People visiting our school will ask whether Kung Fu is good for self-defense. They have heard that martial artists are often caught off-guard in fights or dangerous situations. Other arts claim to teach the "reality" combat techniques and then you see that they wrap up their hands like boxers and spar with rules about where they can hit and parts of their body they can hit with. The unfortunate truth is that in the situation where you have to defend yourself, there are no rules and there are only two kinds of fights; the ones you fight "dirty" and the ones you loose. In Shaolin-Do we teach you to use every advantage you possess. In a life-threatening situation, this advantage is often the fact that you WILL do what it takes to defend yourself; without rules or silly illusions that there is a right and wrong way to defend yourself. One time a student asked why we were so obsessed with striking the groin in our self-defense techniques. The answer of course is because a groin strike works! One of my students was talking with a friend about self-defense and when she commented that we strike the groin, her friend said that this was the lowest type of fighting and that is was dishonorable; as if fighting was a game with rules that we enter for fun. The Shaolin monks were happy to go their entire life without fighting. Since fighting was the last resort, it was serious and required only one outcome; complete devastation of the person trying to harm them. Could they choose to not injure their attacker? Yes, but they had a lifetime to master fighting skills; you do not have that luxury. Therefore, worry first about defending yourself. The safety of your attacker cannot enter your mind. | 
