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Heck, running works for me, too. I'm all for track & field!
Unfortunately, sometimes I cannot run away (for example, if someone attacks my wife or if someone insults her honor, etc. etc.).
Mr. Wright: you are absolutely right that many stylists are over-trained for street encounters IF AND ONLY IF we are dealing with common hoodlum or a criminal (that's the police perspective as you stated).
Unfortunately, some troublesome street thug types are not necessarily looking to steal or mug, but to prove how tough they are. With these types of experienced street fighters, many traditional techniques won't work (forget Tae Kwon Do, for example).
Mind you, I am not saying that SCARS does not work. All I am saying is that no matter how effective or intensive a system is, there is no way in hell that a week of training is going to make you skilled enough to deal with a street fighter as some of the SCARS ads seem to proclaim. Maybe a clueless bully, but not with an experienced street fighter.
My personal experiences are not only from the dojo. For the past ten years, I have not been involved in a single fight. My personality has changed completely, especially since I met my wife. But when I was going to school and living in NYC, I had some "issues" and got into street brawls, literally, daily (hey, I am not proud of it, but it happened). I've fought with all kinds of people: street brawlers, wrestlers, boxers, TKD practitioners, Karate-Ka, Judoka... You name it. I'd say that I won about half of the fights at most. In 99% of the fights, my opponent and I eventually went to the ground where I was clueless (in retrospect).
Both Jeet Kune Do (which I do not practice) and BJJ/Vale Tudo have tons of challenge fights and street fight experiences to them. In fact, they were shaped by them. What did not work was discarded. The counters to the "upa" that I described, for example, are not high-level skill moves. They are common in Brazil, for example, where not even chumps try to use the "upa" because it WILL result in a broken knee.
Ultimately, I haven't seen this kind of street testing doen for SCARS. BJJ schools often have open challenges to other stylists or thugs (I have a very nice video tape of a BJJ instructor fighting with, and then thoroughly destroying, a Mexican gang member, who thought he was tough and could make easy $100,000 from the academy). Whether you approve of their mentality or not, the BJJ fighters are out to prove in the streets and in the rings or in garage fights that their system is the best one-on-one, unarmed system in the world. They have been doing that for 75 years now.
When SCARS has that kind of a history of success in real fights or near-real fight NHB matches, then perhaps you should start claiming that it is the best and that you "can get out of any Gracie hold or lock easily."
At the same time, I understand that SCARS works for you and that's great. But IMHO, BJJ is still the best martial art for one-on-one, unarmed combat to study if a beginner is going to stick around more than a few weeks.
Skorzeny
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For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence. Sun Tzu
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