But you didn't answer the question: WHY is self defense training so important, if as the other poster stated, the majority of students will never get into a self defense situation in their entire lives?
PS: Most dojang neither emphasize self defense nor sport, but rather cater to what the overwhelming majority of students seem to want from a martial arts experience today -- which is exercise, health, discipline of mind, respect taught to children, and family time. The "sport vs. self defense" dichotomy really does not apply. And to tell you the truth, I don't think it ever applied. It was never "either or" of those two choices.
The SD mindset is utterly vital because it is one of the primary roots and fonts for excellent achievement and quality character for human beings regardless of the culture,gender,age and challenges that life throws at us,in whatever venue. The difference between the SD mindset and the sports mindset is that the sportive mindset is the range and depth of stimuli: the sportive mindset's stimuli peaks at about half of the intensity level of the SD mindset. This difference oftentimes has a direct impact on one's performance and character quality throughout one's entire life. Both the SD and sport mindset take execise,health,discipline,respect,family and more to very very high levels,if done properly...so both sport and SD mindsets encompass the laudable activities that you mention.
On to a few instances that come to mind that are real word examples of me using or observing the use of Korean martial arts:
1) My favorite. I was coming to pick my children up from school--something that I normally don't do but we had a family function to attend directly after school--and as I pulled up,my daughters and neice sprinted up to me and told me that my son was being accosted by bullies. As all of these girls are pretty capable martial artists, 2 of the 3 of them being older than my son--the best elementary school martial artists in the Long Beach Unified School division,in my highly biased opinion lol--I was a bit surprised that the girls weren't with him or hadn't alerted the school officials. Turns out that when I arrived I saw that the school officials were busy directing several hundred kids and a dozen or so animated parents who were parked in the teachers' parking lot and weren't leaving because they thought that they had a right to be there (don't ask me why,never found out). The school staff had been slashed to the bone due to Arnold's gubernatorial fiscal policies (I live in CA),so the security and other personnel which usually absorbed and dealt with this kind of thing without a problem wasn't there.The current staff--at just barely more than half of their previous numbers--was quite simply overwhelmed.
That's when I espied my son being heckled by nearly a half-dozen larger older boys.I didn't catch their words,but their body language was aggressive and threatening.Closed fists waving. They'd gotten within half an arm's length of my son. I started walking toward him with the intent to deescalate the situation,when my son saw me coming,bent down to pick up his backpack...and that's when one of the bigger boys sought to push him and another one tried to cuff him on the back of the head.
Smooth as can be,my son scooped his backpack from the ground and morphed that movement into a dive roll on cement which he executed flawlessly.He leaped clear of the half circle of bullies,tucked and rolled and came to his feet maybe 10 yards from me."Hey Daddy!" My powerfully built son smiled at the same time that other witnesses--adults and kids,and even a few of the bullies--exclaimed:"whoa!" I hugged him and looked at the bullies.They hadn't moved an inch. I gave each of them THE LOOK.They got the message.I informed the vice-principal--a no-nonsene Latina--and she immediately sent the bullies into the main office to await punishment and to call their parents. My son and I walked to my SUV. "Did you see that they tried to hit you,son?" "Yeah Daddy," my son responded without the least worry or concern,"Sam and Clyde and those guys TRIED to hit me,but it didn't work." "So why didn't you hit them back,son?" "'Cause you said that if nobody hit me,don't hit them.Plus you said that using my martial arts on somebody for the wrong reason makes me a bully and I don't wanna be a bully.Clyde and Sam didn't hit me...they missed. So I didn't have a reason to beat them up.And you told the principal and she took care of it soooo...I was thinking I could play some Mortal Kombat in your car while we go to Auntie's house." "Next time,son,you tell the principal yourself so it never gets to a point where a bunch of boys are trying to mess with you in the first place.Okay?" "Promise,Dad. Betcha Dallas beats Miami in Game 2(NBA Finals talk..and turned out he was right). But Miami is prolly gonna win the whole thing. But Sub-Zero is cooler than all of them though."
