Bad Guys 101: White Belt Dreams, Suburban Nightmares

Preface

It was story time. The Edgelord ™ self-protection trainer told grim tales of blood and bones, his acolytes ready to worship his badassery. I wasn’t sure what we were learning but the stories were interesting. Daydreaming, I reflected on the standard range of bad guy analysis: anemic nonsense to worthless fan service. 

Too often Bad Guys are either the Keystone Kops or Gods of War. The former exhibits comical idiocy, falling instantly before the tool, tactic, or technique du jour. The latter is unstoppable, inescapable, (literally) incredible. Rare is the complex human. 

As the Edgelord ™ completed his treatise, I pondered functional models for understanding bad guydom, minus useless value judgments and assorted nonsense. The “Bad Guys 101” series was born. 

For clarity: “Bad Guy” equals “violent criminal.” Rory likes “threat” but I prefer this tone. Because, ultimately, he’s just. a. guy. I also agree with morality therein: Good and Evil exist.  Many aren’t Evil but I’ve never met a Good, currently active, BG. That said, they often have understandable reasons for their behavior and if not for the grace of God there go I. Literally. 

What follow are thought experiments, primarily. I make no excuses and pass no judgment; I merely examine the culture(s.) There are many themes worth understanding.

White Belt Dreams

“I ain’t buying his survivor bullshit…he’ll drop from a skull shot like any other man”

-Way of the Gun

At some point I recall debating with a martial artist online about whether SD/MA teachers held back teaching students their “secrets” due to fear. I perceived it as misplaced, though prevalent, concern: no matter what you teach/know, you can die. Skill and strength don’t make you invincible. My debate partner believed it wasn’t fear; it was a focus on survival. His instructor assumed a rogue student could use his secrets against him. I silently wondered which 70's Kung Fu movie I'd wandered into and whether someone had discovered effective parries for AK rounds.

The survivors I know didn't prevail primarily because of classified skillsets. Violence at their levels wasn’t a secret, nor overly technical. When guys with pistols snuck into your love nest or poisoned your cocaine, your patented pak sao didn’t mean much and outside knowledge of secret techniques accounted for precisely shit.

Make the wrong people mad enough and you'll need a lot more than good handspeed or a set of expensive toys. Preparing for violence is shaving dice; SD/MA folks furiously apply nail files while belt sanders sit dormant.

Priorities

One of my superpowers is that I’m assailable. I have black belts in exactly zero martial arts. I could list on one hand the number of “martial” certifications I currently hold. There are (more than likely) students who could make me look like an ass in a training environment. And it all matters…but none of it does. 

None of the murderers I know have black belts. I can only think of one acquaintance putting hot metal through lukewarm flesh with anything on paper validating it. And they're more likely than most grandmasters to be willing to put some copper coated candy in your son’s brainpan as he leaves lacrosse practice. Because very few martial art obsessions matter in the real world. 

Everybody Dies

That’s the thing about assailability: it applies to all of us. Your favorite designated badass is a meat bag with a computer attached whose off switch works the same as the rest of them. So don’t let your martial proficiency go to your head. If your instructor presumes invincibility, remember that the strongest and slickest fall off eventually. They all go soft. Assuming they ever *weren’t*. We will too.

That’s why I emphasize the "boring" stuff: creating allies; recognizing problems hours, days, months, or years beforehand; collecting intelligence; and presenting as somewhere between significant threat and food. Because a .00003 second draw won't matter when you’re unlocking the door with hands full of groceries and the last thing you hear is a pop. Even skillful teenagers don't fight; they hunt.

I'm not railing against physical skills. They’re fun to practice and, in a limited way, extremely useful. Cars with brakes and steering wheels still need airbags. And when it’s airbag time, accept no substitutes. Just be thoughtful about priorities and understand how violence occurs in the real world. Because the hitman your wife hires to kill you for insurance money probably doesn’t want to spar.

Violence isn’t all that complicated. Avoidance, if you're not born into it, isn’t either. It’s the dream worlds where we can live for 90 years as careless, comfortable badasses that create problems. 

Everything costs. 

-M