A gift of insult

 The gift of insults

Near Tokyo lived a great Samurai warrior, now old, who decided to teach Zen Buddhism to young people. In spite of his age, the legend was that he could defeat any adversary.
     One afternoon, a warrior - known for his complete lack of scruples - arrived there. He was famous for using techniques of provocation: he waited until his adversary made the first move and, being gifted with an enviable intelligence in order to repair any mistakes made, he counterattacked with fulminating speed.
     The young and impatient warrior had never lost a fight. Hearing of the Samurai's reputation, he had come to defeat him, and increase his fame.
     All the students were against the idea, but the old man accepted the challenge. 
     All gathered on the town square, and the young man started insulting the old master. He threw a few rocks in his direction, spat in his face, shouted every insult under the sun - he even insulted his ancestors. For hours, he did everything to provoke him, but the old man remained impassive. At the end of the afternoon, by now feeling exhausted and humiliated, the impetuous warrior left.
     Disappointed by the fact that the master had received so many insults and provocations, the students asked: 
     - How could you bear such indignity? Why didn't you use your sword, even knowing you might lose the fight, instead of displaying your cowardice in front of us all?
     - If someone comes to you with a gift, and you do not accept it, who does the gift belong to? - asked the Samurai.
     - He who tried to deliver it - replied one of his disciples.
     - The same goes for envy, anger and insults - said the master. - When they are not accepted, they continue to belong to the one who carried them.

Term “Self defense”  is well known to all martial arts practitioners , and not only to them and its meaning is clear . While the meaning of the term is clear ,  a countermeasure that involves defending the health and well-being of oneself from harm.  there is a lot of confusion and debating about what self defense really is or is not . the most common is an opinion that it is an effective way to physically incapacitate the attacker, and there are situations when it is really unavoidable   , but what is more than often forgotten is the fact that self defense is much wider area and physical confrontation is the last resort . The  most important aspect of self defense is a prevention , the best solution to every attack is prevent it to happen . Again , prevention is often not fully understood and often is incomplete because  it lacks very important part . Awareness is extremely  important as well as  all those measures that help us to even come to the situation of becoming a victim of criminal assault . But this is not what I want to talk about in this article . I want to talk about street fights . It very rare situation where someone just attack other person without any reason , these kind of assaults are very rare . Street fight always has a “reason”. Either someone says something , give a “look” or act offensive somehow . People got pulled into a fight because they react on these kind of things ,they got offended or scared or both and they react  instinctively , without thinking. Truth is,  almost all street fights can be avoided. We have to understand what kind of people provoke others to fight. It is clear that normal person have no desire to hurt others , not physically nor emotionally. Only disturb people have urges to hurt others . These urges might be caused by mental illness but in most cases cause is  inferiority complex (an unrealistic feeling of general inadequacy caused by actual or supposed inferiority in one sphere,.). More than often these people were abused somehow as children . There are many reasons that cause people feel this way , usually they have no accomplishments of any kind , they lack education and intelligence ,sometimes they are physically inadequate (at last that is what they are thinking ) more than often belong to lower levels of society , or simply put , their life suck in some way and they have no mental and emotional capabilities to deal with that like a normal person .Strong feeling of inadequacy ,helplessness and fear these people try to compensate through violence . Often they try to provoke people who they envy , who have something they don’t . And this brings us to the story from the beginning . When someone tries to offend me or challenge me I do not give any response to that , I am aware what kind of person can behave in such a manner and I simply do not give them control over my emotion , because that is what they are trying to do . If you got offended by someone who doesn’t know anything about you and your life you gave up control to that person and you already lost , regardless of the outcome of the fight .If you show you care about what they say you just give them reason to continue and they will not stop because they feed on negative emotions of other people . But if you stay calm and refuse to participate in their game , all these negativity will stay with them .And the most important question is why would anyone care about what some random  people talk about them. Personally , I feel sorry for them , because only they know what is the burden they have to carry .

Many people got involved in street fights because they think they are cowards if they do not give a response to challenge , but they everything but right . That is exactly what attacker wants . Sometimes they can be persistent and it is really hard to stay calm , but every time I find myself in that situation I think about my family and what is more important , to prove an idiot I am not a coward or to go back to my family instead to go to jail .My family depends on me and I won’t  allow myself to end up in jail and spend time in a court because some idiot’s inferiority complex. I have got a lot of challenges over time I never responded to any , simply I have better things to do than fight with people who actually need professional medical help . Does that mean I cannot fight? Of course not , I practice Chinese boxing hard , every day , for years  and I am more than capable to defend my family and myself , that is the thing everyone will find out if comes to physical engagement and I won’t lose ,because I know what am I fighting for .Knowing what am I capable of, it is easy to just walk away . 

The hardest fight is with yourself , to control your emotions , to keep the inner beast dormant , to allow reason and logic to stay in control . It is very hard to achieve that , very , very hard . Person must be emotionally mature and stabile on the first place but when certain level of emotional maturity is reached it is easy to truly understand people and circumstances we are in and to give proper response to that .Martial arts training can help a lot , but it is not crucial , what is important is how we perceive things and whether or not we put them in the correct context . If someone says something bad to me I can react like a child and hit him or understand that normal person would never do such a thing and just let it go. And if we let go , we win , because we know what did and why as well as the other guy , he will be aware of the fact that he lost not because we are afraid but because we know who he is , that he is not worth of our time nor our attention . All that negative emotion, insults , rage , fear , all that will stay with him to eat his poor soul like worm .