The reactions of martial artists to an attack

Back in the summer months, my friend and I were attacked by a large group of young lads, who ambushed us on a dark street fuelled by alcohol and teenage hormones. Blows were exchanged and we punched our way out of the situation. A couple of them were felled, but no serious, lasting  physical damage was wrought upon them, nor indeed ourselves, though there was some psychological and emotional fallout on our part.
Unexpected, and perplexing, were some of the reactions that I experienced when recounting the incident to others.
One response came from a martial arts instructor of some twenty to thirty years of experience, who trains and teaches a "realistic" type of martial art. "I was attacked some lads the other night whilst I was out with a friend." "Did you take them down?" came his reply, and he was quite serious about that. Slightly bewildered, I answered thus: "Well, not really. We escaped without being injured, and without injuring any of them so...." To me, this seemed like an out-and-out victory. Sure, we had failed on awareness of the situation: we could have spotted our attackers if we had been more alert. But a victory, nonetheless...? "Mate, mate you want to do something a bit more aggressive, this tai chi's all very well but you need some proper training..." What did he see as a victory? Was some tangible sign of dominance was required? Perhaps breaking someone's limb? The courts tend not to look too favourably on grown men assaulting minors. I continued in a slightly different vein, because this conversation was beginning to tick me off. "It's lucky they didn't have a knife or else we would have been in real trouble" I said, thinking that one couldn't possibly argue with that. "You can train for that eventuality" he said, "Come and train with me, we do all that: I can show you how to deal with knives." Knowing him to be a doorman, I thought perhaps he'd had experience: "Oh, have you been attacked with a knife?" "No mate, but I've seen it a few times". I ended the conversation there.
Another martial artist, though not a teacher, had this to offer: "What I would have done would be to square off with them and say "get back or I'll knock you the fuck out." I could only nod in feigned agreement. I couldn't bring myself to tell him that, in the time it took him to deliver this monologue, the encounter would have been well underway. He meant well, and his re-imagining of the scenario was as much to do with allaying his own fears as actually advising me of a course of action. In the future, I might keep such things to myself. Unless it's worth sticking on the blog of course...