{"id":849,"date":"2020-09-12T02:32:37","date_gmt":"2020-09-11T19:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leminhha.vn\/?p=849"},"modified":"2020-09-12T02:46:43","modified_gmt":"2020-09-11T19:46:43","slug":"never-fight-unless-cornered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leminhha.vn\/?p=849","title":{"rendered":"Never Fight Unless Cornered"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>These days, it still makes me cringe to think back about how I used to fantasise about fighting when I was younger. I guess it&#8217;s something every teenage boy does &#8212; who has not watched Bruce Lee or Tony Jaa and imitate their uber-cool martial art moves?<\/p>\n<p>Thankfully of the 27 years I have been alive, I have never had any actual experience with a serious fight. But the numerous fight videos I have watched throughout the years have instilled in me a deep sense of disgust for fighting of any kind. The human body can be surprisingly fragile, and the consequences of fighting &#8212; in the blink of an eye &#8212; is absolutely, terrifyingly life-altering.<\/p>\n<h3>When Fighting Was Cool<\/h3>\n<p>I honestly think the way the media depict fighting has a terribly negative influence on young boys. When I was a kid, mangas like Buttobi Itto (\u0110\u01b0\u1eddng D\u1eabn \u0110\u1ebfn Khung Th\u00e0nh), Doraemon, or Dragon Balls were full of fighting scenes which felt more&#8230; funny than scary. The artists would draw punches, kicks, and their impact in a heavily cartoonised style to make it friendly for young readers.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1123\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1123\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1123\" src=\"https:\/\/leminhha.vn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/punch-300x223.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"223\" srcset=\"https:\/\/leminhha.vn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/punch-300x223.png 300w, https:\/\/leminhha.vn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/punch.png 602w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1123\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">How a punch is cartoonishly drawn in Buttobi Itto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1125\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1125\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1125 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/leminhha.vn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/nobitapunched.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"275\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1125\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">And of course, these classic Doraemon drawings did not make me take violence anymore seriously&#8230;<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As I grew up a bit, I started to watch movies by Bruce Lee, Tony Jaa, Donnie Yen, and Jet Li &#8212; all legendary martial artists and actors. The fighting choreography in these films are stunningly captivating. I remember standing in front of the TV copying the famous side kick by Bruce Lee and the Muay Thai elbows and knees by Tony Jaa while imagining hitting a real opponent.<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t get me wrong &#8212; these movies are absolutely masterpieces in the martial arts genre, but they are meant for adult viewers who can distinguish between entertainment and reality. When a young impressionable kid watches it though, that&#8217;s the problem. The fight scenes are always exaggerated and sensationalised, and rarely do they accurately depict the actual brutality of violence.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Bruce Lee - Fist of fury [HD]\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/y9PkOR7kCrQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Scenes like the above are extremely\u00a0<em>cool<\/em>, but I feel like they do more to glorify violence than to warn against it &#8212; especially for young viewers. I remember fantasising about fictional scenarios where I was the hero fending off multiple villainous assailants, or defending the weak against bullies. I&#8217;d imagine myself doing a cool flying knee, or a massive side kick that send them flying away.<\/p>\n<p>So in a nutshell, I grew up having an egregiously romanticised idea of fighting and violence. I was extremely fortunate in that except for a couple of harmless scuffles with classmates, I never got into a real serious fight.<\/p>\n<h3>The Reality of Fights<\/h3>\n<p>The first time I actually stopped to think about the reality of fighting was after watching <em>Rocky IV.\u00a0<\/em>I was reading an interview with Dolph Lundgren, and he was commenting on how his character was still fighting even after having been hit repeatedly.<\/p>\n<p>He said that this was just a movie falsehood. In reality, even if he &#8212; a 1.96m, 120kg competitive fighter &#8212; got hit once in the head, he would get <em>knocked the fuck out<\/em>. That was a real eye-opening moment for me.<\/p>\n<p>Over time, as I started to see more video clips of real fights, I began to appreciate the brutality and the unpredictability of it even more. The scary truth is that the human body is stupidly fragile.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve seen way too many videos of people getting punched <em>once<\/em> and is immediately knocked unconscious. And it&#8217;s not like in the movies where someone gets knocked out and later wakes up only slightly disoriented. In reality, concussions mean that\u00a0<em>brain damage\u00a0<\/em>has most likely occurred.