Are the Martial Arts Useful?

People sometimes ask me, upon learning that I am an advanced degree in martial arts, "have you ever used it." I don't have an exciting story to tell them about how I bested a bunch of thugs in a dark alley somewhere, somehow, someday. That never happened, and don't think ever will happen, not now and not ever, I think.

When one is an early student of the martial arts one often feels "tough" and may even swagger about a bit. Sometimes one even hopes for an encounter where skills can be shown…fortunately that rarely happens, for everyone, including the student. As studies progress, skills increase and confidence level builds, there is less of a need or desire to demonstrate and more of a feeling that "if I had to I could."

After a time, and I am now a third degree black belt, and if one is fortunate in having had the right teachers and maybe having done other studies as well, there is no need to prove oneself and one radiates an aura or a presence that is perceptible to others who are tuned in.

But back to that question about "have you ever used your martial arts training." Well, yes, there was a time but it wasn't exactly a fight but it did, I think, save someone's life. Here's what happened.

It was a few years ago on a Friday night just after work, in New York City, in the subway, steaming hot, on the platform at 42nd St going uptown. I was waiting for my train when one came in, packed solid. The doors open and nobody on the platform moved because it was hopeless to get in…except one man. Who knows what his story was, why he was so desperate to get on, or foolish, as it turns out, but he hurled himself at that solid mass of humanity in an effort to get into the train. It happened that the particular person that he hit was a tall, broad young man, in his late 20s, who, I would say, didn't take kindly to being hurled at. He shouted "get out! There is no room."

By the way the self-hurler was a good foot shorter and a good 20 or 30 years older. But that didn't stop him from making another attempt to get in, unfortunately in the same place and against the same tall, strong looking young man. This time his efforts were greeted with a stream of profanities and a really angry look. Now, at this point, anybody with half a brain would take the next train. What happened next nearly cost this hapless fellow his whole brain.

Yes he did it! He tried a third time to get in, pushing at the same enraged sizable fellow. What happened next was unpleasant but predictable. The young man exploded out of the train, carrying the smaller, foolish, older man in front of him and screaming at the top of his lungs, "I'm gonna kill you!" (I can't say what he said in print and I think they have the same rules on the Internet, don't they? But you get the idea.) He repeated that same string of epithets again and again with rising intensity as he beat the poor, foolish, unfortunate to the ground with a flurry of kicks and blows.

In less than two seconds, the older fellow was on the ground with the young man continuing to batter him with devastating effect. Here was the situation: The older man was on the ground with his head being bounced between the steel pillar and the concrete platform. I gave him about five seconds to brain damage and maybe ten seconds to no brain at all.

I considered my options. Nobody else on the platform, of course, made a move. In that instant of my observation of others, I noticed a clear gender distinction. The men were nervously gazing away or pushing their nose into a book or newspaper as if they would eat it. The women, on the other hand, were watching in shock and horror, unable to tear their eyes away. Remembering this later I thought, well, the guys are probably embarrassed, thinking they should do something but afraid to do anything; while the women, knowing that they're not expected to do anything, could just let themselves feel their feelings of fear, sympathy, horror etc.

Here's what I did. I lunged at the young man and pushed him hard in the chest, shouting at the same time, "Stop it, you going to kill him and there’s a policeman right over there!" He stopped the kicking, I had actually pushed him several feet away from the prone figure of the battered, bleeding older man and he stood motionless for a moment staring at me. Now this fellow had about 30 or 40 pounds on me and it wasn't fat either; and I was twice his age. On the other hand, I could tell from the way he was flailing away with his hands and feet that he was not a trained martial arts practitioner.

Here's what ran through my mind at that moment. I thought I could handle whatever might happen because of my martial arts training but I didn't think I would have to handle anything and you'll see why. What I did and the reason I did it was to give him an instant to let his reasoning take over his animal instinct.

In more technical psychological terms, what happened to him was that he was hijacked by his amygdala. The amygdala is a tiny part of the brain that is a "life saver" from primitive times. This is the part of the brain that springs into action instantly to save your life when a rock falls from the top of your cave or a saber toothed tiger jumps at you. It is not time for rational thought. The higher thinking parts of the brain, the cerebral cortex etc. has no time to act. The amygdala pumps in the adrenaline and instantly puts us in a defensive/offensive/flight mode that saves your life when instant action is required.

Nowadays, with fewer saber tooth tigers leaping at us, the amygdala still "hijacks" the higher thinking processes. Only now it can be for a number of reasons which are certainly not directly related to our immediate survival. For example, these trigger events can range from being cut off by another car in traffic (the famous "road rage") to some clumsy person spilling something on us. The reaction is the same, instant unreasoning, towering rage. We have all seen it a thousand times and usually the best thing to do is to stay in the background until it works itself out.

On that hot Friday evening on the New York subway platform, that young man who was being pushed at by the rather foolish fellow fighting to get in the overcrowded train didn't want to kill anybody and probably didn't want to hurt anybody either, but he couldn't help himself. But he did need a little help, and that's what I gave him I gave him an instant to let his higher reasoning functions back into the act and overrule the lower primitive part of his brain that was telling him "kill, kill, kill."

I guess you're wondering what happened next; did he redirect his rage to me? Did he go back to kicking the fellow on the ground, who, by this time, had crawled around to the other side of the pillar? Did the "policeman" do anything to anybody?

Well, to begin with, there was no "policeman". There was a guy in a uniform, some kind of subway station attendant, and he not did want to get involved at all--it was not his job. He was edging away from the whole scene. And then, in a moment, another train pulled into the station and we all rushed into it, including the angry young man, continuing to shout, in lower and lower tones, that same set of expletives.

We were a foot or so apart in that uptown train for the several minutes until I get off at my stop. He never even looked at me. I didn't exist as far as he was concerned. Part of him, I'm sure, was glad I did exist and had saved him from doing something he would doubtless have regretted for a long time. There is one thing, however, I am sure about and that is, if I or someone else, had not stepped forward within those few seconds, there would have been another one of those small items in the Daily News the next day about a fight and a senseless killing in the subway.

So, I guess I have used my martial arts training because I would've been afraid to bang that big, powerful looking and very angry man in the chest at that moment if I were not quite secure and confident that I could handle anything he chose to try to do to me. But that's just a graphic and somewhat dramatic instance. I think over many days and in many ways, I "use" my martial arts training because I feel the peace of mind and confidence knowing that have nothing to fear.