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Mike Lee (mike lee) wrote:
I never failed in a confrontation in which I was in the right and not behaving self-rightously. Maybe the aikido gods were looking out for me or maybe I was just lucky.
Regardless, I believe that having faith in yourself, plus training hard and having faith in that training, is important and can make a difference at crunch time.  |
If you get into enough fights you will lose sometimes; it doesn't matter if you're in the right or not behaving self-righteously. The only direct relationship between you and the outcome of the fight is your choice of opponent (assuming you have one.)
Faith, while often deemed a positive quality, can easily become a detriment if it's in yourself. Commonly called over-confidence, this has sent many people to an early grave.
So ability notwithstanding, if you've never experienced defeat, consider yourself lucky--nothing more. Everytime I've ever faced single opponents who were unarmed, they were always bigger and stronger than me (which is why they chose me to fight, and not someone else.)
Under those conditions, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose--no matter how good you are. I've never been seriously injured, but I've also never been in a prison fight. All the rules change when someone who is experienced in using violence as a tool to get their way aims to kill you--training, goodwill, personal confidence, and anything else will not guarantee victory, nor will you be guaranteed defeat either.