The Shrine

Can I get a "Whooooooooa, fearing for your life too much to go to sleep?"

...

No, I suppose not. Goddamn crackhead threatening me, who lives a few blocks away. I suppose it's my fault for inciting him today though and being enough of a hothead to say I'd fight him if he wanted.

My guess is if I wait long enough he'll beat someone up badly enough to get sent to prison, but it sure isn't helping me sleep any better tonight.

Well, you have a few options open:

1) Call the cops, have them keep an eye out on the guy
2) Confront him, find out what his problem is, and find out how to solve it
3) Avoid him

You never know, he could be just as afraid of you as you are of him. For the most part, human beings will avoid a fight if at all possible; this is barring all forms of intoxication. Being sober, and him on crack though, you can probably take him if he attacks you. Do you know how to fight?

He might be afraid, but that isn't stopping him from escalating things. Part of our interactions yesterday involved him taking a swing at me and hitting me in the head, and he did hit pretty hard. I did kick him in the ass - literally - but unfortunately, for all the vernacular, that ain't a real great place to land a blow.

In theory I know how to fight, and I work out on a punching bag 20 min/day on average, but he has about 50 pounds and probably a half foot of reach on me.

Also, his being on crack I actually think gives him more of an edge than not - at least until he comes down - because cocaine is a pretty serious stimulant. It unfortunately also makes you dumb as a fucking brick and violent as a fucking prick, if the examples I've seen around my neighborhood are any indication.

And if it's just fists I imagine it would be all right - assuming none of our neighbors called the police themselves - my bigger fear is that he's going to call up his "homies" and get someone to come over to my apartment and shoot my fucking door in while I'm asleep, since he knows where I live.

He actually tried that yesterday - at least, he tried calling someone to come kick my ass yesterday when I was talking to him - but what was hilarious is that the guy he called is someone who he knows in the 'hood that I happen to know better than he does, and when this guy and his brother showed up they ended up threatening to kick his ass instead.

He's crazy violent, and I imagine if I wait long enough my guess is he'll land his ass in jail on his own account over something or other, which if I could put my own damn violent ass ego away is probably the best way to handle it.

Don't escalate back. It's not worth it. Fighting unnecessarily is stupid. Although I consider someone take a swing at me as past the point of no return and I'd probably engage.

Damn dude. Move to a nicer area! On a programmer's salary, bumping into crackheads on the way home shouldn't be an issue (unless these crackheads drive BMWs).

I agree with Kupek, it's for the best not to escalate the situation. Also, I am an advocate of self defense, but try to avoid a situation where you will have to actually use it. In this case, the guy seems rather untrained to fight himself; with basic training, I do think you could probably handle yourself. Is there any place you know where you could get some free training?

Of course, it is just as a precaution. It often isn't wise to fight people on the sole reason that it is difficult to judge a persons skill level (or if they have a knife, bat, chain or something).

Yeah, I'm more afraid of the latter. Moving might be good. I met someone in the hood today - the guy he called's brother - who showed me a little of his fighting skill, and I wouldn't last five seconds. Literally. He came at me (just mock-sparring) with a furious one-two punch, followed by a knee, and when i ducked into a ball he made as if to grab my upper torso and throw me, and he's big enough, too...later on he showed me a jumpspinning back roundhouse kick that looked like it could break bones.

Or you could kill him, dump his body, and be thanked by the nation for one less crackhead to worry about....

Or do what seeker said, whatever floats yer boat

Meh. Maybe he'll turn his life around. Also, I have no desire to go to prison for murder, or not go to prison for murder and get killed by his crew. The guy I was hanging out with today told me about one of his crew, a 200+ lb black guy who just got out of prison. "Just got out of prison" is usually a phrase that at least says to me, "think twice".

Given the amount of contact you seem to be having with these people, you should already be looking at new apartments. Having friends in low places is one thing, but hanging around the thugs/gangster types is another.

This is true. Though I think if I could actually get this guy to teach me how to fight, it would kick the shit out of 90% of the martial arts training I could get...

Hm.

If you're interested, there's probably places around you. For striking, find a place that does Muay Thai near you. It's effectiveness is evident in how many MMA strikers have a base in Muay Thai. If there's that's not near you, boxing is good too. For close in, find a place that does Brazillian Jiu Jitsu or Judo. BJJ focuses on ground work, while Judo focuses on throws from standing up.

If your concern is self-defense, even a few months in either of those can go a long way. I am still a white belt in BJJ, and I've done very little Muay Thai, but I'm confident that if I needed to defend myself against an untrained opponent, I'd be able to do it.

Yeah. Actually, I've been interested in Aikido for awhile, though it may be a bit pacifistic for me ultimately.

I took some karate (Chuck Norris' style) when I was little - which turned out to be pretty useless - and some capoiera from hardcore Brazilians, which was less useless...

I love Capoeira and I would be in it right now if anyone was offering to teach it. I do agree with Kupek that BJJ and Muay Thai are the best common forms of self defense. Judo is good to know too, it is a fighting style that focuses on controlling the three centers of gravity (yours, your oponents, and the center of gravity between you two). Muay Thai is my preferred martial art mainly because I feel most confident with it (I've done it for a long time). I have also done Taekwando and Karate which are better sporting styles. Muay Thai incorporates knees and elbows, as well as grapples and various types of holds, as well as manipulating opponents. Also, Muay Thai, at least the way I have been taught, incorporates conditioning excersizes used to strengthen the bones and muscles.

Essentially how conditioning works is that others will pound on you with increasing pressure. This works to actually damage the bone and muscle tissue, but it will heal back stronger, it is essetnially like giving your skeletal system a work out. Once you have mastered the art of taking a hit (a large part of it is knowing when to deflate your lungs), you can even take a bat or chain to the ribs without them breaking because of the breathing and because of the strength of them. Conditioning also works to strengthen the striking bones, your shins can become like baseball bats themselves, and your knuckles, which can acquire the same sort of pressure that you can now use with a hammer, a hammer swung at wood can dent it, it's within human potential for a punch to do the same; just watch a martial arts competition (Karate in particular). So just think about it this way, a good fighter can be carrying a hammer and a bat in his shins and his fists, you don't want to get hit =)

It might seem hard to get into at first, hold on for 2-6 months or so, and improving your body and combat skills will become an addiction or an obsession.

I don't doubt it.

I used to be very into pure strength training, so I know some things about conditioning, but I can't afford to join a gym with real equipment right now, so I'm trying to work out with a few dumbbells and jump rope that I have, and trying to play basketball as much as possible to build up stamina. It might be worth me laying off the pot for awhile, because I think it's killing my lung capacity.