1. Never, ever, ever delegate responsibility for your own safety. 
2. Never, ever, ever override your own experience and common sense on the say-so of some self-appointed "expert" including me.
3. Never, ever, ever ignore what your eyes see because it isn't what you imagined. Strive to always know the difference between what your eyes are seeing and what your brain is adding.

Violence is bigger than all of us. There's more out there and more kinds of violence than we'll ever see... and certainly more than we could survive. Violence is a bigger subject than any person will ever understand completely or deeply. Know this: watching every martial arts movie ever made gives you about as much understanding of fighting/violence than a child watching the movie Dumbo will learn about elephants/flying.

Martial artists get caught up in the technique and its intended effect. They don't, or seldom introduce the fact that they may not be able to have the "ready, set, Go" experience they have in the school. Fighting is a complex mess with a series of "what ifs" interjected. In this big complex mess, if we want to survive, we'll need a quick and simple answer. That's hard.

This is a multidimensional event done in a multidimensional way, and needs a matrix to describe it. The core ethos of martial arts is: get close, hit hard, do damage and that leaves a bit of a hole in the multidimensional event. One must prepare for all the various nuances of a fighter and forget "points" with the intention to win/survive. Where to start? with reality and the the three examples given above...

Thank you Rory Miller...