Considering that martial arts are, in essence, methodologies for fighting I always consider paramount to perform a reality check of each application. This is to assess if and when a technique or combination can be useful in a self defence or real fight situation.

Please notice that some styles, like kick boxing, tae kwon do and judo are to be considered martial sports and they follow rules that are designed to allow a sport competition to take place without causing serious injuries to those taking part in it. To some extend certain martial sports train full contact and a professional or a serious amateur of these is pretty safe in a fight as I recently mentioned in a previous post.

Certain styles that are pure martial arts, without sport applications, are meant to be useful for real fights and defending yourself. I am aware of a number of masters and instructors that remain pretty theoretical on the way they teach and assume that things will simply work: these people give a false, very dangerous, illusion to their students that risk to be seriously injured or killed in a real fight. It all good stating that one or the other technique will hurt an opponent, it’s another issue practicing it to ensure it works all the times.

So how do you perform a reality check? Here are some hints:

• Have you tested your punches (or kicks, elbow or knee strikes) for real power?
• The same strike might knock somebody down if applied to the head but just hurt a bit in certain areas of the body: did you consider that?
• Have you considered how bad it could be hitting somebody in the face to find out that he hardly noticed the strike? What would you do then?
• How much power do you think you need in order to knock somebody down or seriously injury them, allowing you to run away?
• How would you react if somebody is charging you like a bull? Do you have a technique that would allow stopping or deflecting his attack?
• Do you practice techniques that work at long, medium and short range? What about if the attacker is grabbing you?
• Striking can be the non ideal solution sometimes. Do you practice techniques to seize the opponent and neutralizing him? Perhaps immobilizing him with a joint lock?
• If you are below average the terms of body weight and size then you should consider training to defeat bigger people. What’s your body size compared to the average population?

I would be interested to hear comments about these issues.

Posted under educational, self defence, street fighting, teaching, theory

When I start thinking about self defence a number of different things come to mind: I firmly believe it’s difficult to feel 100% safe, however strong or skilled in martial arts you might be. A lot of martial arts clubs or schools will advertise themselves as teaching self defence. What is in reality self defence? Many different people, from different countries and cultures, might have totally different ideas about it. Let’s say that if you are on the street, rather then in a bar or a club: somebody might approach you and trying intimidating you for a number of different reasons. Robbery? Sexual abuse? Drunken brawl? Road rage… you name it: I heard of some people that just like going out and punch in the face the first person they meet on their way. What if that person is going to be you?

The best self defence is not being in the dangerous situation all together. Fighting might not be a not a natural thing for many but evolution gave us natural defences. Our natural instinct plays funny games: if you are not mentally ready your brain will release a lot of adrenaline, your heart will start pumping much faster and you might just freeze or became irrationally violent and uncontrolled. Martial arts training can vary a great deal in terms of how realistic and practical is in a self defence situation. In any case I am convinced that practicing martial arts is the closed resemblance to a fight, to various levels of realism. Different approaches will assume you have to punch (boxing), punch and kick (karate, tae kwon do, kick boxing), throw and or manipulating joints (aikido, ju jitsu, judo, hapkido) and so on.

The other important factor to consider if you find yourself in one of these situations is how well you master the art you are practicing: a few months can be useful to understand a few moves; 12-18 months can give you a level of proficiency; 3-5 years you might feel the confidence. It’s always a safe measure not to advertise your proficiency in any martial art: ignorant people out there might want to challenge you and see how tough you are.

Practicing a martial art is not about being tough, it’s about improving yourself with techniques and practices that make you feel better, fitter, more agile and ready for action: that doesn’t mean you should look for it. At the same time if this person did not practice martial arts in the first place he/she would be even more vulnerable.

Posted under self defence, street fighting

A few months back I received a phone call from a guy enquiring about my club and classes; while I was explaining what we do, timetables and prices the guy interrupted me and stated: “My main purpose is self defence. I am very busy and I have not time to train 2-3 times per week for years: could you please teach me, in 2-3 classes, a few moves to defend myself? I understand and respect the effort you guys put in the martial arts training but I would really like just to defend myself and I simply don’t have time for that”.
I was initially a bit confused about this sentence then I merely replied that if I had a formula, a few magic moves, to help an individual to defend himself/herself I could have made millions. I also tried to explain that self defence is a very complex science that depends on a large number of factors including situation, size of the attacker(s) and reason of the attack. I also added that despite my 30 years of experience and confidence in my own knowledge of martial arts I cannot feel 100% safe in every situation. I simply concluded, after a few attempts to explain myself, that there was no point for me to spend extra time on the topic. In invited him to do 2 things:

• Come and I have a look at what we teach, to understand the flaw in his knowledge about self defence
• Look for teachers that could in fact satisfy his request and once found put me in touch with him.

I never heard of him since.

Posted under self defence, street fighting

None of them if possible. Street fights do happen: sometimes dictated by irrational behaviour, other times escalating from binge drinking, road rage or other unforgivable reasons: whatever the motivation, it can happen to you. With this post I am not trying to discuss how to defend yourself in such a situation: simply analyzing why a professional fighter is usually a more dangerous opponent than a street fighter.  An experienced street fighter, perhaps somebody who grew up in a rough neighbourhood, is a dangerous opponent to fight because:

• he is surely unfair, not playing according to rules (what rules?)
• he will be seizing any opportunity available, hit you first
• he would try to hurt you with a sudden move, perhaps while talking or arguing
• he will try to knock you down as soon as possible: probably once he succeeded he will continue to hit you while you are on the floor
• he will be ruthless, perhaps using weapons, in order to win the fight at any cost

Let’s now define a professional fighter: my definition here will be ‘somebody who fights full contact either in boxing, kickboxing, muai thai, K1 or MMA and trains for it several hours per week’.  I am convinced that you ever get to fight one of these guys (or girls) in the street your chances are much slimmer than in the other case.  The professional fighter will be:

• stronger, faster, fitter than the average man on the street and with enough stamina to be fighting at full power for several rounds lasting 2 to 5 minutes each
• with a good knowledge about what parts of the opponent to hit and the precision needed to deliver on target
• with a well conditioned body, trained to be hit hard by other professional fighters

From an emotional point of view the street fighter will be acting under rage, at full adrenaline burst: the professional will surely be affected by adrenaline rush but in a much more controlled and trained way so he will be more focused on his actions.

Considering that is unlikely we know who we are going to meet on the street and whether they are street, professional or non fighters my suggestion would be to avoid fights at any cost: in the mean time keep (or start) training martial arts, they might be useful one day.

Posted under street fighting, theory