The Little Black Book of Violence

You’d think the same rule would apply in the parking lot, but not so. Darren, Wilder’s team’s defensive captain, took off his helmet, held it by the facemask, and swung it right into the temple of another guy’s helmet. That blow buckled the other guy’s knees, sending him reeling. Suddenly the rest of the fight was on.

After a few minutes, the fight was broken up, ending everything but the name-calling, but Wilder learned an important lesson in the process. While everybody “knew” that taking your helmet off was an invitation to get hit, Darren saw his helmet as a weapon. He broke the rules as everyone else understood them. He came up with an unconventional approach, struck first, and did not allow a response from the other guy.

Most fights work this same way. When the other guy attacks, he will employ surprise and cheat to win, perhaps utilizing a weapon. He will bend the rules as much as possible to gain advantage. No, fighting is not a democratic process.

Don’t Self Destruct

Now the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose.

- Sun Tzu

Some of the world’s strategists are concerned only with sword fencing, and limit their training to flourishing the long sword and carriage of the body. But is dexterity alone sufficient to win? This is not the essence of the Way.

- Miyamoto Musashi

Wilder’s judo instructor, a two-time national grand champion back in the 1950s, had a simple mantra when it came to fighting. Kenji’s principle was, “If you have a position that is not the best or not the one you want, stay with it anyway until your opponent gives you something better. Don’t go looking for a better position. Wait until he gives you one.”

Keeping what you’ve got until something better comes along is sound advice not only for sport, but for street fighting as well. If, for example, you grasp the other guy’s arm, keep it. Use it to control him until he gives up something better, say, his head. Neck cranks are much better for takedowns and control techniques than arm locks or throws, yet they are also much harder to get without the other guy doing something stupid first. Sure, you can trick him, of course, but don’t force things you can’t naturally get.

If you meet a jet fighter pilot today and ask him if he has ever been in a dogfight like the movie Top Gun, the answer is most likely going to be “No.” With today’s technology, the real fight is about spotting and destroying the enemy before he even knows that you are there. Acquire the enemy first, strike first, and never let him know what hit him. It really is more of an assassination than a fight. Not a very democratic exchange of blows, now, is it? Well, aerial combat is not democratic and neither is street fighting.

Forcing techniques is dangerous. Your opponent will be doing his damnedest to beat you down, so do your best not to let him win. Keep things simple and straightforward and you won’t self-destruct. Don’t get stupid. Don’t get too smart for your own good, trying fancy or flashy techniques.

This is important whenever you practice martial arts. What gets trained gets done, so if you practice for a fight, you need to do so realistically. Sadly, many folks, even veteran police officers, fail to do so. In his outstanding book On Combat, Loren Christensen described what can happen when you bake in bad habits through repeated, unrealistic practice.

One police officer gave another example of learning to do the wrong thing. He took it upon himself to practice disarming an attacker. At every opportunity, he would have his wife, a friend, or a partner hold a pistol on him so he could practice snatching it away. He would snatch the gun, hand it back, and repeat several more times. One day he and his partner responded to an unwanted man in a convenience store. He went down one aisle, while his partner went down another. At the end of the first aisle, he was taken by surprise when the suspect stepped around the corner and pointed a revolver at him. In the blink of an eye, the officer snatched the gun away, shocking the gunman with his speed and finesse. No doubt this criminal was surprised and confused even more when the officer handed the gun right back to him, just as he had practiced hundreds of times before. Fortunately for this officer, his partner came around the corner and shot the subject.

Whatever is drilled in during training comes out the other end in combat. In one West Coast city, officers training in defensive tactics used to practice an exercise in such a manner that it could have eventually been disastrous in a real life-and-death situation. The trainee playing the arresting officer would simulate a gun by pointing his finger at the trainee playing the suspect, and give him verbal commands to turn around, place his hands on top of his head, and so on. This came to a screeching halt when officers began reporting to the training unit that they had pointed with their fingers in real arrest situations. They must have pantomimed their firearms with convincing authority because every suspect had obeyed their commands. Not wanting to push their luck, the training unit immediately ceased having officers simulate weapons with their fingers and ordered red-handled dummy guns to be used in training.

As you can see by these examples, it’s very easy to train yourself physically or mentally to self destruct. Visualization exercises can be an important aspect of your training. As with hands-on practice, you need to conduct your mental exercises realistically and with solid forethought. Plan to succeed and don’t hinder yourself with destructive practice.

If you use visualization exercises, be sure to only see perfection in your mind’s eye. If necessary, elongate the component movements of your techniques as you think about them, breaking things down into small enough pieces to imagine doing each one flawlessly, even it takes significantly longer than a real-life performance. It is okay to imagine doing things in slow motion until you feel comfortable that you have captured all the important nuances properly. Once you are confident that you have covered everything important, increase the speed at which you see yourself performing in your mind.

The other guy will be doing everything he can to win in a fight. Don’t make his job any easier. Don’t get too smart for your own good, trying fancy or flashy techniques. Keep things simple and direct so that you won’t self- destruct.

The other guy will be doing everything he can to win. Don’t make his job easier. Keep things simple and direct, using techniques you are good at and comfortable with. Practice realistically, both mentally and physically. Don’t self destruct!

You Will Get Hurt

What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease.

- Sun Tzu