Position Before Submission

I was sitting here coding on the 12th of July (the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne also known as Orangemen's Day which is a bank holiday in Northern Ireland) and a sudden "martial arts" thought popped into my head: "Position Before Submission". It's an important fighting principle and especially so when starting out. It's where a lot of people go wrong, learning spinning back fists and flying arm bars before learning how to control their opponent. Anyhow, the purpose of this post: After that sudden impulsive thought and, seeing as though it's a bank holiday, I thought I'd split my day between coding and collecting some Sun Tzu military/strategy quotes. Here we go...

"War is deception."

"If you are far from the enemy,

make him believe you are near."

"Pretend inferiority;

encourage his arrogance."

"Appear weak when strong,

strong when weak."

"To subdue the enemy without fighting

is the acme of skill."

"He is skilful in attack

whose opponent knows not what to defend;

and skilful in defence

whose opponent knows not what to attack."

"Invincibility lies in the defence;

victory in the attack."

"Attack your opponent's strategy."

"Believe in yourself."

Note that I omitted quotes about the importance of good spying and the importance of going into battle only after having already won victory, which Sun Tzu seems to emphasise above all else in his writings. I omitted those quotes because I wanted to keep my selection of quotes applicable to hand-to-hand (one-on-one) combat/competition. Oh and excuse my exercising poetic license to adapt and abbreviate the quotes!