Monthly Archives: February 2012

February 29, 2012 · 2:49 pm

Overlooked Self-Defense Elements 3: Pre-Fight Indicators/Pre-Fight Rituals

This is part three of a series of articles where I look at the elements needed for a self defense or self-protection course to be of real use. In a previous article I listed the required elements as follows:

  • Awareness
  • Avoidance
  • Pre fight indicators (pre-fight rituals)
  • De-escalation
  • Adrenaline effects
  • And last, actual physical skills

Pre-fight indicators (pre-fight rituals)

Throughout the world there are a series of easily identified behaviors that serve as pre-fight indicators. I got the terms pre-fight indicators and pre-fight rituals from the Conflict Communications website, and much of the information that follows is from them as well. I in no way intend to pass myself off as an expert in this field of study. I am a student, and a relatively new student to this aspect of self-protection.

The basic idea behind this study is that, cross-culturally, there are some behaviors that can serve as a warning to those who are able to identify them, that a fight is about to occur. One must remember that these rituals are in a very real sense hard-wired into our brain. MacYoung points out that these conflicts scripts are wired into our brain and are designed for the survival of the group, not the individual.

One of the first is usually called posturing. It is a method used by many species in an attempt to seem larger and show dominance. Interestingly, this posturing includes the shouts, loud talking and profanity used before a fight starts. Included also are a puffing of the chest, and in many cases a lowering of the neck and head. The entire process is an attempt to intimidate, and I have read that much of it is unconscious, and not at all planned.

The soon-to-be-attacker may angle their body, both narrowing the target you see, and at the same time, bracing their body to launch or receive an attack.

Another thing that can indicate that things are about to get really bad is when the person is shaking or trembling. This could be fear, but more than likely it is the result of adrenalin. Never assume that they are afraid of you, and even if they are afraid of you, never assume that is a good thing.

The basic outline of a fight follows the same general pattern. There are many variables, but we are speaking in generalities.

  • The Verbal Argument. This is the stage where nothing has happened, and if one of you is in the right mindset, it can be relatively easy to extricate yourself from the situation without it turning physical.
  • Posturing. In this stage, you and the other guy will begin puffing out your chests, talking loudly, and the profanities will probably be getting a thorough use. It can still be possible to get out of the fight, but it is getting harder to do it. One of you has to swallow your pride and back down if there is to be any hope of getting out of the fight at this point.
  • The Man-Kiss and Chest Bumping. I know there is probably a better name for it, but this is what I call it. This is the stage where the two soon to be combatants get right in each other’s face. It really looks like they are about to start kissing. Back when I was in school, two boys were about to get in a fight one day. When they got to this stage, my ever mischievous self started a chant to them of, “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” Unfortunately, they both turned their attention toward me…There is still some verbal exchange going on. As this is the last (partially) non-physical point of the pre-fight, this is a very tricky stage. The chest bumping will start around this time. And I have seen people trying to back out of the fight at this time and get shoved down as they back away.
  • Shoving. Things are turning physical, and you have missed all of the off ramps. Chances are probably pretty low that you will be able to escape the situation without fighting. You have had several chances prior to this, and if you missed them, your mindset is probably going to be all wrong for getting out of the fight. At this point adrenalin is surging and you are less and less your normal self.

It is very important to know the pre-fight indicators. These should be taught, understood, and drilled until you know them on sight, and can extricate yourself from the potential fight in the earliest possible stages. One thing to keep in mind about this list – it is not written in stone. Much as the boy in the movie A Christmas Story committed a faux pas in skipping to the “triple-dog dare”, your adversary can skip to any point on the list at any time. This is why you need to understand the list, and get out of the situation as quickly as possible. If they jump from verbal to shove, you are in deep. Again, I refer you to the Conflict Communications website, read and re-read.

 

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February 28, 2012 · 6:29 pm

Overlooked Self-Defense Elements 2: Avoidance

This is part two of a series of articles where I look at the elements needed for a self-defense or self-protection course to be of real use. In a previous article I listed the required elements as follows:

  • Awareness
  • Avoidance
  • Pre fight indicators (pre-fight rituals)
  • De-escalation
  • Adrenaline effects
  • And last, actual physical skills

Avoidance.

Men are brought up under the influence of a special stigma that in childhood terms is called “chicken”. To be labeled a chicken or a coward or a puss is nearly the worst thing that a teenage boy or young man can imagine. Men are supposed to be men. We are taught implicitly that it is an act of cowardice to back down from a fight.

And it is also taught, implicitly as well, that the ultimate cowardice is to not go where the fight is supposed to happen.

When we follow this line of reasoning through to conclusion, it does not hold up.

When we are speaking in pure self-defense and self-protection terms, it is not at all a form of self-defense, preservation or protection to go where the fight is going to be when we know ahead of time that the fight will happen if we go there. It is imperative that we teach our youth the folly of this thinking. Too often the young men will do something for no other reason than the thought that people will talk bad about them if they don’t.

