My Japanese teacher belonged to a privileged generation when he was in school. Japanese schools had back then mandatory lessons in kyūdō (弓道), kendō (剣道), and karate–dō (空手道). This has certainly added very much to the superiority of the Japanese society, which is often admired for being more than any other society free of crimes and violence. Of course only in comparison with other societies. Not any crime is unknown in Japan. Meanwhile only elitist schools offer lessens in traditional Japanese arts. This certainly adds to make the Japanese society less and less friendly and harmonious. This is one of the many reasons why I advocate that self-defense should be taught to everybody and as early as possible.

But there is also a way of teaching “self-defense”, which makes me angry. I already watched tv shows, where was shown certainly with a good intention how to inflict damage on an “attacker”. It has been repeatedly proven that people copy what they see in tv! They are like monkeys! Hence what to show in tv should always be reckoned thoroughly. Shooting at people or killing people in any way or for any reason hence shouldn’t be shown! But tv is in a terrible condition. When people find themselves in a fight unexpectedly, what already proves the failures of schools, then they often try to copy what they did watch in a movie. Martial arts choreography in movies has the tendency to be completely unrealistic. This determines the results of such behaviour. So it is actually good, when self-defense is taught in tv, on the internet, and elsewhere. But if this consists only of showing how to inflict pain or damage, then this is at least as good for offensive actions as for self-defense. Stupid people will copy it and attack other people this way!

So this inconsiderate way of teaching actually teaches how to attack other people effectively! This makes the situation in our society only worse. Additionally to the hazards, which existed previously, harmless people are also threatened by crazy wannabe-action-movie-heroes now. Thorough teachers of self-defense have to teach how to stop such people and not to produce such people!

I regret that I show an image in my article on muay thai, where one guy pokes his fingers in the eyes of another guy. I want to show that muay thai isn’t only sports and this certainly isn’t sportsmanlike behaviour. I would of course prefer to show a picture, where it is clear that it is a self-defense situation. But such pictures are very difficult to find. Already because I can’t tell from a picture whether a real self-defense situation has occurred. Nobody can tell this. So it is very important to never only teach: Do this or do that! But always teach: In the situation of … do this because … or that because …! This is not only very important for producing less many criminal elements in our society, but also a good guideline if you are searching a capable teacher.