This article is true as well as hilarious. I’ll pretend I’m some Chinese guy with a name you can’t pronounce adding commentary to the Art of War.

1.  Always Walk Away

Yes, always walk Away calmly after the other guy is down and nonfunctional. It attracts less attention.

Sometimes a tactical retreat is good to have a better position from which to attack and maneuver, especially against multiple targets or superior weaponry. It’s like setting an ambush. It also can give the opponents a false sense of security.

Rather than thinking of walking away from it, think upon getting away with it. Getting away with a successful attack, and also getting away with it legally. You have to assume that the Victor will be viewed as the bad guy afterwards.

So I’m always thinking about witnesses and what they’re likely to see. If possible, look like the sheep but strike like the wolf.

So talking shit is a no no. Remaining calm and still until violently exploding is ideal. Walking is good because walking is calm and casual. But even if you appear to be walking away, in your mind you’re always walking toward – a better position to attack.

But you don’t just leave floating threats out there behind you. If you have to turn your back to an imminent threat, then you explode into a sprint to a better position and then prepare to ambush. Against a gun if you have none, and you’re too far away to close fast enough, for example.

2. I Train to Fight so I don’t have to Fight.

Obviously nonsensical. NFL football players only practice playing football for the exercise.

I don’t like the word “fight.” It implies a back and forth. I only believe in my going forth, not the opponent striking back.

As they say here, “train honestly.” If you’re totally honest then you can only train to destroy and kill. ANY violence is potentially fatal. This is not MMA or boxing or whatever. If you’re mindset is to fight then you’re likely to lose.

A lot of lawyers advertise that they will “fight for you.” They should be avoided. I want a guy who will completely destroy my enemy. It’s a whole different mindset. I have a saying that “killers don’t don’t fight, and fighting is for losers.”

For guys who may just want to fight, I just stand there and stare at them with no emotion. Waiting. Not talking. Talking shit is a sign of weakness and it also expends energy better conserved for destroying them. It’s also a distraction from observing them and noticing things. When someone is talking it’s usually the best time to attack them.

Warfare is also psychological, so – especially when there’s witnesses – you can attack their minds first by just calmly standing there and staring at them. No one can say your provoking them, but you’re basically mind raping them without doing anything. You’re sending a very clear message and sticking two daggers right into their eyeballs. I like doing this with mean dogs too. They tend to go nuts.

I use driving in traffic to train maintaining internal peace because there are so many disrespectful assholes who would never behave the way they do hiding in moving cages if they were in front of you in person.

One way I got my temper under control is by always thinking “how can I take them out and get away with it?” This may sound nuts, but it doesn’t mean that I actually do it. I just imagine it. You can’t be emotional and logical at the same time. So when someone greatly angers me, I switch from the anger to the planning. I always ask myself “what am I going to do about it, and how?” Or, “what could/would I do about it, and how?”

This works for any negative emotions. You switch the emotion to calm logic by planning a response. What are you going to do about it, and how? Can’t be emotional while planning. It’s impossible. So if you practice this response to emotional feelings, then it becomes a habit under pressure.

Anger is like a fire, but focus is like a laser. So if I lose my temper now, it turns into a cold laser rather than a massive forest fire.

But obviously training anything is for the purpose of using that training. I new a chick who was training boxing, and even worse training boxing while wearing massive pillows on her hands. Totally useless. In what scenario will you be taking someone out wearing massive pillows? Obviously she wasn’t serious.

So you don’t just train to kill, but you train under conditions which will allow to to operate under real world conditions. No one should ever use hand protection of any kind while striking heavy bags, for example. Idiotic. I take it a step further with a personal role that I only got heavy bags while blinds folded. I’m very wary of practicing on targets that don’t move so therefore I blind myself which helps to offset this habit handicap and build balance. You also learn to hit properly because of you don’t – especially when punching – it’s going to hurt. As a result of this, I don’t make a fist in the usual way and I don’t hit in the usual way. In fact, my obsession with the drop step, as taught here, has really taken it up a few notches. Hitting blind- especially punching – means that you have to hit in a way that you won’t wreck your fists or wrists if you don’t land perfectly placed punches. Much easier not to punch at all but I like to throw in the punches too because since they’re more fragile they highlight bad technique.

So you train physically and emotionally. For the sole purpose of destroying bad guys. Not tussling with them.

3. Violence Never Solves Anything.

Violence solves everything. Faith is violence. It’s internal violence. The refusal to give in to thoughts of doubt and the tyranny of emotion and anxiety. So violence is first internal before its external. Kick your own ass first.

