You can almost gauge your effectiveness with the Mantra by checking how often your opponent mentions a figure or tries to draw you into a discussion of history. The more esoteric they start to sound the more helpless they are – desperately trying to get out of the vice you have them in.
Comment by Edwin
ME:
I didn’t learn this in Kindergarten, but I did read the book before I reached my teens. It was called “White Fang” and it was about a heroic Alaskan dog. His first evil master put him in fights to the death in the betting ring with other dogs. White Fang was fast and strong, and he could kill anything on four feet.
Until he met a bull dog.
The bull dog got his massive jaws onto White Fang’s neck and held on. White Fang slung him around and slammed that bull dog on the ground, but the bull dog just kept his hold and inched toward White Fang’s jugular vein.
The crowd boohed. They had come to see a slash-and-blood dight and this bulldog was spoiling it.
But that bull dog had only one interest in his life, and that interest was White Fang’s jugular vein.
Since White Fang was a valuable piece of property, even his evil master called off the fight before he was killed. No one minded because the fight was no fun.
But the bull dog won and White Fang lost the only battle he ever did lose.
Don’t please the crowd. Don’t wow ’em with your quotations. We have one interest here: the enemy’s jugular vein.
#1 by Pain on 11/12/2006 - 8:46 pm
NOT SPAM
NOT SPAM
Good observation Edwin. And each time they come up with another weird one, they have changed holds.
I once owned a pit bull dog. He caused some difficulties, but I learned from him.
The pit bull dog does not make a sound when he attacks. The fight is not personal. Before he sprints to his foe, he pauses stock still, wheels spinning, as he chooses his hold. He has an instinctive ability to balance strengths — which have to be taken out — and weaknesses — which are easy to take out. Whatever hold he chooses he keeps until thrown off. He is only thrown off when he lacks experience. Pretty grim.
My bull dog could hike with me anywhere and climb slippery rocks and some trees. One day I stupidly took him off the leash when I was running back down a mountain on a new trail. At one switch back, he froze, and I saw his wheels spinning. I knew what that meant.
What I didn’t expect was a horse on the other side, his owner beside him.
Before I could tackle him he was off like a shot. This was his first (and only) chance at a large animal. He grabbed the horse on his fleshy thigh. The horse threw him off twice and the dog flew in an arc about ten feet and landed with a loud thud. The third time I tackled him. The dog was fine, the horse badly hurt. I paid the vet bill and was lucky that was it.
A bad thing it was, but it was impressive to watch a disciplined professional (dog) in action.