I love him soooo much.Lol.
2. THE ANIME ANGELS
That's what my neice,my daughters,their Korean friend Sun and their Latin friend Alicia call themselves.I always thought it was their name for their group which absolutely loves anime,reading,and their online gaming escapades (which it is) but I had an opportunity to observe them work as a unit together when some neighborhood girls tried to jump my youngest daughter (who'd been entrusted with their video games while the older girls played with their friends) and make off with a few hundred dollars of their beloved video games.
I came upon the scene when the conflict had already escalated to the physical level.It was quickly over with.There was a chorus of kiyaps as: I saw Princess plant a lead leg round house to the stomach of one girl,folding her like origami.My neice--whose nickname is BODACIOUS--nailed another girl with a jump sidekick,Sun drilled another girl with a spin kick to the back of the girl's neck and Alicia landed a backfist jump switch kick to the stomach-face of another girl.Before I could do anything,my daughter ran and tackled another girl who'd seized my youngest daughter--who's only 6--by her hair and was smacking her in the face. My daughter and the older bigger girl she tackled rolled on the ground for a second,disentangled,and scrambled to their feet.Princess got to her feet faster with a kip up that she instantly transformed into front kick which made glancing contact to her opponent's thigh but followed with a devastating tornado kick which smacked home on the left cheek of the girl and dropped her like a sack of rocks.
I comforted my youngest daughter,and when she stopped crying I sent THE ANIME ANGELS to my daughters' mother's house.I was joined by park staff and we checked the victims of THE ANIME ANGELS to be sure that the girls weren't badly hurt. Bumps,bruises,a missing tooth (tornado kick) but nothing serious. These girls had done a few rowdy things before,so the overall vibe I got was:"You girls deserved that beatdown" from staff and witnesses. I was of like mind,so I exited. The girls' parents didn't really press the issue; I agreed not to consider any police charges if they agreed not to press me to pay for the tooth that my Princess kicked out,and that was that. Almost never does a scrape with children rise to the level of legal matters between parents in my neck of the woods.
3. THE SCRAP AT THE DRIVE THRU DAIRY
I was at the local dairy standing waiting in line behind this guy when he starts in on the cashier.Seems like he was swearing that he was being overcharged. The cashier is wife to the store's co-owner;she's a sweet but strong Latina whom I've known for over a decade now.She doesn't overcharge people. Well,this guy was really getting worked up.His buddy gets out of his car from the drive thru window to see what's going on,takes in the argument,literally says:"**** this wetback *****" snatches the milk and sweets on the bar and starts walking away with it. As Madre (that's what we call her) said:"I'm calling the police" and turned to reach for the phone,the first jerk reached across the bar and grabbed her by the throat with his right hand,put his left forefinger in her face and hissed:"You ain't doin ****,*****!"
I chopped his right arm at the bicep,a shocking blow.I'm not a big guy at 5'7" 158 but I can bench double my bodyweight,squat quadruple my bodyweight,can slam dunk,have Olympic level 400 speed,etc. and I don't lift weights.He yelped as he released her and I snaked my left arm under his arm into a half-Nelson,banged his face off of the cashier bar's hard surface as I fed his right arm behind his back and applied a painful wristlock,which elicited a loud howl of shocked agony. The guy with the food read the situation,reversed course away from his car with the running engine and toward me and his friend,I hurled his friend into the oncoming bad guy and dropped them both with the same sweep kick.Lol.I stomped on the back of the idiot on top of the idiot on the bottom,reached behind my back like I had something in my back pocket which was more menacing than the wallet that I actually was gripping,and informed them:"You are under arrest for disturbing the peace,attempted robbery and assault.Any further resistance by you will result in a corresponding escalation of force." The combination of the shock of my martial arts skill,my verbal judo and use of police jargon was enough to keep the stupid bad guys down and docile until the real cops arrived,and cuffed em.Lol.