BASIC TOOLS FOR SELF PRESERVATION

Grapplers will say 98% of all real fights go to the ground, so take them there. Stand up fighters say all fights start standing up, keep them there. Reality says street fights take place at any or all ranges so you’d better be prepared to fight anywhere. This being said there is one particular range that is most conducive to ending a fight quickly: Close quarters. Most fights take place in the space of a phone booth. Unlike sportive fighting, we will not have the luxuries of knowing our opponent, referees, consent, room for dancing around, etc. Usually our fight will begin within arms reach with some kind of verbal escalation. When things do go physical we will be dealing with an emotionally disturbed person who has absolute harmful intent and does not care what martial art you’ve studied. He will be a flailing, yelling, whirlwind of aggression.

I was in Arizona recently visiting family and I had a conversation with someone I thought I would share (with his permission of course.)

My brothers roommate is a tattoo artist at a local shop. As he was leaving work with some tattoo equipment he was approached by three gnarly youths looking for whatever they could get from him. An argument followed which quickly escalated into a 3-on-1 fight. One of the assailants pulled a knife and took a swing catching my brothers roommate on the forearm. The thugs then grabbed his tattoo equipment and ran. EMS was called and he was taken to the E.R. where he received stitches. The assailants were not caught.

Why is it that when it comes to a topic as serious as dealing with a knife attack we see so many plainly ludicrous techniques and tactics being taught throughout the martial arts world. It even happens in so called "reality based" circles. It seems as though people who are referred to as masters of edged weapon use and defense seem to be missing something. These people have obviously spent a great deal of time working their craft and learning to perform intricate sequences of blocks, traps, locks, strips, and all other sorts of complicated moves that, honestly, I could probably not do if I tried. One thing is certain, what is not missing is dedication. So why is it that people who spend such a large amount of time training in and around a certain topic never seem to stumble on to functional methods?

In my opinion, many people's training approaches are missing what I refer to as "The Brother Factor". Here is how "The Brother Factor" comes into play:

© 2001 Michael I. Torres, CSCS, NSCA-CPT

"In the groove", "in the zone", "in the bubble", and "on auto-pilot" are all ways to describe what the Japanese call "muga", and what Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced CHICK-sent-me-high-ee) dubbed "flow" in the 1980's. Flow can be defined as a period in time in which one becomes so completely involved in an activity that all other thoughts and emotions – what some consider the "self" – are excluded from consciousness. It is during this episode that an athlete is in the much desired, yet elusive mental state required to push his or her limits in the quest for peak performance. While most people view flow strictly as an afterthought, there are others who deem it as the sole purpose of any type of training due to the fact that it enhances their awareness, improves their mood, and most importantly, enables them to perform at a level of proficiency they would not otherwise be capable of.