Originally posted by Yosuke
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The second link seems to indicate that the guy is still a current and active student.
Anyway, what you are dealing with are perishable skills that degrade and depreciate over time. The amount to which that happens and the speed at which that happens is highly dependent upon multiple variables, and so said skills degrade at a generally unpredictable rate, though most scholarly sources give them a 3-4yr shelf life(your one long term example given in links falls within that period). So if self defense is your goal and you are fine with flipping the coin so to speak as whether or not you will be one of the naturally talented edge cases that can learn a couple of years and then still be able to kick ass a decade later, well... we all have to make our choices.
That being said, I'll say it again, you have a 0.32% chance of being involved in any sort of violent crime based on FBI 2015 statistics. If we narrow that down to an actual assault(and remove things that you can walk away from such as crimes of profit) your chances of being involved in a physical altercation become even more minuscule. So honestly self defense is probably the last reason you should consider learning a martial art. Better reasons would be human interaction with people who have similar interests, health and fitness, fun ect, and down toward the bottom of the list would be self defense. 1 in 4 Americans will die of a preventable heart attack this year. 1 in 3 Americans are classified as overweight or obese, 1 in 20 are classified as extremely obese. Not becoming a part of that statistic ought to be enough reason to join an active martial art.
Honestly if you don't like getting hit in the head and can't stand having your face rubbed in a mat, take up something active like Kendo. It would be a lot better than sitting on your couch and playing video games, and so long as you practice common sense conflict avoidance techniques that they teach the Boy Scouts in Safety Merit Badge you will most likely never be in a fight in your life.
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