Is This Art Good For Self Defense - Part 2
This is part2 of a 2 part article from Richard Dimitri's acclaimed book 'In Total
Defense Of The Self' which has been dubbed one of the best books ever written on self defense! Reproduced here under Authority.
How much time is devoted to defending against the jab, the Thai kick, the technical clinch, the side kick, the perfectly executed hook punch, the arm bar, the wrist lock?
How much time is devoted to defending against a sucker punch in the middle of a verbal confrontation, a hard tackle off of a verbal assault, a knife coming out while struggling in the clinch. How are you dressed while doing this? A gi? Thai shorts? Tank top? Bare feet maybe? What about winter boots? A 3 quarter jacket? Jeans? Heals? Suit and tie? 30 pound schoolbag on your back?
If you isolate an attack without incorporating realistic levels of physical and verbal aggression in order to trigger the emotional inertia, when faced with a real attack outside the dojo, ring, mats whatever... the student will more often than not experience 'freezing' from lack of suffice information. The mind will have no comparable experience making it almost impossible for them to respond effectively. Why? Because the brain will revert back to the training but the training never dealt with this unfortunately "new information". No one in class ever nearly put me through a wall while grabbing me like that and calling my mother a filthy #!$% licking w****?!?!
How much time does your system devote to avoiding and defusing a potential threat with proper tools based on research, experience and statistics? It's not enough to simply tell someone you don't want any trouble. It's not enough telling someone you don't want to fight. This is NOT defusing a fight at all. On the contrary, the majority of what is being taught as verbal defusing in most schools today will actually escalate the situation. When was the last time you actually verbally de-escalated the scenario you were in where it didn't go physical and your partner who was the intended attacker turned around and said "Damn man, I didn't know what else to say, you got me."
What about the physical aspect? Well, what about it? Like I mentioned earlier, we are already hard wired with a survival mechanism, Mother Nature took care of that. If your physical arsenal consists of tools or techniques that require fine and complex motor skills, then the chances of them working are minimal, argue all you want, it has been scientifically proven time and time again. So your physical arsenal should enhance what God already gave you as opposed to negate it through stylistic interference (your bodies desire to perform a move that directly negates the already bypassed cognitive brain by the mid brain due to the adrenal stress and fight or flight response).
What does your physical arsenal look like? How many hours do you spend on elaborate submissions, on perfecting your punches, kicks, elbows and knees? How much time do you spend actually using these tools not in sparring but in fighting against the unknown opponent? Unknown meaning, you don't know if he has a friend on the side who'll jump in, you don't know if he's carrying a weapon or not, you don't know how he is going to react or what he is going to do because there are no parameters created by rules in sparring... this is real now...
Let me add to this the following:
Does your style spend a considerable amount of time teaching you about the legalities of your implications in a real fight? How to deal with witnesses? How to talk to a cop if you're caught?
What about the revenge factor? Does your system teach you that after you've won your fight that the guy you just beat on may seek revenge? Do they teach you how to deal with the sometimes-grim aftermath of your actions?
Real violence is behaviorally rooted. Sparring isn't. Martial art training is physically rooted. "When someone does this, you do that." Not many explain or teach how to avoid "someone doing this" in order for "that" not to become the primary choice action. So, is your training behaviorally rooted, yes or no? Does it take into consideration pre contact psychology yes or no? Is the physical training adaptable to your hard-wired survival system or are you trying to reprogram thousands of years of evolution with new techniques that require timing, torque, distance, and a high degree of skill and cognitive processing? You be the judge.
get your hands on a copy of 'In Total defense Of The Self' visit
www.senshido-self-defense.com Is This Art Good For Self Defense - Part 2
By: Phil Thompson
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