I teach my students that people are going to talk about you anyway. If you go to the fight and lose, they will talk about it, and if you go to the fight and win, the people who don’t like you are still going to talk bad about you. The fight and the outcome are irrelevant to the people who already do not like you. There is absolutely no chance at all that you will change anyone’s opinion of you by beating up, or getting beaten up by one of their friends.

Again we must visit the “is it worth it” questions and see with critical thinking if the reasoning holds up.

Is it worth it to go to a fight, knowing ahead of time it will happen, and get stabbed in the guts by a knife you never saw, and need a colostomy bag?

What if you go to the fight, and hit the guy, his head hits the floor or the sidewalk, and he dies. You will go to jail for a couple of decades with a murder conviction hanging around your neck for the rest of your life…is it worth it?

Will people still talk bad about you?

You fight the guy and win, and then two weeks later his cousin walks up behind you with a baseball bat and caves your skull in, leaving you in a coma or dead, is it worth it?

Avoiding a fight altogether is a higher form of self-defense and is rarely talked about in the self-defense classes you find in your local dojo. If we are going to answer these questions stating that, indeed – no, fighting is not worth it, then we have our excuse to avoid it, but how can we avoid it.

First, you need to understand that you need not be validated as being the one who is correct by all involved in what should at this stage still be a verbal disagreement. In the heat of an argument, it is highly unlikely that the other side will suddenly see the light and give you the win. It is a very common human trait to start formulating our response while the other party is still speaking. If you do this, understand that they do too, and thus neither one of you is really hearing the other. It is extremely difficult to remember in the middle of the argument, so you must practice the mindset in less difficult situations that your point does not need to be recognized or accepted. If you can manage to do this, you will be miles ahead of most people in terms of self-protection ability. To understand how difficult this is, look at how many marriages end because of one or both people involved prizing winning over the relationship. And this is speaking of people who are supposed to love each other. The difficulty is only magnified when we are speaking of strangers.

If you develop the understanding that you can be right without needing to be declared right, you can avoid most conflict before it ever starts.

All avoidance starts with the concept of putting your own safety above your own image. Far too often people do nothing to avoid a conflict because they wish to save face. Your image of yourself, that idea that you hold of how others see you is completely worthless in terms of self-defense/self-protection. The more inflated your idea of how other people see you, the more trouble it can cause for you.

Imagine a tense situation where you feel that you have to act. The urge to engage in conflict is pushed into your mind by the idea of how other people will see you if you don’t act. Sitting in a calm moment, does this idea make any sense whatsoever?

Every day people allow an inner dialogue to convince them to fight. It is not only teens, but adults as well. When you are able to no longer consider what the group will think of you, again, you will have a huge advantage in terms of self-protection. I must assert here; this is something that is much easier said than done. Deeply embedded in our brain is the idea of being accepted by the group. For a thorough read on the subject, I will refer you to the excellent series of articles written by Marc MacYoung and Rory Miller on the Conflict Communications  website.

With practice you can get it right. Eventually the skills of avoiding conflict will become your base reflex.

 

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February 27, 2012 · 2:38 pm

Overlooked Self-Defense Elements 1: Awareness

This is part one of a series of articles where I look at the elements needed for a self-defense or self-protection course to be of real use. In a previous article I listed the required elements as follows:

  • Awareness
  • Avoidance
  • Pre fight indicators (pre-fight rituals)
  • De-escalation
  • Adrenaline effects
  • And last, actual physical skills

In a standard self-defense class it is only the last skill in which you will receive any training.  For this article we will take a close look at Awareness.

Awareness.

We all know that it is important to be aware of our surroundings, but we need to do more than just notice where the cars are and who the gangster is looking at.

We live in a society bound by the rule of law. Most of us would not kill anyone else even if there were no legal repercussions to such an act; we simply know it is wrong. But there are those people who do not recognize, for whatever reason, the rule of law. These are the people we need to be aware of. In most settings, we do not need to be on edge. At a dinner party at a friend’s house, while everyone is calm and sober, there is no pressing need to be hyper-vigilant, but one can still be aware of what is going on, and with proper training we can develop an ability to spot trouble before it turns into something truly dangerous.

There are other settings where being a bit more vigilant than usual is not only appropriate, it is recommended. One example which should immediately pop into mind is on an airline flight. Prior to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, there was a standard recommendation of what to do should your plane be hijacked – nothing. Try not to attract attention, do not cause any panic, and above all, don’t try to be a hero. This was because in the pre 9/11 world the terrorists follow a standard script of their own – hijack the plane, have it land in some God-forsaken hell-hole, get a lot of news attention, only kill the people who get your attention, and let the rest go, go to prison in that very hell hole where you landed the plane, and get released after the attention to the event dies down.

All of this changed on September 11th. When the terrorist scumbags crashed the planes into our buildings and a field in Pennsylvania, they changed the rules. No longer can it ever be recommended to sit and do nothing. It is now the duty of every person on a flight that someone is attempting to hijack or bring down to fight and stop the terrorist. The terrorists rely on your fear and compliance. They are brainwashed into believing that what they are doing is good, and they no longer have any fear of dying. They count on your fear to enable them to successfully accomplish their nefarious acts of violence.

