Street Stories
Real life experiences on the street & in
the dojo
A Loud Voice And Assertive Attitude
By Timothy J. Schutte
Editor’s Note: This post recently appeared on a martial arts e-mail
forum, and we thought the incident would be an interesting addition to
FightingArts.com’s “Street Stories” column. Tim Schutte
granted us permission to post it here.
We have been discussing self-defense here (in the forum) quite a bit
recently, so I would like to relate an incident I experienced just a
couple of hours ago:
I was sitting here at the computer, playing poker online when the phone
rang. It was my next-door neighbor who asked "Did you know that
there is someone in your car?"
"No." I replied, "Are you sure?"
"Yes. He propped a bicycle against the back of your car!" my
neighbor said. So, I went to check things out. Sure enough, there [was]
a guy in my car, sitting in the driver's seat rifling through the box
in the center console of my T-Bird.
"What the hell are you doing in my g-d car?" I hollered. The
guy jumps out, obviously surprised at being yelled at by a guy in a wheelchair.
"I-I thought it was my car!" the guy said fuzzily. He seemed
high.
"You get the hell out of here %&(%&^%$&$%!!! I'm going
to call the cops!" I roared, closing the distance between us to
increase my advantage in case he swung. He didn't swing--he jumped on
his bike and pedaled off as hard as he could!
I was--and am--totally amazed. A loud voice and an assertive attitude
saved my chubby old butt!
It just goes to show you.
If you have an interesting real life story that
you would like to share with our readers, please email it to us at: street_stories@fightingarts.com
About the Author:
Timothy J. Schutte was born with spina bifida and is paralyzed from
the hips down. Despite this limitation, he has trained in Isshinryu Karate
for 38 years.
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