Adept said:
1 - I disagree.
A - This is a strawman point. Witnesses will remember what people said, who looked like they were going to hit who, etc. They won't only remember that person A had formed a fist, and then conclude that person A was using unreasonable and disproportionate force. They will remember things like 'Person A was shouting, acting aggresively, and threatening person B'.
B - You need to define 'fight' for me here, and put it into context for likely encounters
C - How does this make sense? A clenched fist is certainly not 30% slower than an unclenched one.
D - A properly formed fist, directed to an appropriate target (Jaw, solar plexus, nose, etc) will not usually break.
E - No more so than other techniques.
F - It certainly does. But attacking those targets deliberately opens up a whole other area of 'reasonable and proportionate' questions. If you could just punch him on the nose, how can you defend your decision to jam your fingers into his eye sockets?
G - You make some good points, and certainly the closed fist is not always the best option, but I feel you sell it far too short.
Thanks for your answer, Adept.
1 - Nice, it's the way people may teach each other and learn form each other.
A - I DO agree that people will not say "He clenched his fists" not even clearely remember it if asked about. My point that what people remember is filtered by their implicit theories and what supports these ones is remembered far better than what oppose them. A clenched fist man looks like much more agressive as a whole than an open handed one, whatever one or the other is really the more agressive. Just look at yourself in a mirror to verify. To make a comparison, if a man with a tie and a suit actually assaulted an other wearing a nailed leather suit and DocMartens boots, the witnesses will not remember the same thing than in the reverse case. Memory is, to make it quick, a kind of *imagination*, and what you believe is strongly influencing what you may access in your memory and how you recontruct and explain it. If you have opened hands, smile and breath slowly (and a few more items) and your opponent is clenching fists, showing a scaring face and breathes frantic, people will "see" that *you* are assaulted, even if they don't remember the former details. For more, I think that with "first impression biais" and "theory confirmation bias", Google may help you.
B - Yep ! I'm guilty here, to use a translation of the French word I use with my students and fellows after a discussion, while not defining it. Besides, it's a pedagogic shortening of something much more complex.
In a few words. If people enter a situation where each other try to hurt the other one by physical ways, while not being hurt by the same ways, in order to force the other one to do or not to do something, this is a fight. The stronger and the best trained will win. Since I speaking about survival, the stronger and the best trained is, in 99% of the cases, the bad guy who assaults a normal one. I bet that no junky is going to try to take on *your* wallet and that, if you work at a desk, nobody is going to try to take *you* from behind it to spit in your face and beat you on the ground. Because they are not crazy. People I train, and the guy whose training is at the begining of the thread may experience that. Then, if they fight, they loose.
Fighting is a game among people of close strength and skills (look at the weight categories in most of the martial arts, in a bad encounter, the weight is *always* against the victim). With a big difference in strength and skills, there's no more fight, there's a predator and a prey. Survival is learning to avoid fight and to learn how to be the predator.
C - Yes, it is. I'm sorry not to have link about that, but it has been mesured with radar. Of course, a much trained individual, like you seems to be, after Ks of hours of training, may overcome the biomecanical contraction of the opposing muscles induced by the clenching. But I'm speaking about untrained people.
D - Jaw, yes. But a jaw will be more seriously harmed by a palm attack, what doesn't put the hand at risk if the target moves and you hit a head bone.
Nose ? Mine has been broken a lot of times. That never stopped me. What about a crack full junky ?
Plexus ? Althought I must admitt that fist is the good hand form here, you have to notice that *you* may, may be, deny me breathing for a while with that *but* that if *I* hit your plexus with *my* fist, you're going to have a good laught before quicking my ***.
E - It's easier and more efficient to attack with palm or fingers from outside the vision of the opponent, than to do that with a fist. Besides, I'm sure that you can dodge about any fist directed to your face, even if surprised. Ask you GF to slap you in the face, from time to time, with surprise. Then, look at the stats.
F - I DOOOOOOO agree. In survival, hitting the target is the last thing to do. It's like using a weapon. Besides, you certainly will have no second chance if you miss. Knowing that, you'll have to do anything possible to avoid fight, poking an eye -- for example -- being the very last option before being beaten. If you need it, it's that you made a mistake before, but everybody may make a mistake. Then, call the emergency to help your opponent (if you don't need to flee away because he's still moving too much) and fill a complaint for assault. Then "I don't remember anything, I was in such a panic ! I felt I was going to die, I don't even know how I hurt the guy... " and so on, with the support of witnesses, see point A.
Of course, if you can stop somebody without harming him, don't charge your karma with overkilling, but, one more time, I'm speaking of a real bad encounter, what your training and appearance may shelter you from. If a kid tries to take on my wallet (and if I see it
), I will certainly not harm him ! Most of the situations, for a trained man like you, is like with a kid for normal people.
G - I hope having done some improvement
