Confrontation: Did Aikido Help?

This morning was the first time since I've started studying the self-defense art of Aikido that I faced a confrontation where I might have to physically defend myself. So, did studying Aikido help?

The situation: I pulled my car up to the air pump at the local gas station to check my tires. Just as I'm getting out of my car, a guy in a lowrider car, covered in prison tattoos, suddenly appears about 25 feet behind me, swearing at me: "F---ing asshole!", over and over again.

He backs his car up, gunning his engine and screeching his tires, and darts in alongside my car. It's hard to understand what he's yelling, but it sounds like he's chastising me for using the air pump without buying gas. (I hadn't bought any gas, that day, but I buy gas there all the time.)

Here's where I think Aikido helped. First of all, no, I didn't even consider doing some awesome technique on him; that would have gotten my ass kicked. Instead, with that blend of instinct and conscious thought that we try to develop in our training, I just made sure I kept a safe distance from him. I was aware that the car behind me could trap my escape, so I backed towards the back end of my car. Most importantly, I remained calm. I didn't get a big adrenaline rush, just the same relaxed posture with loose shoulders I've been working on lately.

But I'd only give myself a B on how I handled the situation because I did one thing that could have provoked him. I wasn't quite sure if I he was angry because I had cut him off while he was driving up to the air pump (I'm pretty sure I hadn't) or I had just happened to wander into the path of an angry man. I said to him, "Go ahead. You can go first." on the not-too-well-thought-out theory that it might disarm his anger a little. The problem was that I couldn't keep my eyes from squinting, just a little, in "you are a crazy-ass person" mockery. The smart move would have been to say absolutely nothing and show absolutely nothing.

I got in my car and drove away. This left me exposed to an attack while I was getting in the car. I did wait until he was occupied with unscrewing the cover on his valve stem before I approached my car door, and I kept my eyes on him. I'd like to say I timed it that way intentionally, but I hadn't. Perhaps the smarter thing would have been to walk over to the gas station office where a bunch of other people were standing.

Besides actual training in the dojo, it helped that I've been reading the Aikido Journal blog. They've had more than one article, some written by macho guys like former Army Rangers, pointing out exactly why it is dumb, very dumb to get involved in a fight that you can avoid -- you can get badly hurt. It's not worth it. In this case, about three minutes later, the guy was gone, my tires were checked, and I was peacefully getting on with my life.

Talk Is Economical

Ever since this recession hit, I've felt the need to shore up my rudimentary understanding of Economics. If for no other reason than to deal with the staggering amount of bullshit economic punditry that is bombarding us all lately.

I've found a wonderful podcast called EconTalk, hosted by Russ Roberts, a Professor of Economics at George Mason University. Roberts has a consistently interesting line up of guests, mostly (but not all) economists. The interviews are free of jargon and academic pomposity, but not dumbed down like NPR's "Planet Money". The episodes cover a wide variety of topics from the workings of the Federal Reserve to third-world economic development.

The most interesting episode so far was Roberts' interview with Nassim Taleb, author of two books that I keep hearing about on various blogs and science podcasts: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable and Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets.

In the interview, Taleb makes a radical claim: the mathematical analysis that economists hold up as evidence that Economics is a science is based on shaky ground since it all presumes that human economic behavior and economic events, such as discoveries of new technology, conform to normal statistical bell curves. "Fooled by Randomness" lays out Taleb's case that economic phenomena don't behave in nice, statistically predictable ways.

Taleb argues that Economics should be regarded as pragmatic or moral philosophy, not a science. I'm reserving judgement on his claim until I get a chance to read his books, but I find some comfort in it. I don't know about you, but I've always gotten the impression that economists never agree on anything and can never fully prove any of their claims -- maybe Taleb has figured out why that is.

Saying Goodbye to Uncle Muff

We traveled to Denver for the sad purpose of attending my Uncle Milford's funeral. It was a happy time, too, because we got to visit with family and many of them met Nate for the first time.



Here are the best of my photos.

Talks at Google

If you're looking for something thought-provoking to watch on the Web, check out Talks at Google. Google has hosted hundreds of well-known authors, musicians, politicians, etc. to give talks at the Google campus, and put them all up on YouTube.

Some that I've watched lately: author/curmudgeon Christopher Hitchens, magician/debunker James Randi, author/smartass Anthony Bordain, and author/geek Neil Stephenson.

If you know what's good for you, you'll blog and you'll blog often!

The software product I've been doggedly working on for the last year and a half is about to ship. This is the first evening of a long-awaited six-week vacation. I haven't had a summer vacation like this since ... high school?

No better time to kick off my new blog. As I explained in the last post on my neglected political blog, Issuefish, I've been meaning to make the switch to a general-topic blog.

Why unleash another blog on the world? Well, it's not about you guys, it's about me! Scientific American says blogging is good for you! Even so, I hope you'll all find my posts here to be interesting (and, no, this one doesn't count).