Self Defence Nonsense

Self Defence Nonsense

Ask nearly any martial arts instructor whether his art is superb in a self defence context and you will get “absolutely” as an answer. From Tae Kwon Do sports practitioners who leave their arms dangling by their sides in sports competition to Tai Chi instructors who have never sparred in their life and move at a snail’s speed, everyone thinks they have the answer to a life-or-death street confrontation.

And they fully believe in what they are doing and yes, a head high Tae Kwon Do kick or a Tai Chi push will work better than anything you have learnt in your Yoga class or Zumba session, but barely.

Normally, criticizing what everyone else is doing is at best an exercise in questionable marketing tactics and at worst rude and in bad taste, but self defence differs in one way from most other activities.

The more useless the method you are learning , the more likely it is to get you killed when you need it most! Self defence is like the emergency brake system on trains.

Hopefully you never need it, but when you do, it has to work. Imagine buying a car from someone and not knowing that the brakes were badly designed and how you would feel when you come down the steep road from Kloof Nek and try to slow down..and very little happens…and your car keeps on picking up speed.

If you survive the wreck, you are coming after the car salesman with a vengeance…IF you survive, that is!

Martial arts are wonderful and every single instructor has something to offer to someone, by definition. Some arts are better for sports, some allow you to move powerfully through your forms practice, some focus your mind, some increase your fitness levels and some are more self defence oriented.

Think about it. The more aspects an art or system covers, the more it is diluted for any one specific purpose that is a part of the mix. A Bedford truck is awesome for moving things from A to B. That’s all it does. A Formula One racing car is superb at driving fast. Again, that is all it does. Most martial arts styles are more like a Volkswagen Combi.

You can pick up the kids from school, do your shopping, move smaller household items to your new home, probably even pack in a sheep or two to take to the market. But you can’t outrace a Formula One racer with it or move things like you would with a truck.
These are great arts for all-round life-long personal development.

When it comes to someone trying to pull you into an empty room so as to rape you, you want the equivalent of that truck or the racing car, though. Something that is designed for one purpose only, i.e. allowing you to survive the next few seconds or minutes of violent confrontation.

In anything more violent than a schoolyard fight, someone will get injured. Without correct training, that would be you. Given sufficient training the idea is that your attacker is the one who eats through a straw for the next few months. If that sounds a little aggressive, then it has achieved it’s purpose.

Fighting so as not to be raped, stabbed, shot or repeatedly kicked in the head whilst trying to curl up into a ball on the ground is desperate, ugly and chaotic. Human beings at their best heal each other, write inspirational poetry, listen to music or make beautiful love.

A predator set on injuring or killing you is operating at the opposite end of the human spectrum. There is nothing “glorious” to be found in combat, anyone who has ever experienced it and glories in it needs psychiatric help.

If you are a “normal” human being, you do not glory in the impact of hard physical contact. There are those people, usually men, who are both highly competitive and like contact and are drawn to sports such as rugby, boxing, wrestling and mixed martial arts.
Absolutely nothing “wrong” with those sporting activities, but very few women and only a small percentage of men fit into that mold, physically or temperamentally.

So, to most people, the idea of physical violence is abhorrent. It sometimes makes you feel sick just thinking of it. Which is why the currently popular combat sports such as Kickboxing and Mixed Martial Arts are not a good self defence solution for most people or situations.

As much as these sports build up attributes such as timing, speed, power and toughness, most people cannot or do not want to handle the training. Also, these sports completely ignore defence against weapons and multiple attackers. Most opponents are equally matched, there is an agreement to “fight” and there are rules. Plus, in those sports allowing punching to the head, the hands are carefully wrapped and gloves are worn so as to protect them (more on that one later).

A twenty five year old athletic male mixed martial artist fighting against one opponent in a street brawl will certainly win, if he can make sure that weapons are not involved and that the other guy does not have friends that will interfere and if he refrains from punching to the head (which would most likely break his hands). So contact combat sports (boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, Judo, wrestling, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and MMA) are good for some specific combat situations, but there is no guarantee that these situations will actually materialize in that specific way, the odds are against it.

Let’s look at one of my prime indicators for truly bad self defence tuition for a moment:
Any so-called self defence training that programs you, in any way whatsoever, to punch someone in the head with your fist, is RUBBISH.

The reason that boxers and kickboxers first wrap their hands and then put on gloves over these heavily bandaged hands is NOT (as is often assumed by the ignorant) to protect the head of your opponent. Blunt force trauma is blunt force trauma, the effect on the brain is pretty similar whether it is hit by a gloved and wrapped hand or a bare fist.

Combat sportsmen do this so as to PROTECT THEIR HANDS. Bareknuckle fighters a few centuries ago ended up with hands that were no longer capable of holding a spoon, never mind writing a letter or playing a piano. I have known several martial artists who have broken bones in their hands from impact with someone’s skull. If they are truly tough, they “eat up” the pain and continue defending themselves with their other hand.
Not a good way to go about things though, if your main purpose is self defence , is it?

There are advanced level Karate black belts who train for thousands of hours on the “makiwara”, a springy punching post so as to toughen their hands. This may help, but then they also need the timing and accuracy so as to ensure that they make impact with the skull at the same perfect ninety degree angle with which they hit the makiwara.

I could write a book on this topic, but I just need to make you aware of the importance of being an “aware and educated” shopper when looking for self defence training, simply because of the possible consequences of choosing inferior training. I have known martial artists who died in street confrontations and have found myself asking “what if he had trained in a different system? Would he still be alive today?”

So, a few more thoughts on the topic. Let’s take a quick look at one or two illustrative examples. In my two teaching trips to Israel I met, observed and trained with Israeli practitioners from several different Israeli combative systems. Krav Maga and its various offshoots and factions trace their origin to Imi Lichtenfeld. Dennis Hannover, originally from South Africa, founded his “Survival” system on the basis of his knowledge of full contact Karate, Judo and Jiu Jutsu. These two teachers and their “descendants” (like Moni Aizek’s “Commando Krav Maga” or Eli Leffler’s “Hashita”) account for ninety nine percent of self defence tuition in Israel.

All Israeli self defence practitioners share a total pragmatism, laser-like concentration, high levels of fitness and an acceptance of violence that could happen at any given moment. This makes them very dangerous indeed and is obviously an outcome of the situation they find themselves in.

Contrast this with what I like to think of as the “Los Angeles School of Krav Maga” which has become popular around the world. Take SOME of the fantastic techniques of the Israeli version, add the “mystique” of the deadly Israeli Defence Force, add hand-wraps and boxing punches and some bodyweight exercises, now set the whole thing to a pumping “aerobics-class beat” (the music is great for pushing you but gets you used to a completely wrong timing, in combat terms) and do some Hollywood style marketing.

What you end up with is happy, sweaty, smiling faces, full classes around the clock, a bank manager who really, really loves you and Beverly Hills soccer moms who would get killed if they ever tried this muck against a determined criminal. I met some IDF combatives experts in Israel who just shook their heads at this watered-down crap.

part 2 following /...