Not my opening line but an all time great one from my long time karate instructor in a dangerous situation he faced.
He was about 6′3″ and 220 pounds of all muscle. He’d served as a US Army Ranger in Viet Nam. He was a 7th degree black belt and had won championships at the state, national and international level.
One afternoon he was alone in his dojo when three big, young gang-banger type guys walked in.
Sensei asked if he could help them.
They asked if he owned the place and he replied that he did.
One of them asked, “So are you pretty tough?”
Sensei replied, “I guess so.”
The one continued, “Well, we think we’re tougher than you.”
Sensei replied, “You guys are big and together you might be tougher than me.”
The leader continued, “So if we whip your ass then we’ll own this place?”
Sensei replied, “No that’s not how it works.”
They stared at him and he stared at them.
Then Sensei calmly said, “You might beat me but I will kill at least one of you. So if it’s worth dying today go ahead.”
They looked at him, then at each other, turned and walked out.
And to save anyone from asking, yes, he would have killed at least one of them.
I guess it wasn’t worth dying that day.
Edit:
Thank you to those of you leaving positive and interesting comments. I’m amazed at the number of comments this post has generated.
To those of you who leave trolling comments questioning the truth of the story I would encourage you to get a life. Your comments aren’t clever no matter how clever you think you are.
I assure you story is true and if you’d ever seen my Sensei you’d know he wasn’t bluffing. But, as has been pointed out, he was actually trying to diffuse the situation.
So to the trolls, realize, that after you have spent a few minutes writing up your comment I will simply block you and delete your comment which takes me 15 seconds.
So let’s stop wasting each other’s time. Please leave interesting comments which further our conversation in positive ways.