<\/p>\n<p>Even worse, many people die from a single punch. In Australia, apparently there have been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vifm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Cowards-Punch-Research-Update-2019.pdf\">127 one-punch deaths<\/a> between 2000 &#8211; 2016. In the majority of these deaths, the attacker never intended serious harm &#8212; they would lose their temper and throw a punch. It&#8217;s just a punch right? Well except that is enough to cause fatal brain trauma.<\/p>\n<p>And punching is not even necessary. I remember at least two videos of some drunk guys joke fighting each other. One guy pushes the other; he falls down, hits his head on the pavement, breaks his neck and <em>dies<\/em>. It&#8217;s ridiculously easy to kill someone.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 216px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('video');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-849-1\" width=\"216\" height=\"360\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"https:\/\/leminhha.vn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/DASH_360.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/leminhha.vn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/DASH_360.mp4\">https:\/\/leminhha.vn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/DASH_360.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I also used to think that strikes to the torso should be relatively safer compared to head strikes. Well, there are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/blogs\/the-beautiful-blog\/video-indonesian-soccer-player-killed-horror-tackle-blog-entry-1.1798280\">this soccer player<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stabroeknews.com\/2017\/04\/04\/news\/guyana\/girl-found-dead-bed-died-blunt-trauma-stomach\/\">this girl<\/a> who both died from a single kick to the stomach. The blunt force trauma from the kick eventually ruptured one of their internal organs.<\/p>\n<p>Of course these cases of death are rare, and most guys come out of a fight without life-threatening injuries. But still &#8212; just the possibility that it can happen is enough of a deterrent for me. I don&#8217;t ever want to live with the knowledge that my stupid punch ended someone&#8217;s life, accidentally or not.<\/p>\n<p>Another brutal reality of fights is that your opponent might have a weapon that you are completely unaware of. Street fights are not supposed to be <em>fair<\/em>. In the heat of the moment, the fighters will fight dirty &#8212; and weapons are simply one of the options. I have read countless stories of someone getting into a fight, only for the other guy to suddenly pull out a switchblade from his pocket. They get stabbed without even knowing they have been stabbed.<\/p>\n<p>Also, there&#8217;s a real possibility that after you have beaten up someone, they might come back for revenge. And they might bring their bros with them this time.<\/p>\n<h3>It&#8217;s Never Worth Fighting<\/h3>\n<p>So, to conclude, if you get into a fight, there are very high chances that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Either you or the other guy suffer traumatic injuries or even death.<\/li>\n<li>The other guy pulls a knife and skewers you.<\/li>\n<li>He calls his squad over to gang up on you.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In other words,\u00a0<em>nothing good\u00a0<\/em>comes from fighting. And the consequences are absolutely terrifying. You either end up in the hospital, the cemetery, or in jail. Fuck that.<\/p>\n<p>I have long come to the conclusion that in an increasingly tense situation &#8212; for example, some road raging hotheads looking to start a fight with me, I have three options:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Throw my ego out the window and apologise profusely. Defuse the situation. Even if he is clearly in the wrong.<\/li>\n<li>If he does not back down and keeps escalating: I&#8217;ll turn my back and bolt. Fuck everything else; I will run like there is no tomorrow.<\/li>\n<li>If he\u00a0<em>corners\u00a0<\/em>me and I have no other choice: I&#8217;ll fight.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I call this the\u00a0<strong>ABC\u00a0<\/strong>response: Apologise &#8211; Bolt &#8211; Crack. Only crack after you have apologised <em>and <\/em>have tried to bolt. Or as someone else has put it eloquently: <em>never fight unless cornered<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>There is also an excellent equivalent saying in Vietnamese: <em>M\u1ed9t ph\u00fat b\u1ed1c \u0111\u1ed3ng, c\u1ea3 \u0111\u1eddi b\u1ed1c c\u1ee9t. <\/em>It&#8217;s just never worth it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>These days, it still makes me cringe to think back about how I used to fantasise about fighting when I was younger. I&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1130,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169,159],"tags":[186],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leminhha.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leminhha.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leminhha.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leminhha.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leminhha.vn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=849"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/leminhha.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1135,"href":"https:\/\/leminhha.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions\/1135"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leminhha.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leminhha.vn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leminhha.vn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leminhha.vn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}