In other situations, you still need to be more aware than normal. Shopping malls have been targeted by gunmen before. Sporting events are more dangerous in a post-9/11 world as well. Any time there is a large gathering of people at a well-publicized event, be cautious and vigilant.

One that is not often considered by is traffic. In our super-fast paced lifestyle, the hectic, and stressful slow-moving traffic jam is a dangerous place. Road rage was unheard of in the 70s. Now it is a common term that everyone knows and has had some level of contact with. Is it really worth cutting off the guy who just cut you off in order to flip him off like he did you if there is even an outside chance that he will pull a gun and blow your brains out for it?

It does trouble me to see some of the unsafe habits which are becoming very common. Everywhere I look, I see people walking without even looking where they are going. I do not know how many people I have almost run over when I was driving as they could not be troubled to look away from their phone long enough to see if there was a car coming before they step out into the street.

To make things easier, I have put together a list of awareness tips, and hope it will be of some use!

Put your smart-phone away. I do not know how many times my wife has referred to her i-phone as “my life”. Your smart-phone is not your life, and it never was. And your texts, emails, Facebook and games really can wait a few minutes. No one will die waiting for you to be wherever it is that you are going before making your next “Words With Friends” move. The smart-phone is a complete distraction that makes you far too vulnerable as most people are completely oblivious to anything outside of the phone when they are using it.

Remember you do not rule the highway. We all get frustrated in traffic. I do, as much (and sometimes more) than anyone else. However, we do need to remember that everyone else wants to get where they are going. We are not the ruler of the highway, and the other drivers are under no obligation whatsoever to drive the speed we wish them to drive, move into a different lane to allow us to pass them, or read our minds regarding what we want them to do. I remember in my early twenties, a guy on the highway pulled in front of me and hit his brakes. I got mad, so I whipped around him and did it to him. And then I did it over and over, at least ten times, maybe more. When I think about it now, this was reckless beyond excuse. And this is just one incident among many from that time. I don’t know how I managed to never get shot in a provoked road rage. If you can remember that everyone feels pretty much the same in traffic, but that the “urge-to-kill” feeling will be acted upon by an unknown member of the herd, you might be able to keep your cool and not get shot.

Keep a proper distance when in traffic. This one does not require much explanation. When in traffic, you should be able to see the point where the tires of the car in front of you are touching the road. This applies to self-protection. If the driver in front of you get out of their car in a rage, you will have space to move around their car without backing up. But it also applies to other situations, such as the car in front of you breaks down in the road.

Do not avoid eye contact when a stranger seems to be approaching. I strongly advise against staring at a stranger, but making eye contact is not going to hurt. What can get you hurt is if you pretend to not see them and they perceive that as fear. Be confident, notice them, and move your gaze elsewhere while still keeping them in view. Don’t be afraid to look and see who is where and what they are doing. This is self-protection and shows a self-confidence that will deter some bad guys.

Do not be ashamed to ask for security to escort you to your vehicle. There is no shame in asking for security to escort you out, especially if something just doesn’t feel right. Speaking as someone who has worked security before, it feels good to do that for people. It is what we think of when we take a job working security. I hated the endless hours of walking perimeter, and felt great when I was asked to see someone safely to their car.

If you feel suspicious, go with it. There is no need to justify or examine why you feel suspicious in a given circumstance while you are still in said circumstance. The feeling is there, it may be nothing, but it could be well founded. Examine it later when you are home safe and sound. We all have our primate survival instincts, and we have been taught to think every situation to death. Skip the analysis and follow what your instincts tell you.

 

There is my short list on Awareness. I would like some feedback on what may be missing from this list if anyone would like to chime in!

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February 24, 2012 · 2:39 pm

Hollywood Misconceptions

The scene is in nearly every martial arts movie out there. The martial artist is alone. He isn’t wearing a shirt or shoes, so we know he isn’t on his way to the convenience store. He is training. He assumes the splits, possibly up on chairs or the railing of a balcony. He starts to make strange gesticulations with his hands, with a slow, almost dance type motion. He will contort his fingers into odd positions in an attempt to look cool. Every now and then his gesticulations are interrupted by a punch, leaving the image that most of what he is practicing are the hand positions and arm motions. The punches themselves seem to be the afterthought.

Exactly why this scene is played out in so many movies remains unclear to me. My guess is that it is supposed to add to the aura of mysticism that is supposed to be a main feature of the martial arts. To me, it just looks silly. But, the image is there, and I have known many martial artists who go through the ritual, completely ignoring the fact that it just makes them look like a doofus.

In the eyes of someone who only knows martial artists from what they see in movies, we must seem pretty silly. The typical martial artist in the movies has his head in the clouds. He can spout ancient wisdom at will. He has secret, super-powers, but he doesn’t want to use them until his loved ones are killed or maimed (never to stop the nefarious acts from happening in the first place). When he is brought to the point of action, he first goes off somewhere alone, to go through some version of the aforementioned ritual. After the ritual is complete, he fights the bad guy, often killing him by accident after beating him well beyond the point that a normal person could survive, and taking a much worse beating from the bad guy. He never seems to go to jail for these crimes either, so one must assume that the people who form Grand Juries wherever our hero lives must be very understanding people.

