Training to Fight / The Myth of Self Defense

The debate about training for the street and training for sport never seems to end. I decided to make an individual link to handle this question since it so commonly arises and to prevent any misunderstandings about my intentions when it comes to ODMA, it's active philosophy or curriculum. The following is my opinion and simply that. Please feel free to contact me if you have anything to add but I hope my point has been made clear by the time you finish reading this page. I don't see what all the fuss is about but here goes…

My definition of what is combative sport and what is fighting is as follows: If both parties agree to fight under specific rules and regulations  within a specific time frame, then it's a combative sport. If any one party does not wish to participate and / or is forced to at any given time or place, then it's a fight. The primary difference is what is being fought for and the reason why. One is a job or a sport for money, honor, or prestige, and the other is sheer survival for life, well being and / or liberty. One entails specific rules of engagement; the other's only rule is no rules.

How this influences me and my role running ODMA is as follows: I train for many reasons. Self-defense is not one of them but simply a by product of them all. I believe that one on one hand to hand "fights" of honor only occur in the ring. I am not concerned with what worked in Feudal Japan nor what was honor once upon a time in a more "innocent" America. In my life, I have yet to ever see, read of, or hear of someone being attacked or robbed honorably. (Granted, I have seen a great deal of theft in boxing.) I am 34 years old with a loving family, rent, bills, debts and every working American's dreams to succeed. Responsibility, more so than any martial art could ever dream of, has readily allowed me to walk away from challenges to my ego. Now, do you actually think for a moment that a threat (not a challenge) to me or my loved ones would have anything to do whether or not I trained martial arts?! The will to action at that moment would have nothing to do with any confidence or techniques acquired through the martial arts. None! If I were alone and attacked I would rely on my track and field ability. If I'm with loved ones…the pain tolerance, endurance, power and ferocity given by God at that moment is a force of nature and has nothing to do with civilization's fighting arts. My training? Against being outnumbered or dealing with a weapon? No style will save you, only your wits. It has much more to do with your psychology and your will to survive and protect life than any manufactured technique or style designed supposedly to end it.

The myth of street fighting: They seldom ever occur on a street. Try instead, bars, clubs and places serving alcohol and selling a whole lot of mood and attitude. These ego-based displays of physical prowess usually occur around locations where single people go in numbers to socialize.

Obviously mix sex and drugs together with a large number of single people and those not getting any of the first and too much of the second will be very frustrated. When you visit an establishment where the ultimate goal of most intoxicated patrons by midnight is to fight or fornicate, your chances of feeling the fight or flight response, a boot or bottle to the head, and even getting arrested is a good one. I practically lived and worked in clubs from age 17 through 28. Avoid them and you avoid 99% of the so called street fights.

The reality of assaults: Real fights are actually assaults. They can and do occur everywhere and at any time. In fact, unlike the scenarios above, statistically most assaults occur near or at your home. There are no stances, deflections, blocks or parries against strikes that come in the form of multiple led projectiles. Knife fights are called assassinations in the real world. The only knife ever involved is the one "suddenly" inside you. Movies would have it that every criminal places a gun at your stomach before making a long drawn out sales pitch or presents and twirls a knife in front of you before lunging in like an Olympic fencer. This is not the case at all. Criminals are scared too and seldom get close until they know you are secured, this at times means shot or dead. The knife is felt and not seen as it often comes from a blind side or from someone other than you are dealing with. Muggers and rapists use stun guns and pepper sprays as well as the ladies they attack. Assaults are predatory by nature and if they do not involve weapons, involve larger numbers, or at the least a much larger or stronger assailant than victim. Against these odds once they occur, no hand to hand martial art stands much of a chance and survival is more in the realm of psychological tactics, luck, and your ability gage the best moment to escape.

The grappling arts imply: "most fights end up on the ground…take them there "The striking arts imply: "all fights start standing up…keep them there "The mixed martial arts imply: "any fight can go anywhere…be ready and able to go everywhere"

Coast to Coast Crime Statistics state: 10 out of 10 assaults involve a weapon(s), being outnumbered, being physically outclassed or any combination of the above.

