Teachers: The Mugger

When I started studying martial arts, one of the black belts I worked with was a man who had been a mugger some years previously. He had paid rent and bought groceries by mugging people. He explained to me that, as a mugger, he always worked with two other muggers. If he worked alone, there was a risk of being hurt by one of his intended victims. If he worked with one other person, there was a chance that the other mugger would try to keep all the proceeds for himself. But with three muggers, the other two muggers could gang up on the one mugger who tried to keep everything for himself.

At some point, he realized that his way of life was going to kill him, and he got a job at a service station and started working for a mechanics certificate. By the time I got to know him, he was one of the calmer black belts. His techniques weren't as sharp as some of the other students, and some people talked about him in a dismissive way, but I respected him more than anyone except my teachers. He knew, more deeply than the rest of us could hope to know, that self-defense has nothing to do with fighting.