For a long time I never gave the stereotype much thought. Only after years of following the nonsense did I start to notice the problem.

The problem has nothing to do with spoiling our image. It has more to do with the real world, and who is watching and imitating the Hollywood myth.  

Children watch our heroes aided by wires, trampolines, and special effects, and attempt to imitate what they see. In the eyes of a child, the thought that simply punching another person, and they die from falling and hitting their head on something just doesn’t seem possible. The idea that getting shot in the stomach and waking up in a hospital bed with a colostomy bag hanging off of their abdomen is completely foreign. The very real possibility that they could be sent to prison for a very long time for killing someone “in self-defense” never enters their head. All of this is because Hollywood does not show this. Hollywood produces films to entertain, not inform, and adults know this. But the kids don’t make this connection.

So, what is a real martial arts master like? Well, for me the discussion is simple, I don’t believe in martial arts masters, so that is where it all ends. But let’s change the word from master to expert. What is a real world martial arts expert going to be like?

While I am dying to take the easy road and start this with a list of what he or she is not going to be like, I am going to resist the temptation. Here is my list:

Knowledgeable. A martial arts expert is going to be knowledgeable. They are going to have a deep, thorough, and ever-increasing understanding of their style, its history and development, applications and meanings. A true expert is not going to have merely a superficial knowledge of any aspect of their art. To be a true expert in anything, this is surely a given.

Curiosity. The true expert is never going to reach a point where they are satisfied with their current state of knowledge. Every level of training comes with the understanding that there is still more yet to be discovered. An expert never thinks they have all of the answers, they know this because they do not have answers to all of their own questions. There is a certain sense of a childlike wonder I have found to be a common trait among those people I would classify as Experts in the martial arts. It is especially interesting when this childlike wonder has not diminished even in those who have trained in the martial arts for thirty or more years.

Physically fit. A true expert in the martial arts should be wise and disciplined enough to be the very essence of physical fitness. All too often, a person reaches black belt rank, and their waist size balloons. Mine did. I think is comes about because of the transfer most people make from earning black belt to teaching martial arts. Once you start teaching, it is very easy to begin calling the classes you teach “training sessions”, and overlook the fact that it was not you doing the training. I fell into this trap more than once. As part of the ongoing quest for “mastery”, we would all do well to remember that teaching is not training, and that our own training should hold more importance to us that our teaching. Eating right and exercising are self-defense.

Unassuming. I had quite a debate going on with myself as to which word I wanted to use here. I had originally chosen “humble”, but that word has been beat to death by Hollywood, so I opted for something used a lot less frequently. An expert in any field is usually going to be quite open about what they know, but they are also going to know how much is left that they have not even begun to understand. When a “master” boasts about what they know, and market and present themselves as if they are the only person on earth that knows what they know, it goes against all reason. At this writing, I have trained in the martial arts for 28 years. To some people, that may seem like quite a long time. But the fact is that many of the people I know have been training in the martial arts for much longer. Thirty and forty-year martial artists are not that rare.

With all that there is to be studied and all that there is to learn and practice, there is more than a lifetime of engaging study to be had. Not one person will ever master it all, or know it all or see it all. If that is not humbling, nothing ever will be.

And last on the list, to the martial arts expert, it is a way of life. To the expert martial artist, this is not something we do. It is who we are. The training permeates every aspect of our lives. We don’t stop being a martial artist when we close up the Dojo and go home. It is who we are.

There is my list. Please notice; there are no magical powers listed. For the record and to the bemusement of my critics, I do not meet all of the qualifications I have listed. So, no I didn’t just put this together to be able to define master as expert and then qualify myself as an expert, and therefore a master. I am no such thing.

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February 22, 2012 · 1:24 pm

We Sharpen Saws: An essay on the truth of self defense classes

In the mid 90s, I had a martial arts club that was doing well enough that I was able to move out of the rec center where we were holding classes and into a storefront space. Like anyone starting out, I had little money, and more ideas than I could ever hope to bring to reality. I didn’t know where to start with everything. Once I leased the space, I decided I needed business cards. I don’t know why I thought business cards were such a priority, but at the time it seemed more important than other forms of advertising. So, I went to a local print shop and ordered my first set of business cards.

Waiting for them to arrive was difficult, as I was more than a little excited about my new school. When they were printed, I went to pick them up, and my excitement faded fast. Right there on my brand new business cards:

 

Smedley Martial Arts

Hung Gar Kung Fu

Group Classes – Private Instruction

“We Sharpen Saws”

 

 Yes. Right there…”We Sharpen Saws”.

They offered to print a new set when I pointed out the error. But they also made an offer that the eternally cash strapped me could not turn down, I could take the cards with the error for half price.

So that was how I ended up handing out cards all over Austin offering martial arts instruction and joking about how I don’t really sharpen saws. The business cards were brought up to me in conversation by a student from that time when we ended up in a conversation about false advertising. He joked about how if I handed those out now, someone would file a lawsuit against me for false advertising.

How many martial arts instructors actually take the time to study and see if what they are claiming to offer is truly what they provide?

