[quote]LondonBoxer123 wrote:
[quote]batman730 wrote:
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
[quote]devildog_jim wrote:
Sentoguy - never saw him work any muscle but his mouth, so not sure how good he was. But the weapons he carried were poor quality and poorly kept, and I tend to believe you can tell a lot about a man by hos weapons. Unless those were part of the act too, in which case this guy was really good, because I wouldn’t consider him more of a threat than any otther average skill pistolero.[/quote]
Fair enough, as I said, I don’t know the individual in question. Just trying to give a word of warning based on an experience that I had of totally underestimating someone based on looks alone, only to find out that I had been dead wrong, and had I been a criminal making those assumptions I may have just been dead.
The Ninja have been using the principles of disguise, deception, and stealth (which doesn’t just mean sneaking around in the dark) for hundreds if not thousands of years. Today’s spies and espionage agents continue to use these same concepts when in the field to avoid detection.
So, someone who is really applying the concepts will not appear special, extraordinary, or intimidating at first sight, they will let the other “tough guys” tell you how tough they are, how many fights they’ve had, how many belts they’ve won/earned and let you keep underestimating them. This might be a good argument against this guy being a Ninjutsu practitioner though (depending on the context of how his Ninjutsu training came up and whether he would broadcast it regularly to random people or only tell those he trusted in private or if pressed/asked).[/quote]
I am actually consciously working on cultivating my “grey man” attributes right now. I am by nature somewhat extroverted and outspoken. This combined with being physically large and tending to “look the part” a little too much makes me a little more conspicuous than I would sometimes like to be.
It’s actually a really interesting challenge to try to blend in and fly under the radar.[/quote]
To further derail the thread:
I find this idea really interesting. I’ve always believed that ‘real recognises real’, and that you can tell when someone can handle themselves. In my experience, that’s why you rarely see two genuinely dangerous fighters come to blows outside of a sports setting. I see mismatches all the time, where some wanna be tough guy picks a fight with a genuine badass, but I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’ve seen two legitimately mean bastards throw down. On those occasions, a whole load of people ended up in the nick or the ER.
To those of us who are familiar with the rougher shades of life, I can’t be alone in recognising clearly when someone is a genuine hard bloke, from the way they carry themselves (not a swaggering poser) and the look in their eyes. It sounds like a cliche, but even the guys on here who are at the top of their game and living life at the sharp end, must have had at least one moment when you’ve looked into someone’s eyes and realised that this was the kind of man you wouldn’t want to have to find out if you were better than. [/quote]
I agree entirely. I reckon it’s all about subconscious body cues that you pick up when you have trained those same instinctual responses to dangerous situations. So if you have been trained to respond effectively to a crisis situation and have the experience doing so, then people with similar or more experience will knowingly or unknowingly pick up on those subtle cues.
The swagger is always an alarm bell for me that an idiot doesn’t have a clue. Chest out, leading with the head. I call it the knockout pose. But if I see someone quietly hunch their back a little, drop their chin a bit, stagger their feet and reach for an ashtray… I bet my money on that guy.
Also, you pronounce it 'Ard Blokes, yeah.