An after action report:

As an "after action report" to my "A self-defense story" post (Sunday, January 30, 2011), I'd like to offer an analyzation of what had occurred:

I tend to divide threats into two (very) general categories: 1) the "flash" attack, in which an attack is not seen--or rather, noticed (many people have very poor situational awareness)--coming and/or the option to de-escalate it is simply not available and 2) the "monkey dance"/human (mostly--if not entirely--male) ritual violence attack, which is very overt and obvious and, assuming you keep your wits about you and don't play the game, can be de-escalated (I'm going to try to elaborate on my take on these two types of attack in a later post).

I'm blessed by having a very long fuse and a personal mantra of "Whatever someone says about you is more of a reflection on them than it is on you".  Because of this I have been able to, so far, de-escalate the second type of attack before it manifests, at least when the threat is directed at me specifically (it's a little more difficult for me to de-escalate a third party monkey dance).

The incident seems, to me, to have elements of both types of attacks.  In hindsight, I'm sure that the man who approached me didn't have any ill intent, but rather had very poor delivery.  His delivery is what made me react defensively.  Unfortunately for  him, I'm a big believer in the axiom "better safe than sorry".  As a side note, it occurred to me that I never experienced an adrenaline dump during the incident.   

While I initially responded to a perceived threat from him by "eye checking" him with my flashlight, he (drunkenly) countered as if I had offended him.  He began to escalate a monkey dance while I was attempting to mitigate him as a threat.  A very unfortunate case of mis-communication. 

Under the circumstances I think that the only thing that saved him a trip to the hospital, and me a possible trip to jail, is that I have enough training, experience and common sense to have not gotten caught up in the monkey dance.  By not taking his behavior personally and by not buying into the monkey dance, I avoided the (perceived) need to defend my pride/"honor" (ego) which allowed us both to safely go our separate ways.