Foolish Confidence

May get some flak for posting this, raining on the metaphorical parade and bringing some reality to lalaland...
Still...
You are never as good as you think you are.
I've been forced to realize this over and over... not because of defeat.
On the contrary, I've been having an increasingly easy time in sparring the more I have been studying.

Recently I was informed the my instructor, with over 20 years in martial arts, was harassed, with 2 friends, by 2 convicts. Large, muscle-head, white-power types.
He was worried that if a fight broke out that he and his 2 friends would have trouble with these 2 convicts.
Despite his years of experience and the likely lack of knowledge of fighting the convicts would have.

Why?
Anyone can be dangerous, especially when they don't care about the law. When you are dealing with people that don't care about the law yu put yourself at their mercy. Sometimes your skills won't be enough. You don't know how jacked on steroids these people are.

So I will say, be careful. That's all. Even if you feel you can win a fight, a fight you can win 9/10 times can still end with you dead 1/10 times.

I would never give you "flak" for your opinion, but I will point out that there are some assumptions in this post that are not necessarily correct.
1) "You are never as good as you think you are," is imprecise. If you can be objective, you can learn to evaluate your skill set accurately. You can do the techniques you can do. The more difficult quality to assess is the effectiveness of your quantifiable skills, because different skills will be more or less effective relative to the type of opponent(s) you face. You can, however, learn to quickly decide what techniques to use against which opponents if you find yourself in a fight situation.
2) How did your instructor conclude that the aggressors were convicts?
3) It is unwise to assume that an opponent is unlikely to have training in fighting arts. The mindset I personally take is that any fight should be the toughest fight of your life.
Additionally, if you must fight, it is wise to know what your end goal is. Are you fighting to win, to survive, to create an opportunity to flee, etc? Different outcomes necessitate different strategies, and will be partially based on the type and number of opponents you face.

not sure where exactly you are diverging from my sentiments
I'm trying to give a lot of deluded people an important message, is all.

Gauge wrote:

2) How did your instructor conclude that the aggressors were convicts?

his friends were police officers, and had dealt with them on many occasions.

The only real difference of opinion was in the assessment of skill and the fight mindset relative to your opponent. The other stuff was just adding or to get detail.

Excellent advice, arrow.  After practicing Tae Kwon Do as a teenager, I was incredibly cocky about my skills.

Fast forward to today and in my 30's I pray I don't get into a fight.  I think I could do well enough to defend myself, but I have no illusions about the fact that I could get my ass kicked.

Heard a story from an instructor once about one of her black belt students. This guy--a big guy who looked like he could hold his own in addition to yes, actually being able to--was thinking of going down a dark alley. At the last minute he saw 3-4 shady characters loitering around in there. He had a moment where he considered going another way, but then he thought, "Hey, I'm a black belt. I'll be okay." So he went down the alley. And the guys jumped him. You could say the black belt won that fight--he survived and the guys ran off after it became clear he intended to take them down with him--but he spent two months in the hospital afterward and suffered permanent damage.

Blue Stranger wrote:

You could say the black belt won that fight--he survived and the guys ran off after it became clear he intended to take them down with him--but he spent two months in the hospital afterward and suffered permanent damage.

That is a really good point.  Just because you "win" a fight does not mean that you get away with zero consequences.  You might be seriously injured, or get yourself into legal trouble, or suffer from long-term emotional trauma, or invite retaliation upon yourself at a later date.

On the other hand, you don't want to go into a fight without self-confidence. You start thinking that way, you're guaranteed to lose.

You've just got to be able to realistically evaluate your own abilities and, when possible, win the fights before they ever start by not inciting them like a complete idiot. De-escalation and diplomacy are just as important as the last resort of going toe to toe, and sometimes you just need to not walk down that dark alley or admit you're just one person and call 911.