Street technique versus Sport Techniques or "Just add dirt" I can hear it now from all the street fighters... "But Luis, what about eye gauges, hair pulling, biting, ripping, pinching, scrotum striking, yanking and smashing, scratching, spitting, foaming at the mouth, growling, breaking bottles, wearing boots, colon control and crapping at will?" Well, what about all that? If you can't even hit a guy with a 16oz. glove how the hell are you going to eye jab him? If you can't keep a guy from putting you on the ground and proceeding to do his best rendition of River Dance on your cranium, how the hell are you going to just kick him in the balls or bite him? And if you indeed are getting punched, kicked, and out grappled by a superior martial artist and you get the bright idea to bite him, what's to stop him then from doing the same if not worse to you…and from a much better vantage point to boot? (Pun intended.) Bottom line…if you build a foundation on movement (timing and awareness in motion) and the attributes necessary to deliver and apply efficient strikes, controls and finishes, you just need to add the foul or dirty tactics. It doesn't work the other way around. "Be like water…then just add dirt." Luis (El Che) Guitierez - 3-12-2000

Posted on PFS Forum by Luis on April 09, 1999 at 23:42:36 in reply to statement after statement about training the killer instinct:

Though I agree that one must recognize and come to terms with one's own darker side for both growth and true peace, I can't help but to mention the power of the other side of that equation. I would like to hear your thoughts on that side too. The following should not be taken personally unless of coarse it hits a certain cord within you. I'm just a bit touchy when I hear talks about Killer this or Killer that. Though I am always impressed with the level of respect and responsibility on this forum, I have perhaps frequented a few others to many times. So with that stated...

I have experienced rage from within and felt it from the outside as well; that rage and will to power that transcends the mere adrenaline rush of fear and/or anger and seeks to consume, digest, and excrete any threat it aims for. It exists and can be expressed differently depending on the character and experiences of the person too. Though it's scary enough in the wide eyed, blood flushed face, and white knuckle fury of fully "committed" aggressor it's even much scarier in the calm, methodical, and reptilian manner of a "convinced" adversary. I firmly believe that the more experienced the predator the more "reptilian" and less "monkey" the mind set and expression of violence.

My point though is that how much do you scar the heart to survive the struggles of life? Enough so you can survive anything...but feel nothing? Build up enough armor and you have built a cage. It's a more delicate path than given credit too and one not to be taken lightly. I have seen many people in lines of work that demand a “killer instinct” and have personally seen them become dark themselves. I value the brave heart that can do what is necessary but recognizes the act for what it is and what it can do. If you look at history, some of the greatest warriors were nothing more than poets and farmers pushed too far. It was their gentleness and love of life that once threatened made them monsters in the eyes of their oppressors. Then again throughout history you will also find the greatest killers and conquerors fueled by the cowardice of jealousy, prejudice, and hatred. This KILLER'S instinct...is it simply a tool? Does a man who fights for his people's freedom, his family, his child have the same instincts as the one who fights for power and oppression of others. I would argue no. One's instinct is to preserve, shelter, and nurture and the other's is to control, dominate, and instill fear. Regardless of moral judgments (it's often relative) both can kill but one lives to create and the other to destroy.Who then has a better grasp of a killer's instinct? I would say the serpent is always wiser than the lamb on these matters and that an instinct to kill is not the same as an instinct to preserve.

My money is on the better skilled or armed fighter or warrior and that not only mean physically. My money is on the man who fights for the life of his child or wife and his love of life and not the #@^#^$ bastard who is so scared of it and that he can't see past his own fear, isolation, and bottomless hunger. It really isn't always what you fight with but what you fight for. So much of the martial arts world is made up of tough talk as if we were living in times where martial arts meant so much to survival. It isn't.

Kindness, compassion, a lust and a love for life are the true and eternal powers. If threatened to be destroyed, damaged, perverted, or confined they are nature's best gifts to mankind to endure, escape, survive, and be victorious. You don't need to train a killer or predatory instinct. You already have it. A tiger doesn't spend any time training to be mean or cruel. If anything, it plays to sharpen it attributes. It plays. When the real time comes, it then does what it really does. A man should therefore be a man. No more and no less. Striving to become anything outside of that is not recognizing what is already contained within.

Only faith and courage allow you the initial freedom to experience growth and liberate you to do so of your own accord. Fear and doubt can only offer you bondage to half truths and deceive you further and further away from the yourself and the truth. You don't need to become a “killer” to face what kills life. You just need a life to live with all that sustains it. It takes real courage to live, love and enjoy it. All of it. If ever you are attacked and must defend yourself, let your LIVING self be undoubtedly what must be allowed to LIVE and let your attacker(s) be nothing more than what seeks to end. Give no thoughts to what you must do and you will do what must be done.