Violence is always first psychological. Whether within yourself or directed at your enemy. Standing there calmly staring into the eyes of your enemy is to have already begun their destruction. They know what’s coming if they’re merely trying to intimidate.

Other times, in the interest of total surprise, maybe it’s better to avoid this and then explode out of nowhere. Either way, in your mind, you’ve already begun the violence. To imagine is to do.

4. Violence is Never the Answer.

Someone – probably a lot of people – said that “when violence is the answer, it’s the only answer.” As long as evil exists, its puppets will be walking around waiting to be removed from earth. They’re out there. And so are we.

5. Use Non-Lethal Techniques First.

A warm hug is one of the few non lethal techniques I’m aware of. Although an enthusiastic hug may potentially be fatal.

Any violent act is potentially fatal, so one should plan on it being fatal from the start. This will also keep you from getting into idiotic fights that don’t matter. Grown men can’t just punch each other without death or serious injury being a possible outcome.

Using holds and pain compliance is generally a bad idea because this doesn’t destroy the targets ability to function. But it does highly piss them off and amp up their desire to murder you. So these things may be useful for cops with lots of backup as they take down some drunk imbecile. But one on one, you’re playing with your life doing this crap.

Not only that but these techniques require a lot more energy than just striking someone. And then you have to hold these techniques because if you let them go… and if you use a hold to break something then why not just break something with a strike to begin with?

So I consider this stuff mainly useful for guys with a gang of backup to restrain the target.

You don’t want to want to embarrass or shame the target because you will greatly motivate them to kill you. Enraging them while not actually injuring them is a really bad idea. You must seriously injure them so that they are unable to attack you. If they’re angry enough they may sacrifice a body part for the joy of pulling a knife and sticking it into your throat or whatever.

I just imagine that I’m attacking myself. I know what my anger’s like once it’s turned on. I don’t want to face that. Especially when it’s controlled and focused. That’s even worse.

I think the average person should avoid all this. Holds are easier to get after initial injury anyway. But injury and destruction should be the priorities.

Sometimes I like to think about fighting zombies who can’t die. Even if they can’t die, they can’t hurt you without their structure being intact. So a zombie with its legs or ankles broken can’t chase you, for example. Or if it’s skull has been crushed or removed.

6. Always let your attacker, attack first.

Ideally, attack by complete surprise is not defendable. So it’s an obvious preference.

In some situations, especially with witnesses, it may be ideal to allow someone to attack first because you’re ready for them without appearing to be ready. Action doesn’t always beat reaction, especially if the reaction is waiting for the trigger.

I will continue to say that the drop step – using the ground to strike – is the most important part of the “system “ taught here because it allows strikes out of nowhere with zero telegraphing or wind up while amplifying power to devastating levels.

Baiting someone to attack first may be useful, if it makes sense at the time. Even letting someone punch you in the head may be useful. Easy enough to move your head a few inches so the punch does nothing. Bruises are meaningless. Or break their fist on your forehead.

It’s all based on the situation. You can’t have blanket rules for everything. But if you know they mean to hurt you badly, then just destroy them without warning obviously.

Witnesses can complicate things. But witnesses are also bad for the bad guys. If they’re real bad then they’re going to generally avoid having witnesses around too. So in this case just immediately destroy them.

If there are witnesses present, then they likely aren’t serious about actually trying to kill you. Just impose their ego. In which case you can probably just stare at them and wait.

7. Always fight ‘honorably’.

Fighting honorably means that good triumphs over evil. By any means available.

If you’re a sane army general then you only have two ideal objectives. First, that the enemy surrenders completely without a battle. Second, that you ambush and massacre their entire army without losing a single guy. Or, you ambush and massacre their entire chain of command and then their army is useless. This would be like turning someone’s brain off, versus destroying their body while they remain conscious somehow. If I’m a general, I only plan for the second – total annihilation – while hoping for total surrender.

But honor means that good wins. Period. Evil isn’t honorable, and they deserve no mercy. Mercy is extended to the good guys, not the bad guys.

Movies constantly drive me nuts with this idea that good guys have to going bad guys a fair shot. Absolutely not. The bad guy, by virtue of being a bad guy, gets nothing but death. Stop talking and just shoot him, for Christ’s sake. You already know he’s a bad guy! Don’t disarm him and let him walk away. If you can disarm him, then you should kill him. He’s a f—cking bad guy!

Like, why would you even bother capturing terrorists? Only for Intel I would imagine. Otherwise, none of them should ever survive.

Anyways, great article, and as always I think people should be ruthlessly honest about what exactly “self defense” really is. Which is killing the enemy.