One easy example is the claim of “Self Defense Classes”.

In the traditional martial arts there are many different views as to what is the best method of self-defense. One will find entire schools and systems dedicated to one small aspect of fighting and laying claim to that system or school’s supremacy in the world of self-defense.

But one must ask which school or method is correct? Obviously, they cannot all be correct, as they are all claiming superiority.

In order to come close to answering this question, we must first determine what self-defense really is.

Speaking in specificity, self-defense is a very narrowly defined legal term. Throughout the world, there are different interpretations of the term, but what is clear is this; most of what is taught as “self-defense” in the United States is in legal terms, assault. What most people are looking for in a “self-defense” class is training in self-protection.

Throughout the USA, there are seminars and classes taught every day on the subject of self-defense. In the vast majority of these classes, the students are taught a specific response to a specific attack. Those who choose the path of the traditional martial arts will have a longer road, but the same outline when it comes to their method of self-defense; attack A requires response B.

Violence comes in so many different varieties and levels of intensity that there is no way that any rational person should ever be duped into believing that this attack/response scenario is even remotely workable in the real world.

Let us take a moment to examine what we should know when it comes to self-defense.

The most glossed over, least taught, and grossly unexamined aspect of self-defense is also the most important: Awareness.

Through practice in simply being aware of your surroundings and your environment, you will be able to avoid most “self-defense” situations in the first place.

But, if this is the most important aspect of self-defense training, why is it not taught?

The answer is simple, there is little to no market for it.

When a martial arts school offers self-defense classes as a sideline business, they need to make money off of it or they will not continue to teach it. When people sign up for a self-defense class, they have the attack/response training in mind before they sign up. If they do not get what they think they wanted, then word will spread that “Southside Dojo’s Self Defense training is worthless! He just tells you to keep your eyes open for any trouble…”

Just as important, and every bit as ignored, is training in avoidance. For those few situations where you didn’t see the trouble coming, simple strategies in the field of avoidance and de-escalation will carry you through. If you have any clue that they are available.

But as was the case with awareness, there isn’t a big market for avoidance and de-escalation strategies. Marc MacYoung is one of the best teachers in the world in this field, but he has not yet gotten rich through teaching it.

The duality of martial arts “philosophy” and “self-defense” training is largely unexamined. We martial artists hold firmly that we are not looking for a fight; we are peaceful warriors, and so on. Yet we are taught and we teach that if someone grabs your wrist, you need to twist and lock the attacker’s wrist, destroy the knee joint with a kick, snake the arm around their neck and with a sharp snap, break their neck, thus ending their life of wrist grabbing crime. 

This is more than confusing, it is dangerous. In the real world, if someone attacks you, even if they have a weapon, there is a fine line between self-defense and assault. Much of what is taught as self-defense by self-professed experts will be classified as assault by the police in nearly every area of the U.S. Yet this excessive use of force is what is taught and drilled repeatedly in martial arts schools across the country every single day.

Even worse than this is the fact that most of these “experts” have little to no experience in real world violence. Their exposure is limited to what they see on TV and in the movies. One fact that you should never lose sight of is this – movies and TV shows are not even close to accurate depictions of real violence. Soldiers, Police, Corrections officers, and criminals can tell you about real violence. Mr. Black Belt over at any-town Dojo does not have the real world experience, unless he worked in one of the previously listed professions, to teach you anything about violence. In my admittedly limited experience, I can only tell you that real violence is fast, ugly, very scary, and very messy. Nothing you do in the Dojo will prepare you for what is out there.

So, what good are self-defense courses and classes?

They are good for a confidence boost. I hold the opinion that anything that gets people off of their butt and moving around cannot be all bad. However, when you sell people something under the term of self-defense, and it is really something that could place them directly in jail should they ever follow your teachings; I have serious issues with that.

Critical thinking has a very crucial role in the martial arts and self-defense. It is a very common occurrence in martial arts schools around the world that the students check their intellectual freedom at the door. The instructor’s word is law, and this law must be followed. The teachings must be accepted, even when they have no basis in fact.

This becomes especially dangerous when we tread into the field of study of self-defense. Most people, when asked, will claim that they are not, in fact, giving up their intellectual freedom, they are following the teachings of an expert.

This brings us right back to where we left off. How do you define an expert in self-defense? Is it going to be someone who has survived thousands of drunken bar fights? Someone who has to fight through muggers, rapists and ninjas on their way home from work every day? How does one become an expert in self-defense? Do you really become an expert in self-defense through training in a dojo?

Typically, the answer is a resounding “NO” you do not become an expert in self-defense training in your typical dojo.

To truly gain real world self-defense skills and self-protection skills, you will need to train against more than a wrist grab. At the very least, you need to study the following:

  • Awareness
  • Avoidance
  • Pre fight indicators (pre-fight rituals)
  • De-escalation
  • Adrenalin effects
  • And last, actual physical skills

Please note that it is only the last skill in which you will receive any training during the typical self-defense seminar.   

Bottom line: Before you place your trust in the hands of an instructor, be armed with the power to critically examine what you are taught. Critical thinkers do not take someone’s word for it on any subject. We are interested in fact, and want to know the truth. The truth may not be what we like, or wanted to hear, but it is always better to be armed with the facts.