NHB vs. Street Fighting

Posted by Luis on the Deluxe MA JKD Forum on 1/ 18 /2000 concerning a debate between training the MA for the street vs. what is now being labeled NHB training and the importance of discovering yourself, growing, building ethics, spirituality, etc through MA training in general.

Martial arts in their active expression are physical. End of story. Unless you are talking extra-terrestrials, combat on earth requires movement.

Some then may argue that they have a spiritual side too, a meditative side, an all important psychological side. Guess what? So does every action. Why argue the obvious? If you are in the correct frame of mind, every single activity of a living conscious being is multi-dimensional. If you are “awake”, taking out the garbage is a great experience. Given the correct perspective, you can make break through and learn about yourself anytime doing anything.

I'm not trying to belittle the benefits of list making and organizing but let's not forget that that's all they are, just lists, stats, ideas, compartments for our own convenient collecting of stuff. Labels are definitely useful but always limited and time related observations. The world was flat and the center of the universe once and entire physical, mental, and spiritual structures stood on that paradigm. The world was "round” and stood among zillions of others and could have cared less about those “ideas”. Eventually exploration (action) toppled all that and so many new physical, mental, and spiritual structures were modified to fit around that “new idea”. Well the earth wasn't exactly round as exploration (action) took us out into space and was now composed of various energy fields, polarities, and subtle but very influential interrelated systems. Exactly…blah blah blah! Noise. What is, is always more than what we limit it to be. The idea of athletics and movement being void of spirit is simply a very limited observation. Actually a skewed and relatively new one because the ancients always new otherwise.

Many forums now have mental and psyche forums along with their other divisions of the martial arts. Again, let me remind you, we make these divisions, they do not exist. They are words, sounds, and yes, noise.

In action, alive, and in the moment, hence always, there are no divisions, such thing as mind, body, spirit etc. These are just some of the current symbols or modes of expression. Tools no more no less but just tools and too often unfortunately just the ornaments of rhetoric, semantics, and circular arguments. Thoughts void of action are but mental masturbation, perhaps safe but empty of any fulfilling interaction.

Whether you currently use pre reflexive to reflexive, subconscious to conscious, right brain to left brain, or body and mind/ spirit is quite irrelevant to growing and discovering yourself unless that is what you seek. They are just tools.

Life is alive. To spend it planning out how you should live it and how it should be lived is not living it at all. You have no choice…only time with which to delay it or get on with it. Try saying no and or maybe about your breathing. Better to just say yes and improve upon that as best you can with what you have. Yet fear expands and grows with every no or maybe when it comes to confronting life and gradually contracts and dissipates with every yes you make to life.

You must “fight” if you have chosen the art of fighting as your way just as one must paint if one has chosen painting as their way.
I have personally met assholes in every walk and down every path just as I have met kind and generous people there too. My point about all this (STREET versus NHB) / (Fighting People VS Fighting Yourself) is….drum role please…..

Religions, teachers, philosophies, gurus, martial arts, athletics, arts, sciences, drugs, ways and no ways and books won't make you a better person. They are simply vehicles. Only you can & will. And…only you can or will ever be able to let it be taken from you as well. Stand still is an illusion in life. You are either going forwards or moving backwards. Staying challenged keeps you growing and offers greater possibilities to get you into that great “flow zone” from which you emerge with ever new insights.

You are always more than your own limits dictate. The “high” of training all out comes from the “temporal” loss of ego and self consciousness, the root of all fears. But the loss of self-consciousness does not involve a loss of self and or obviously consciousness, but only a loss of consciousness of the self. Hence, a moment free of your own fears and limited perception of self. Temporarily being able to transcend who we “think” we are is not only very pleasing, it gives us a great chance to expand that concept and idea and if repeated enough, can lead to self-transcendence and the feeling of stretching our boundaries and pushing them forward. This was my experience when training with Matt in the martial arts and one that I have had many times before and continue to do so when doing other activities fully and with all my being.

Jeet Kune Do "Trapped by Trapping"

Even an impeccably logical argument can lead to a false conclusion. Systems of logic, however sensible, elaborate, and appealing, are all based on a series of assumptions that originate or can be traced back to one statement. If that statement or any assumption built there from is proven to be flawed or false in any shape or manner, then that system of logic has and holds no real world application. Initial statements of reason must therefore be tested and stand the trials of living experimentation and exploration to discover their true worth, place, and function to the living world around it. Furthermore the systems of logic that refuse or deny such testing only serve to function within the inclusive parameters and isolated confines of their own rational limits and pose a greater potential to deceive and mislead that or those trapped within or by them."

