Well I have taken hapkido, hwarng go and tai kwon do. In some cases it is better to attack first because you control distance and momentom.The bad side of tat is you cant really attack with out leaving your self open to a counter attack and you balance is messed up if you miss. 2 examples: I was sparing a young woman who is 3 belts higher then me but I outweighed her by allot and I came from another martial art. I used a back legged round kick (figured one kick and she is floored) she spun and back kicked me in the gut, even though I am bigger then her over 100 lbs) I was un able to continue another time I was sparring someone who was taller then me, we bowed once he stepped back I used the same kick. seeing as I was to close for him to kick me and he dealt with full power he keeled over. -----Original Message----- From: Tsarren [mailto:tsarren at alyra.org] Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2005 5:14 AM To: dragaera at dragaera.info Subject: Defender always wins? (Was: Re: on contradictions and such) On Sun, Feb 06, 2005 at 08:48:20AM -0500, MedCat7 at aol.com wrote: > Oh, by all means, I thought it was a great plan. And it does make sense. I > -just thought it was a great contradiction that defender starts the war. > -If you really think on it, and it just dawned on me the logic in that > -even as I type, it makes perfect sense. (Not to be a total nerd, but) In > -a video game I play, and NPCs will even suggest, if you taunt another > -NPC, they will attack you, and you are defending youself. You want them > -to attack you, so you don't got to prison for starting the fight. (Such a > -great game...) C Anyone on the list study aikido or something similar? For those who don't, aikido is based around the idea that you can use your attacker's energy (resources, whatever) against them instead of initiating your own attacks. A question I asked my sensei once when we were studying katana technique (one of the roots of aikido is how to survive in battlefield chaos when you've lost your sword for some reason) was, "assuming two opponents of equal skill, is there ever an adavantage to attacking first?" Unfortunately he didn't answer my question - he was informally facing off against another student since he'd previously been demonstrating something, and he quickly (and gently) attacked the student, who of course didn't respond, as we do not have any kind of freeform sparring training with bokken. Opponent not of equal skill. Anyone care to discuss the question, on any scale? Kat