I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.–Booker T. Washington
Does anyone else think this should have been moved to Just Conversation?
Yeah 
That is stupid, they clearly had it coming. You should have ‘managed’ them, just so they’d think twice before attacking random people. And how did you get hit TWICE in the face if you’re such a good martial artist?
Fighting back wouldn’t be showing unicyclists as aggressive, just human. And it wouldn’t be showing unicyclists to be human, it would be showing YOU to be human. I don’t think anybody actually thinks of unicyclists as a sub culture, and groups all unicyclists together, except unicyclists themselves.
At the end of the day, I know I could land a couple of blows with my unicycle if someone attacked me: it really doesn’t take much upper body strength to use one as a weapon, so if some idiot chose to attack me with any weapon, I too have one to defend myself with
Am I the only one being really impressed with this? I would have been so angry, might have done something very stupid (and I have zero fighting training). To not kick the crap out of people unless you absolutely have to - this shows the value of your training.
i had a bunch of kids come up to me and threten to mug me so i started to swing my uni and they ran and i chased them home and i told there mom
They were probably just jealous beacuse you had a uni and they hadnt 
F**kin jerks!
nahh they had a cool knife
Well, if someone hits you and you hit back, if they are not using any kind of weapons or it’s more than one person, then it’s considered mutual agression… It’s stupid but that’s how laws work (at least in Spain)
Martial artists are normal people, if you are just talking calmly with someone and holing a unicycle in your hands, you cannot expect sudden hits (they were not 2 separate hits but 2 at the same time).
I’m in “fighting mode” just when I’m competing or if I see someone who needs help. Usually I expect people to be rational creatures and not hitting others without any reason. Of course I thought about “destroying” him, but I just waited for a moment and asked him “what are you doing?” in a sort of MrT style…
These things happen, in some places a lot, and if you don’t handle it well you end up feeling really bad about yourself. I think the reason we don’t handle it well is when we’re not sure what we should do or are aloud to do…
The way I find useful to see things is to make it impersonal. People who do bad things are not completely ‘bad’ all of the time, but ‘bad’ behaviour must always be confronted, whether it is against you, against someone else, or caused by yourself (we all do bad things, and we all know it).
If you confront the aggressor and make it clear you are challenging the rightness of their behaviour, and not about the fact that HE did something to YOU, then you are more likely to create a peaceful resolution, more likely to make him think and change his behaviour for the future, and you will also have far more certitude that you are in the right (which, incidentally, will help you fight better if it does turn violent, and will help you slow down if you end up winning, so you will definitely feel less bad about yourself afterwards :))
I had a situation just last week where a man hurled abuse at me for riding my unicycle on the pavement (even though I was on the road - turns out he was pretty drunk…). The final comment was so unwarranted that I deemed it fair to stop, turn round, and confront him about being so abusive. I thought there was a fair chance it would end up in a scrap given how aggressive he was initially, but we ended up having a discussion about safety and the law! I’ve actually bumped into him since and it was all friendly.
So, whether it’s trying to harm an innocent unicyclist because they had a bad day, failing to confront someone for their bad behaviour because it was scary, making generalisation on race because we don’t know any better, thinking its OK to carry a tool which can kill or maim at the pull of a trigger because the law says they can, or posting a reply to fob off their own perspective on what they think is right because they’re arrogant enough to think it is (that’ll be me), always remember: everyone means well deep down, everyone fucks up from time to time, and everyone is capable of learning and redeeming themselves.
Shoot the behaviour, not the person and it’s less likely that anyone will actually get shot
Comment on the thread title:
Being attacked by non-violent people is so lame. You can hardly call it an attack! 
Advice: Though Stabiliser has shown it’s possible, in general it’s not a great idea to get into a discussion with drunk people on the street. Better to just keep riding.
If you want to talk about your weapons of choice, religion, racism etc., please revive a thread about it in Just Conversation.
Meditations on Violence
As a long term martial artist myself and living in a country and state that allows me to carry weapons of deadly force, I have done quite a bit of research on the subject.
Without going into a lot of details, I had a big guy get very aggressive with me for what I felt was no good reason. This prompted me to do research on this behavior. I was carrying a weapon at the time that could have become deadly. After lots of research I discovered the book “Meditations on violence” written by a martial artist and prison guard. The book really opened my eyes to why individual and group violence occurs and how to avoid and diffuse it. I realized I had caused the violent reaction in my aggressor even though I had not meant to insult him in any way.
The original poster called the attacker an “asshole” escalating the incident. I believe this insult caused the violent reaction. Asshole is a strong insulting word. Even though the guy was a acting like an ass, if you calmly and clearly stated your issue to him without a personal insult I think the result would have been different. Insulting him personally by calling him an “asshole” he felt the need to save face in front of his friends. I strongly recommend anyone who believes in self defense and feels that they could be involved in the use of deadly force to read this book.
By the way I have decided that Mace or pepper spray (while having several limitations) is the best first line of defense, before escalating to a Knife or gun or unicycle as a weapon, because use of deadly force in almost all situations is hard to justify in a court of law in the US even if you are defending yourself.
Just my 2 cents…