Jeet Kune Do has become a form of demonstration, the style of intercepting an idle audience's attention and blasting it with a myriad of complex movements that dazzle the eye and makes for great theatrics. Initially a living, moving, and developing philosophy founded on the real time application and refining of attributes as they pertain to fighting, it stands today as little more than staged dances dressed in the dramatic facial contortions and grimaces of actors. Taught by instructors who wear their certifications like fashionable awards of merit and value their lineage to a dead man over the progression of their living students, Jeet Kune Do has become a structured vehicle for decoration that entangles motion up with mimicry and values pattern as performance. To get to the very core of this classical mess, one needs only trace JKD back to its now classical origin, Wing Chun and hence…trapping.

Ask yourself, when was the last time you pulled off a successful Wing Chun trap? Anything remotely resembling one? Against whom? Another Wing Chun practitioner? How many assailants can you picture ever assaulting you using a Wing Chun structure or if you compete, how many combative athletes will ever do so in a ring? Have you ever successfully used a Wing Chun trap on an aggressive boxer and /or grappler? To what measure or what type of person are you equating your ability to perform and train with to? The classic or traditional stylist? The drunk frat guy? An emotionally disturbed librarian in a traffic dispute? Instead, how about equating your "martial" ability against a martial athlete? , How about getting a trap off against an actively training and developing fighter who has the conditioning and tactics to really pose a threat to you? Any combative sport athlete that trains with committed aggressive resistance and contact will do. You choose. A boxer, Thai Boxer, Judoka, BJJ player, wrestler, whatever. Hell, grab any conditioned athlete that plays in an aggressive contact sport for that matter. Ask any collegiate football player or hockey player willing to go at it with you with the same intensity they simply play and scrimmage with on a weekly basis and then see how your classically stylized theory holds up.

Against an aggressive resisting opponent, it is difficult enough to keep within a striking range, let alone attempt to conventionally "trap" his limbs.

If you are honest with yourself, the results you discover through this trial by fire session will have a profound effect on your entire training approach and concepts. You will begin to question the thinking patterns and logic behind all your hours spent on working Chi-Sao (sticky hands) and for that matter all those energy drills and box patterns designed to build fighting attributes. What fighting attributes? The many ways to take a beating at the hands of an experienced fighter? Fighting is contact oriented. It's highly physical, emotionally challenging, and overall psychologically transforming. Success in the martial arts and combative sports, ultimately requires your courage and athleticism and not your sensitivity to patty cake drills with the sugary coatings of kung fu theatre.

Time spent training drills designed by martial sports that actively test their skills, can lead to more efficient strategies and techniques when encountering a fully committed opponent.

Essentially a philosophy of self-discovery and the freeing of oneself from the trappings of one's own personal and culturally indoctrinated illusions, Jeet Kune Do was once about freeing one's self from fears and false assumptions. Borrowing very heavily from the views of J. Krishnamurti, Lao Tzu, and Zen philosophy, it set out to revolutionize by example the way most had been looking at the martial arts. Alive and living in both breadth and scope, it was never intended to be categorized, copyrighted, and be put up for sale. Now systematically incorporated by those placing stock in certifications, levels, ranks, terminology and lineage, it stumbles along a static mockery of it's intended potential and dynamic intent.

This philosophy can only truly exist or be expressed by or in the doing. It exists in living applications not dead demonstrations. Jeet Kune Do's efficiency is in the living exchange of energy and not the post modern form of two man kata being deceptively labeled energy drills. Those drills have nothing to do with energy as it pertains to fighting. Fighting is alive. Those drills are stagnant and dead. They are trapped within the confines of pre-arranged limitations and standards. There is no room for energy outside of timing and motion. Energy is motion. Limiting and trapping its range and power within some drill ironically enough I guess is a trapping drill after all. You are confining it and if you do so long enough...it will die.

If you in "deed" believe to be training, teaching, and using Jeet Kune Do, don't you in "deed" owe it to yourself and others around you to discard and reject what is useless? And if you in "deed" claim to represent a martial art that seeks out the truth and stresses originality of expression, should you not in "deed" place your work and faith in creation and not imitation? How do you ever expect to research your own experience and add what is specifically your own if all that you experience is not yours to begin with? Why live a second hand life? It is your own. Why borrow another's?

