hey Will, i feel like we are very similar in our approach to meeting people. I always step in with value and trying to uplift others, but sometimes you get the person who sees that as a sign of weakness and wants to take advantage.
I always delete them from my existence the moment I sense this and I have a strict "no asshole policy." I never throw the first punch, but if my asshole radar is going off, I bring the war.
Hey Lobo, yeah that's pretty much my approach. There's three main reasons, the first is that I usually put more value in giving someone the best chance to become a friend or acquaintance than I put in correcting an adversary, so I always offer that side of myself first. The second reason is that many times someone who starts off adversarial can be brought into a functioning relationship if you treat them the right way, and a big part of that is the sense of who is more in control and able to afford restraint. And thirdly I just enjoy not being affected by anyone.
I'm already a big guy, but I plan on training in fighting at some point as well... do you have any recommendations for a style that's good in real life scenarios, say a bar, or on the street with unpredictable circumstances. I know they are all good, but what I'm looking for is something that will allow me to quickly disable anyone, regardless of their weapons.
I haven't been in many fights in my life outside of my kickboxing training. I take it as a sign that I'm doing something right, because I don't avoid situations that could end up that way. But somehow I am often able to get someone who is ready to be provocative to pay attention to me rather than simply express their emotions, and that goes a long way toward defusing things. And I am not a particularly big or physically imposing guy.
For fights I believe there is only one real skill that is essential and that is the ability to throw a good punch. I'm inclined to say kickboxing but frankly I wouldn't ever throw a kick IRL, the risk of losing balance and ending up on the ground is too much. Wrestling is good to know in case, but you can't really subdue someone with wrestling when there's more than one. Anything on the ground is already way too risky IMO.
It is very good to know how to throw an elbow too, as it can be brutally effective and impossible to see coming during a grappling scenario, let's say if someone has their hands around your neck you get your arms on the inside and then just snap/rotate your elbow across the face.
Similarly, knees are fairly good, if you can pull someone's head down. If you're a very big guy you'll probably have an easier time with this.
In anything serious, I'd just go for the face with everything I had, with some basic knowledge of trips and throws to dump someone who got too close for punches.
I've never had to take a weapon off someone (though I have had a gun pointed at me while travelling), so I can't give any advice on that. Frankly I think if someone produces a weapon, you're better off conceding your wallet and your frame, and only fight if they were only there to cause harm. The risk factor goes through the roof. If I had to fight I wouldn't do anything differently for a manual weapon, probably just go for the face again and try to cause some pain fast while avoiding the weapon as best I could. I would never try to close distance at all but find any scrap of opportunity to get away.
If it's a gun and he's out to shoot you dead, just run like hell and hope he's a bad shot.
However what really interests me is that frame you were talking about. More specifically, how do you create that frame where you're not hostile, still remain charismatic, but also aren't an easy target(i think that's what you meant).
It's very difficult to describe what 'charisma' or 'edge' is in words. In terms of being dominant, I believe that the best way to describe it is someone who not only has a strong frame, but who is ACTUALLY willing and capable to impose it, though not frantic to do so.
Sometimes you see someone who is trying to be dominant or intimidating, but it is as if they are possessed by two minds, one which wants to go forward and the other one back. This makes them appear to struggle against an invisible web, exaggerate things, and generally show a lot of consternation and inner turmoil even when only faced with mild opposition. This triggers the aggression reflex in other people.
Someone who is not an easy target is someone who does not suffer so much the burden of what they might have to do, but is simply ready to do it. It is someone who, through circumstances, has already faced the question of how to respond to hostility and found that they have been able to meet its requirements - or at least they have faced the prospect of failure enough times that they are ready to face the question with bias. They have, as they say, a clear mind and a good conscience about what they may have to do.
There is also a more ambiguous 'edge' to people who have positively faced any kind of excruciating challenge to their physical or mental wellbeing. It may be partly because they have a better sense of themselves, or partly because they have experienced a closeness with total failure that gives them a kind of tranquility - after all anxiety is almost always about the things we know very little about, not the things we know well.
Another way to look at it: some people, through their experiences, have been trained to recoil from risk and danger, and other people have been trained to move toward it with intention. What makes a person do one or the other is hard to say, and it can change depending on what they go through. But I believe a big part of being a 'hard target' is having the reflex and the instinct (beneath the conscious level) to move toward and dominate problems rather than moving away. These reflexes express very subtly through body language during the build up to any conflict and very much determine how comfortable the opposing party is to keep escalating at each step.
In fact to be dominant, often all a person has to do is not make the small expressions of retreat or submission under pressure that many people do completely unconsciously in the course of socializing. Because the dynamic of this is so subtle, no one can say why they have such a strong 'presence', but the signal is very clear at the subconscious level.
PS:
I once had an experience in social circle, where a one-sided adversary caught me a fool(honestly was my fuck up), but the guy was really laying down the verbal punches and I was just there trying to study. I was fine ignoring him, but then one of the girls in the social circle(the one I was fucking at the time) started jumping in too, which encouraged the other girls to pile on as well! Out of fucking nowhere, it was a 1 on 4 and I was not prepared for that. Idk why this happened, thought we were friends. I had a strong lover frame with the girls as I had fucked 2/3 of them. I think it was because I bought them taco bell that day, which broke the frame. I also just had more tacit value than them, and something that I've noticed is that only people weaker than me, or scared of me, come after me.
I remember this vividly, and it was a painful, but it taught me an important lesson.
Context always matters in these kind of things. If it's a big group, and especially if I didn't know some or all of them very well, I'd show a lot of restraint - after all they aren't my friends yet and don't have a lot of value. But if you're one on one with a guy and a bunch of girls, you're going to have to be a lot more ready to play the game. Two guys and a bunch of girls is always trouble (or fun, depending on your point of view). It always becomes a mating competition, you're the only one he has to handle to be the 'winner'.
Girls know this, they very often pit men against eachother, after all their job is that of evaluation, and competition is the easiest way to evaluate two males. And if you're not being a sport, it's not surprising they'd pile in a bit. I wouldn't hold it against them though - regardless if you've laid her before if a girl isn't your girl, she's not going to be loyal. Guys can bond over some shared experience and feel like mates years later, a girl pretty much gets her perspective overwritten next dude she goes to bed with. And that's all well and good in many ways.
