Of course, my un-PC feeling on that scenario is:

If an ex-navy black belt in BJJ comes in to my house for the sole purpose of killing my family and me, he better be able to dodge shotgun pellets.

I mean, I teach martial arts, and even I still think once you reach a certain level, you're doing it for the martial arts aspect and less for self defense reasons.

There's just too many factors. Let's say you're better than 99.9% of the entire population of the Earth in martial arts. That means that you can basically beat anyone on Earth. What happens when three guys attack you with clubs? What do you do, train harder?

I'm not saying that more training is a bad idea or that it doesn't increase your odds of being able to fend off a guy; but you have to respect the rationale of someone saying, "You know what, I'm going to NOT train hard again for the rest of my life, taking the chance that IF someone attacks me WITHOUT a gun, that he will not be part of that elite 10% that surpassed me in skill." I mean, yes, there's a chance, but there's always a chance, and spending your time on other things rather than MA seems perfectly fine to me, considering the risk is admittedly small.

Couple more things:
1) About punching the face or head: I agree that it's better to go open hand. I've been working a lot on my boxing skills recently, so closed fist punching has kinda been dominating my mind recently, hence the reference to a closed fist punch in the earlier rant. But I will definately agree that without gloves, open hand shots to the head are far superior than closed. Thanks for pointing that out, Dan.
2) I still defend that strength definately matters. I mean, look at Ken Shamrock, Royce Gracie (heck, look at all the Gracies), or any UFC guy. Sure, they have insane skills, but all of them do strength training (the Gracies even have special workouts). Consider that in the time they could have taken to perfect their skill, they chose instead to do strength training. A 120 lb Ken Shamrock versus a 220 lb Ken Shamrock will heavily go in favor towards Ken Shamrock plus 100 lbs.

Again, pepper spray. If I pepper sprayed Ken Shamrock in the face, he would fall to the floor, assume the fetal position, and apologize to me in habanero-soaked tears for ever attempting to try to take my wallet.

If I peppersprayed the entire Gracie family, they too, would drop to the floor and kowtow before me.

Same goes for the example of the ex-navy seal with a super duper uber black belt in BJJ, only with Jedi Mind Powers and a lightsaber, and I'll even let him get behind a Ford 350 pickup truck (sans windshield...you know, for the pepper spray) running at me at high speed, playing "Enter Sandman" at 170 decibels, just for the dramatic effect and scare factor, throwing in the entire UFC lineup in the bed of the pickup, all of them also with lightsabers and Force lightning, and Master Yoda can be the hood ornament. Behind them can be John Wayne, Charles Bronson, Mel Gibson (with Braveheart makeup), Hugo Weaver (the bad guy from the Matrix, plus he can have his Matrix bullet time ability), and I'll even let them have Demi Moore in her GI Jane movie. Even with this pickup truck filled to the brim with Jedi-powered, adrenaline pumped, psycho Metallica blasting-death gods, driving at me at 120...no, 190 miles per hour...

Well, no, then peppers spray would fail...but without the pickup truck, they would SO be mine (if I had pepper spray).

Ta ta.

-Ramon http://razor.ramon.com