For more information on this topic, go to my links page and check some of the websites listed.

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February 7, 2012 · 3:04 pm

Use and Training: Understanding a Dichotomy

When we practice martial arts, we must always keep in mind two very different concepts. These concepts are use and training. In this article I am going to look at the two concepts, and try to walk away with a better understanding of both. While the old adage states, “The way you practice is the way you perform”, is this really what we are looking for in the Chinese martial arts?

When I am speaking of practice, for the purposes of this article, I am speaking about the training of forms in general and the techniques within the forms specifically. In Hung Gar, as well as any other martial art, when we practice forms, we may have an idea of what the different techniques mean, but there are times when we may wonder if it is really effective (especially when we first enter the world of practical and real-time application).

Take for example a technique called by various names, but the title I was taught is “Black Tiger Emerges from a Cave”. Seen here:

In this technique there are several questions which must be answered before one can understand the application. Why is the bottom hand positioned with the wrist at that angle as opposed to bent to another angle or straight? Why are the fingers curled the way they are? Why are the elbows positioned that way? Would any changes to the wrist, elbow, or hand positions render this technique useless?

One often overlooked and extremely important note is that situation is going to determine use, and the use is going to determine correct and incorrect.

In the above posted technique, if the upper hand is being used to deliver a strike, then the wrist of the striking hand is going to need to be bent back as shown, and the fingers are outstretched in order to avoid jamming or breaking them. If the top hand is being used to redirect a limb of the opponent, then the fingers are going to need to be curled a little more than they are shown, as well as the thumb needing to be placed a little further out from the palm. There are a host of questions that need to be asked about the bottom hand and the stance as well. But I think this point is made.

Too often, people get stuck with the idea that stances are for training leg strength. True, this is something that training in stances does give you. But there is so much more to be had, and in order to reach higher levels of understanding, one must let go of some concepts that have become very commonplace.

One must destroy the idea that stances are in any way intended to be static postures. They are not. Stances are transitional postures. I cringe when I hear people claim that stances are not used in fighting because they are just a method of training the strength of the legs. If there is nothing more to stances than that, why not simply hit the gym and do leg presses a few times per week, and gain much more leg strength in less time, and drop their use in forms altogether? The stances are transitional postures that allow for the maximum transfer of power into the opponent through the technique. Stance is essential in how we generate power in our techniques. In the forms the stances are there to allow us an understanding through experience as to exactly how stances factor in to the generation of power in the techniques. To stay that the stance is only to build leg strength is to show one’s ignorance. In the traditional martial arts, the stances were put there for a reason. The reason may vary slightly from style to style, but in general it will be tied to strategy and maximum transfer of power. The choice of which stance follows which is going to be tied to the idea of the footwork needed in order to properly position yourself and make the system’s overall strategy come alive and be effective.

Through the practice of forms, we train the style or system. The mere rote practice of forms can be compared to buying a book on…I don’t know…theoretical physics. You can have the book, read it every day and so on. But until you attend a class where a professor starts to explain what is in the book, and how it all ties together, all you are going to have is superficial understanding (at best), and no real in-depth knowledge.

Another point often missed is that the way a technique looks when performed correctly in a form will not always be the way it looks when correctly used in application.

For example, correct in a form (speaking on Hung Gar) is going to be a solid, wide and low stance, shoulders in a specific position relative to the position of the hips, etc. In application, correct is going to have to do with the details of timing, and distance in relation to where the opponent is (and what he is doing), how you deal with the attacking limbs of the opponent and position yourself to deliver your attack while maneuvering into a position which makes his attack impossible or at least very difficult to pull off, etc. The stances will remain important for structural purposes and delivery of force.

There is a dichotomy. But when we understand the value given to us, there is no need to act as if there is a problem. Provided the instructor is knowledgeable enough to explain how and why the use (application) will differ from the training (forms or techniques), there is no problem.

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February 4, 2012 · 2:08 pm

A Martial View From Beyond 40

When a martial artist reaches the age of 40, does everything really change that much?

 I turned 42 last year. I don’t really feel all that different from how I felt even five years ago. So it is not really the actual number 40 that matters, but age happens and things do change as we age. In this article I am going to go over some of the changes that have happened for me, and how they have affected my training, my outlook, and my philosophy on martial arts and conflict.

Training

When I practice now, I look more for injury prevention than I did when I was in my teens, 20s, and even early 30s. Through my teen years, we trained in garages and carports, on concrete. Our padding was plain ordinary cardboard (which, for the record, provides no padding at all; it just prevents the skin from splitting open on impacts as easily as it would on bare concrete). Even as a teenager, I got out of bed slowly, because as any old school martial artist can tell you – when you are true old school, something always hurts. Through my 20s, I remember beating my arms and legs with bundled wire, soaking my fists in herbs and water as hot as I could tolerate, and doing other stupid things. I am sure this type of masochistic training took its toll on me, but I really have no serious training injuries that plague me, except for the back pain, and that could just as easily have been caused by the years of working construction, or the years working as a pro wrestler as well, so I cannot be quick to blame that pain on old school martial arts.