Bruce Lee chose to live out and express his philosophy in a very physical manner with very instant feedback as to whether or not it worked. If you wish or have chosen to express your own in a similar vein, I suggest you put away the petty habits of collecting things and let them go. Instead, glove up, hit the mat, and train your attributes specifically for what they are going to be called upon to do. Fight. Bruce Lee is dead. His life's work lives on only if your work is alive and you follow your own unique path, not his. Put JKD behind you and walk on.

Your Field of Training

Taken from a forum discussion on Streetfighting concerning the SBG's credibility and ability to instruct someone in "self-defense."

I don't think you will get Matt or Burton to talk about "street" confrontations and such as I think they would agree with me that the point is mute and certainly nothing worth publicly sharing. What you will find is that among the SBG Instructors and Coaches is a background in various other systems including JKDC. We have all trained with drills and methods we learned to let go of. Not because they were a starting point and such, but because we found other methods to be more efficient for us, those we were working with, and for the jobs or sports we were training for.

You see, among the SBG instructors and coaches what you will find is that some are Cops, some grew up or live in neighborhoods that would make the worst in America seem like Disney Land, others have worked as bodyguards, bouncers, doormen etc. Yes, they have their experiences with the ugly and very real but prefer to talk, live for, and stress the good times. Their initial reason to get into the "martial arts" was indeed to improve their ability to fight and better their odds in life and/ or on the job. They already had backgrounds in sports or boxing, wrestling, Judo etc and wanted to see what else was out there in the world of the "fighting" arts. Combative sports emphasis just naturally developed further from trial and error training in the MA and attempting to implement them on the job and in the field. That's it. We all returned to our roots in athletics be they combative or not because they involve movement, stability, breath and a living pulse against another's.

Yes, yes, yes, you have to alter certain things in the field or job. I know you know as well as any of us about all the variables that can exist in the "street" and the specific medical and legal liabilities and factors that exist for Peace Officers and security jobs. But the things you alter are not the athleticism or vehicles of the training but the mind set and most importantly the intent behind the force and will you bring to the fight. Ask what for and you get the specific why and how of it. But whether it's the athlete who trains for fun, to compete and win, the LEOs who must intercede, stabilize, and resolve, soldiers who must kill, complete the mission, and stay alive, or the man, woman, or child who wants fitness and fun, the field of play be it still, calm, clear, clouded, frenzied, heated, or frozen, is always the water.

Also.

Stating how our friends and gym members have survived or use the material we train effectively in the field or on the job is also pointless in that every single MA has the same testimonials in one way or another. Among cops, accountants, women and even children and against punks, hood rats, bad asses, drunken misaligned assaults, weapon or no weapon, we all have testimonials of success using our methods from the TKD schools to the Tactical Combatives guys. The point is and the emphasis should be more on personal efficiency and improving the odds of our training partners to do such things as defend themselves, do their jobs and most importantly to me...grow as people.

Much like the SBG instructors and coaches, are training partners and gym members also know, understand, and keep firearms. They train for many different reasons and are of many different ages but MA today involves guns, law suits, and will often involve loss of life or money, "win or lose", weapon or none.

I learn to learn from everyone but as to what I keep, use, and what I impart, well that continues to always return to what works and can be trained under pressure and what involves keeping the body and mind clean, strong and sound.

As far as "everything working perfectly according to your preparation".

Nothing will perform perfectly according to your preparation but in perfecting your preparation you must perform. In other words, performance and preparation must strive to be one and the same.

Train swimming in the water. Dry land swimming is useless. And yes, training for synchronized swimming is super hard, will allow you to navigate in water and be graceful as a fish in a bowl but it won't win a sprint or endurance race or even keep you in one. If God forbid you have a boating accident, it will increase your chances of survival but not as much as the guy who swims daily in the ocean for speed and endurance, in stillness and in motion. Sport may call for more training in endurance and "street" for more of sprinting but it's all there in you building the attributes, delivery systems, and tactics athletically.for the short run and hopefully for the long haul.

Best of fortune,

-Luis

(Luis (El Che) Guitierez is the Head Coach for SBG Florida, a well known children's teacher, and aspiring revolutionary.)

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