I recently read in a martial arts magazine that an enormous percentage of all physical confrontations (90% or more) begin with a heated verbal exchange. If that is the case, could a violent confrontation be avoided with skillful wordplay?
I’ve been studying the martial arts for a little more than five years now and I’m an advocate of Bruce Lee’s cross training ideas. I have always been on the lookout for new insights into the martial arts. It dawned on me after reading about what causes physical confrontations that there may be areas of combat beyond just those of the mind and body. Combat in the form of language.
I am no stranger to the hip-hop and rap scene. Yet it wasn’t until this summer that I was exposed to the more combative side of hip-hop’s internet underground. My best friend introduced me to his creative outlet: Rapverse.com. I’ve known him for years. He’s been into the hip-hop thing since he was a kid. But I never knew that part of what he did was verbally combat another person.
I have since been wondering. Let’s say someone like one of you was in a verbal confrontation with another person, a less experienced “verbal combatant.� And it seemed that the situation was progressing toward physical violence. Could you, with words, shame a person so utterly that they would lose all desire to physically fight you? Are the verbal combat skills you acquire on Rapverse.com a legitimate form of self-defense? Have you ever been in a confrontation where your verbal skills allowed you to shame a person so completely that they lost their will to turn the situation into one of physical violence?
I just wanted to open this topic up to discussion before I throw out all my other thoughts on the subject; I want to hear what you all have to say first.

Peace,
Dan

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"Once swords are crossed the gun becomes useless"
-Miyamoto Musashi