I have met martial artists who claim that they never even bruised when they were in their 20s. I cannot make that claim, as I had bruises all of the time. But I can note that the bruises were gone in a couple of days, and that is far from the case now. When I get bruise now, they are there for days, and in some cases, more than a week. So this does cause me to space the higher impact workouts a little further apart. Or I could simply walk around as one big bruise…I do love being the center of attention.

The bruises, however, are not what bother me. The other injuries are my issue. Pulled and strained muscles are much more frequent, and my back gives me constant grief while my knees cry out for daily attention by swelling up to the point where after my hour-long drive home from work every day, they are swollen up to the point where it looks like I am smuggling coconuts in them.

This is the type of concern that causes me to tailor a workout around the idea of injury prevention, where before I used at most some simple caution when there was an activity that carried a little more risk. I have all but stopped working out in situations where there was someone else in charge of the class. This is not out of knowing better than they do, but more out of knowing that I am going to do whatever they ask the class to do, and more than likely they will ask the class to do something that is no longer part of my skill set, and I will get hurt in trying.

My latest issue is in how my low back pain stops some of my workouts before they get going. I have three disks in my lower back that are in varying stages of destruction, and the pain is typically at levels that would hurt rocks. I have to take it slower in the warm up stage of the workout, and the warm up has to be an extended warm up. I hate spending time on my least favorite part of a workout, but the choice is that or miss a few days trying to recover from another pulled muscle.

Outlook

As a person ages their thoughts on many subjects do evolve. There are some things that were a foundation for my life that are no longer a part of my views. Other things have changed. As we are trying to stay on the topic of martial arts, I will focus strictly on that area.

When I was younger, I viewed all training as something that furthered the ability of the trainee. Not so anymore. As I see things now, the trainee must have a clear view of what they are training for, and must not delude themselves into thinking that the other fields of study in the martial arts are enhanced or even learned through study in your own preferred field or specialty.

An example is simple, when I was in my 20s, I was beyond convinced that my practice of Taekwondo sparring was enhancing my self-protection skills. Of course, at this stage of my life, I know it did nothing of the sort. I am quite thankful that I was never attacked by the criminal element during that stage of my life. But every day there are people who get the rude awakening. It is delusional to think that tightly controlled and rule bound tournament sparring is anything more than very remotely related to self-protection against a criminal attacker. There is absolutely nothing wrong with training for a sport karate tournament, or a judo tournament, as long as the instructor makes clear, and you fully understand that the skills you are learning only partially transfer into the setting of self-protection. When you factor in all that happens when the adrenaline hits, all of the techniques that require fine motor skills are gone, you had best have some training in something that is simple and strong.

When I practice now, I no longer have tournaments in mind. I stopped competing in tournament a long time ago, and have never looked back. Well, that isn’t true. I look back a lot. My tournament days were a lot of fun, and I got to meet and compete against some very talented and wonderful people. But I do not regret no longer training with the tournament perspective.

Another outlook that has changed is the ultimate warrior mindset. As a teen I bought into the entire line of BS about being able to be transformed into a super ultimate fighting machine if I trained in the right system and followed the right master. As a mature martial artist (read “old man”), I understand that we train to better ourselves and that the person matters more than the style. Most mature martial artists would agree on that though.

Philosophy

I was quite the hot-head when I was young. I had certain ideas that shaped a lot of my philosophy in martial arts for a very long time.

For example, I advocated for many years that every child should be taught martial arts, and still feel that way today. But I didn’t stop there. I wanted them to be taught the brutal, bone breaking and eye gouging stuff! Pretty strange for me to think about being where I am now and teaching what I teach, but in my younger days I was still closely tied to the severe incidents of bullying that warped my worldview for too long. While I was what one might call a “victim” of bullies in 7th and 8th grade, the antics of that crew was literally child’s play compared to what waited for me beyond. My life was a wide-awake nightmare for many years. It didn’t stop until my skills grew to the point where I was able to fight off a bully, get him in an arm bar and rip his shoulder out of joint. The group started leaving me alone and turned their attention elsewhere. This was what led me to believe that the key to ending bullying was to teach the kids to destroy the bully. As I have become more distant to the incident and much better educated on the legal aspects of such antics in our modern world, I teach kids to follow the rules. I teach them that fighting really isn’t going to help them, and I teach them how to take the heat out of a situation before it turns to fighting.

One last note, and I would like to hear from other over 40 martial artists on this. Is it strange to take comfort in the thought that the me today could easily tear apart the me at 25 years old?

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Video

Why every child needs martial arts.

 

 

Due in no small part to the fact that I work for KICKSTART KIDS, I am asked on at least a weekly basis “should my child train in the martial arts?”, “Would martial arts help my kid with…(insert childhood challenge here)?”, and so on. In this article I am going to list the reasons why I feel children should be placed in the martial arts. Obviously I am biased, and add to this there are drawbacks, and I will address those as we go along. But in general, I think that the reason for enrolling your child into a martial arts class is because it is the fourth best thing in the world you can do for them (right behind loving, feeding and educating them). Here is why:

A child training in the martial arts develops self-discipline.

