[Draven]

Originally Posted by WC_Lun

No, in my opinion it doesn't. If you are really threatened you will rely on fight or flight response. If its fight you will rely on the reactions you have trained into your body...if you have trained long enough. If there is not enough threat to generate this response then it really isn't much of a self-defense situation.

No against a creature of your own species you have four responses, fight, flight, submit or position. Positioning is where you "front strength" to appear stronger and cause your opponent to back down or submit. Submission is where you step down and give in and of course we all know fight or flight. But, confronted with a stray dog you will either run away (at some point even you back away slowly then run) or hit the dog with a stick, rocks whatever. This isn't so when confronted with the a dawg from the local watering hole or even a mugger.

Thats is the reason allot a traditional martial arts included philosophy (which expressed psychological principles), because fighting methods are not enough when dealing with people. Truly alive training, deals not only with sparring and techniques but with understanding how and why you are doing what you are doing. Alive training means growing and adapting principles, building your own methodology, I watched the Lost Kingdom yesterday and they gave the best discription of a martial art in discussing kung-fu. That being the line "that one learns a system to find the master within and learns the form but is formless." There is more to self-defense then throwing punches or choking out an attacker...