Question re; your experience

The truth is, I've never been the Seven Samurai type. I'm more likely to be the guy on the black horse than the white one!

I've never really been in that kind of situation where I had to protect someone who was in my care, or where I felt I must intervene on somebody's behalf. I've observed people intervening in situations on the street many times, and it often goes the wrong way. It's a dodgy area.

When I fight train, I play the fight backwards to find out what I need to do. But when I'm out on the street I'm 'playing it forward' as to what might develop and what the consequences might be. I try to be always a couple of moves ahead. As a young man, I would go out looking for fights, and that is still part of my nature. But my tendency nowadays is to avoid places where confrontation might take place. I've had a couple of cautions from the police and it would be tempting fate to live the lifestyle that I lived before.

Let's say I did intervene in a situation, I don't see myself as being someone with the management skills to calm things down! It would probably escalate. That's why I didn't last as a bouncer. Enough said!

The only people I would really protect are my family, and I try to keep us out of environments that I recognize as being compromising.

Of course, there was the time in Benghazi when I saved 300 men from certain death. I killed the camp cook.

steve morris wrote:
But when I'm out on the street I'm 'playing it forward' as to what might develop and what the consequences might be.

For me, this is an especially important note and one I can understand. I believe it comes with experience. I have a lot of thoughts on this and have been up and down this issue through the years.

Tommy

Bloody Nuisance wrote:Tommy,

What are your thoughts on this subject?

I'll get back to this a little later,

Tommy

Tommy P's posts deleted at his request.

Dylan I know there was no harm intended here, but I think it's best if we don't try to draw people out too much on their personal experience as perhaps this could be compromising.

Thanks.

Steve

Thank you Steve and my apologies for any inconvenience.

I agree with Tommy that once the fight starts all bets are off (and you can't think about the consequences too much).

However, in pre-fight it's a different story and you should avoid getting involved unless you have no other option - as the saying goes: "fools rush in where angels fear to tread".

I once stepped in when two friends of mine were being threatened by three guys outside a club. My 'pals' then froze and a 3 on 3 fight became 3 on 1!

I don't consider myself a top fighter by any means, but luckily these guys were poor and I managed to see them off. I limped off home the hero of the hour, but woke in agony the next day. I was on crutches for a week with ligament damage and had headaches for weeks afterwards.

These guys ran out of gas and lost heart when they couldn't put me away. Two ran off and the third one squared up again but then bottled it when he saw I was ready for more (lucky for me as I was almost 'gone' myself). I guess I 'won' the fight but didn't really damage any of them too much - and if these guys had been better fighters I would have been in SERIOUS trouble.

I'd had a few beers that night and this coupled with being an 'angry young man' at the time of the incident, meant that I got involved in a situation that in retrospect I shouldn't have!

Another story involves some friends of mine. They were at a house party and a guy crashed the party, made a nuisance of himself and then disappeared. My friend S went to investigate where he was and found the guy in bed tampering with the passed-out girlfriend of the host!

S momentarily lost his bottle and allowed the guy to dash outside, but then gave chase with another friend and caught the guy a few hundred yards away. They gave him a kicking in the street and left him unconscious.

The attack was witnessed but my friends were long gone by the time the police and ambulance arrived. The next week the local paper carried a story about a savage, unprovoked group attack on a defenceless man.

So next time you see someone getting a beating, think about what they might have done to warrant it. For all you know you might be stepping in to save the local sex case!

Incidentally, I don't visit the nightclub from my first story any more. To steal a line from Geoff Thompson: "the beer there gives me a headache!"

Hi Steve,

I hope you don't mind me posting those stories. I know that in general you don't really want these forums to be full of "I did this, my mate did that" etc.

I was trying to illustrate the dangers of getting involved from my own experience - and to try and show that not all victims of violence are 'innocent' ones.

I hope that is ok with you,

Sammy

Yeah, sure, no problem. You're absolutely right. Things aren't always as they appear, and I've seen incidents like you describe happen many, many times.

The only thing I can say on this thread, really, is that if you're going to be Batman, then you'd better fucking well be able to actually administer justice with your fists. It's no good being a good deed doer if you haven't got the equipment to back your good deeds up with. You'll get punished.