We all hear that martial arts are closely associated with discipline and have a long-standing history of producing disciplined individuals. But what does all of this mean for our kids?

In a typical martial arts class, the instructor who teaches the children’s class is going to bring the students through an opening ceremony of some kind. The purpose of the ceremony is in no way religious, although there are many parents who run away from martial arts schools as soon as they get this fear that the instructor is going to turn their kid into a Buddhist. The purpose of the ceremony, and the reason it is done exactly the same each time is to create a trained mindset in the student. On the deepest levels, they will come to understand that it is time to work and focus. The child will not even need to formulate this thought, it will just be known.

Once the class begins the instructor (if he or she is any good at working with kids) will take the children through a fast paced and high energy workout. The instructor will give commands and the students are required to respond in certain ways, verbally and physically, to these commands. This works on a few different areas of self-discipline for the child.

On one level, the child is exercising their ability to concentrate. This cannot be a bad thing for any child. One of (if not the) biggest complaints professional educators have about children in school is their lack of ability to concentrate. In a martial arts class a child has to pay attention and prove that they are paying attention by constantly responding verbally and physically to the commands of the instructor. In time their ability to do this grows very strong, and with encouragement from both instructor and parent, the child will begin to practice this type of self disciplined attention in school, and can only improve.

Most martial arts instructors give commands in a sharp, almost barking tone. To a child just entering the martial arts class, this can sometimes seem a little frightening. (I typically feel more sorry for the kids who are not frightened when I begin classes this way, as yelling is probably common at home). This works to condition a child to function at higher levels of disciplined attention under stress. The more that the child learns to do this, the less affected by outside stresses the child will be. Every kid needs this.

A child training in the martial arts develops confidence.

When a child trains in the martial arts, almost from day one, they are faced with new challenges in the form of physical skills. Again, if the instructor is good at what they do, the child will begin to see small successes from the first day. These small successes get strung together into bigger successes. As this process continues, the child is eventually ready for a belt test. Every child is nervous about a test, whether it is math or karate. But when the child has faced the challenges and developed the necessary skills, they can begin to approach the test with a self-confidence that they may not have had before. On some level, they know they can do this. In the case of martial arts, this confidence is going to be based on a history of facing all of the different challenges on the test, albeit spread out over a period of a few months. Each time a child successfully accomplishes a challenge set in front of them, their confidence goes up. Each time a child fails, and is allowed to believe that a failed challenge diminishes them, they lose confidence. The answer is not the trendy “don’t count the points and don’t declare anyone a winner” option. The answer is in letting the child know, “You need to work a little harder on this and then you can move up.” I typically build up the moment by showing my excitement that we now “know what we need to correct, and I know how to correct it, so let’s get right to work!”

Confidence is important for more than just grades. For a start, a child who is confident is much less likely to be selected as the victim by a bully. Bullies are not looking for a fight, they are looking to dominate. Also, a child who is confident is going to be happy. Speaking as an adult who was a painfully shy, poorly adjusted, bullied, and fully lacking in any form of self-confidence that exists, I can tell you, my school days were miserable. If I had not had two of the best friends a kid could ask for, I would more than likely be a statistic long before now. Martial arts changed me into a confident extrovert from someone who was far beyond introverted and fully into isolation. It changed me, and in doing so changed my life. Every kid needs this.

A child in the martial arts learns about conflict resolution.

This one can seem a little far out there if one does not look beyond the surface of the issue. A knee jerk reaction may be to say, “How is learning to punch and kick going to teach my child not to punch and kick people.”

For a start, when a child enrolls in a martial arts school that is not part of the “non-competitive” trend, the child will participate in an activity called sparring. The students will put on some safety equipment (pads) and practice strategic karate fighting on other students, with the object being to score points and win a contest. The child will get hit, no matter how much you may want that to not happen. It is much better for it to happen in a controlled setting such as a martial arts school than a parking lot behind the school.

In the martial arts school the child will learn to take the hits, but not take it personally to the point that they lose control. They will also learn (once again…if the instructor is good at what they do) to de-escalate a situation. Working for Chuck Norris’ KICKSTART KIDS, I know that in a school setting, the child needs alternative means of conflict resolution. If they get into a fight, even in “self-defense”, they will be in every bit as much trouble as the other kid. They need to know how to de-escalate, how to stay calm in the tense situations, and when to run. The child will learn how to look at the different things a person can say and do from a perspective that will allow the child to not take every word or action too personally. They learn this in the martial arts classes. Every kid needs this.

Here is a link to a video from KICKSTART KIDS on the benefits for children who train in the martial arts:

 

KICKSTART KIDS works on a different level in that the kids see us every day. In a commercial martial arts school, the student “does martial arts” when they feel like going to class. With the students in KICKSTART KIDS, they have to train day in and day out, when they feel like it and when they don’t. This brings an added dimention of allowing us the opportunity to teach one of the most important skills a person can have – work ethic. We get the chance to teach the students to give their honest best effort every day. Every adult needs this.

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February 3, 2012 · 1:58 pm