Karateforums posting.

Once again, I was enjoying reading some postings at Karateforums.com. People are still posting replies to a question I made a while ago.

Another topic intrigued me: Is TKD effective? It was about whether TKD was good for streetfighting. I read a bunch of posts, and they bugged me. So I posted a reply, and I wonder if people will read it and what they'll think.

This is what I said.

I don't know, maybe I'm way off here, but isn't one of the purposes of martial arts to be the kind of person who DOESN'T get into fights?

I'm not talking about true self-defense here, fighting because someone else has made the first move. I'm talking about adding to violence on the street or whereever just because you can--because you are a powerful weapon and you want to use this to get at people who bug you or threaten you or whatever.

I really don't think that's the purpose of martial arts.

My instructor, who is 7th dan and in his early 50s, says he is very proud of the fact that he never had to use TKD on the street until about 10 years ago when two guys jumped on him on a city street. He says he was easily able to "immobilize" both and get away, but what he's really proud of is that he went so long without fighting.

It seems like if we do martial arts right, we learn how to be calm in a hot situation, how to have self-control, how to respect others, even how to walk away from an insult. We know we can use force, and we can if we have to. But it should take a LOT more for us to "have to" use force.

Any thoughts on this at all?

Here's the link if you're interested in reading what everyone says.