’s all good. Personally I wouldn’t wait around giving your name infront of him.

You think too much 😉

You’re not under any legal obligation to report it.

you are heard by bystanders saying “I don’t want to fight etc etc”, he still wants some, he swings wildly,….

surely at this point you just walk off?

surely at this point you just walk off?

What if you’re next in the chippy queue and there’s only one fish left?

A bit of a trollesque answer, but I do wonder if those people who take part in martial arts have a little too healthy an obsession/fixation in fights/conflict? Is it the sort of people who take up martial arts tend to be wired like that or doing martial arts makes you think like that? I think most of the rest of us don’t give a moments thought to this sort of stuff and wouldn’t have come up with the question in the first place let alone kept us awake at night! It’s clearly a very limited study group but the two people I knew personally who took martial arts seriously definitely had “issues” – not necessarily aggressive personalities but maybe a bit paranoid about potential imminent conflict with others on a night out the rest of us just couldn’t see.

Reminds me of a story when I used to train in Karate. Friend of mine got into a similar situation, though this was over a woman, and everyone had had a bit to drink at a house party. He thought because he was half way to black belt he would chance his arm a go to punch the other guy. Turns out the other guy way way beyond black belt, ducked the punch which landed in a door breaking his finger/wrist/arm (not sure which), and swiftly returned to chatting up the lady in question. I have to admit I just laughed. Not sure who got the lady!

convert – Member
A bit of a trollesque answer, but I do wonder if those people who take part in martial arts have a little too healthy obsession/fixation in fights/conflict? Is it the sort of people who take up martial arts tend to be wired like that or doing martial arts makes you think like that? I think most of the rest of us don’t give a moments thought to this sort of stuff and wouldn’t have come up with the question in the first place! It’s clearly a very limited study group but the two people I knew personally who took martial arts seriously definitely had “issues” – not necessarily aggressive personalities but maybe a bit paranoid about potential imminent conflict with others on a night out the rest of us just couldn’t see.

🙂 We had some instructor who used to come down to london from the midlands to teach us officer safety and was big into that side of things. He’d always be saying how he thought some guy was going to kick off on the tube that morning and how he was ready to take him down, we’d all be thinking ffs it’s the district line to wimbledon, how do you get that paranoid. He was a tad odd.

Everyone who does martial arts should be forced to watch the original karate kid movie, to teach them the true way!

The reality would be that if you started to do martial arts he will casully draw a gun and shoot you.

so E – lie there and bleed out

A bit of a trollesque answer, but I do wonder if those people who take part in martial arts have a little too healthy an obsession/fixation in fights/conflict? Is it the sort of people who take up martial arts tend to be wired like that or doing martial arts makes you think like that?

I started doing martial arts to keep my GF company on her latest New Year get fit obsession. She got bored with it, I discovered it’s a good way to get exercise without thinking about exercise, and really like it now.

I’m under no illusions that in a fight I’m going to run like hell. It’s what I used to do, it’s still what I’ll do now. The only difference is if cornered I might be more able to defend myself.

Plus, I can now do cool stuff with lightsabers 😉