A talk about what works. Please participate.

Learn a comprehensive set of optimum techniques.

Practice them tens of thousands of times.

Make them work in non-choreographed scenarios/sparring against actively resisting opponents.

Once you can focus your intent, without thinking consciously about specific techniques to achieve your aims (which will be a subconscious expression of your character), then you are on your way to having an effective physical defence mechanism.

Practice is king, if it is not engrained enough in your neuro-muscular system to happen spontaneously, it is almost certainly not going to happen in any useful way when you are full of adrenaline.

Intent is arguably as important; if you cannot summon the intent to drop or subdue someone (in other words dominate them physically and mentally), then you are unlikely to commit enough to your technique to make it work on someone who really doesn't want it to.

That is, ultimately, what I believe "works".

 

This is excellent.

 

I think the most important thing is to be the one to hit first. First strike initiative. Once you know there's a situation and you can't get out of it without fighting, you must commit and do damage. And do it before he does. Most street fights start by some posturing and trash talking. Then someone will either push the other guy in the chest or stick his face out, put his hands out to his side, and really get in the guy's face while trash talking. Both of these things are of course useless. If you know there's a situation, don't hesitate. HIT HIM! Then hit him again and again and again. Keep pressing. Don't hit him and then step back and admire your work. Keep the pressure on until he's subdued. I practice Wing Chun, so I would do a straight punch either right down the middle or from off center (Yes, we do that in Wing Chun contrary to popular belief) and then I would keep going. I don't think the actual technique matters as much as the philosophy of escalating first and hitting first. As long as you're training properly and you've been taught properly, you should be able to execute a technique cleanly especially against the kind of idiot that you're likely to deal with in a streetfight.

 

I think anything can work if the person has a high level of violent intent, determination and aneorobic fitness to keep going untill the situation is good enough to get away or stop. Also being creative in using the enviroment and also an element of luck maybe. It will look mess and not be a display of perfect technique.

The advantage of being able to fight is the ability to apply high percentage fundamentals of movement ,over and over in real fight time untill its over.

Its not about a list of techniques or fool proof strategy thats works everytime. Thats only for salesmen with there fool proof systems that you can buy for god knows how much because they were in the SAS or something.

 

There is a military saying for success on the battlefield ones overriding tactic should ‘be first with the most’.

I have included below a well known youtube clip that sorts of illustrates that.

http://youtu.be/uH48HTA7qXo

I am certain you will pick up some good tips from this threat that will give you the type of opitions/ techniques that you can consider as the 'most'? If you decide that is appropraite in the circumstances.

 

And then you will go to prison for assault (and if your judge thinks your martial art is worth bringing into things) assault with a deadly weapon.

 

Nothing wrong with a pre-emptive strike, just make sure you can articulate why it was needed.

It's probably the most sensible course of acton if you genuinely feel you have no other way out and have exhausted all other options.

 

No you won't - certainly for the UK, Canada amd vast majority of the US this is simply not true and advising someone that they cannot strike first is dangerous and stupid.

The "attack" is not required to be physical for you to engage in Pre-emptive action; if there is legitimate concern and you apprehend immediate and unlawful
Personal violence then you are absolutely allowed to throw the first punch. This is a cornerstone of most legal systems globally.

 

I mean this is the nicest possible way, but dojo fighting and self-protection are not the same thing at all and most of what you suggest is purely spectator and based on what you do in the former.

Have you ever done any "Animal Day" sessions or Red Man/FIST/DART style training? I ask because I know you hold 1st kyu but don't get any sense that you have trained for self-protection. This is not a prerequisite of your training, but when your aim is to teach self-defence (which your is) you need to reasses what you know and more importantly what you don't.

Taking the hammer fist as a specific example, it i relatively weak if thrown fast and slow if thrown hard. It is a low level tool on the box with a lot of issues compared to other "primary artillery".

 

As for your comment on the hammer fist, that isn't my experience at all, perhaps we are throwing the technique differently. And self defense is in fact trained fairly regularly at my dojo.

My comment was to say that you shouldn't think about self defense the same way you would think about a fight or sparring match, an idea I think we can agree on. The goal of a fight is to win, the goal of self defense is to escape. So you will use differ techniques.

 

Self-Defense at the dojo takes what format exactly?

What do you do for pre & post fight? Do you cover 4D's? Coopers Code? Adrenal exposure and dump? Legal ramifications? Scenario based? Full power?

It's not just a case of learning a technique against an imaginary mugger and I will almost bet the farm this makes up 99% of "self defence" training

The point I am making is that in truth without any of the above you have no real experience to draw on which is why I attached the heavy caveat to your advice on the hammerfist

 

What do you train in those sessions?

 

We train a great variety of things for self defense in the dojo. We always start off with some basic conflict ovoidance tactics, situational awareness, that sort of thing.

Then we will move into techniques to use when that doesn't work. Again, there is a great variety as karate kata contains a plethora of technique. We train simple counters to everything from chokes, punches, bear hugs, tackles. The general strategy we use is to stop the attack, gain some sort of control if possible, and then attack your assailant in a way that impedes their ability to either continue attacking you or chase you. Often this means throws and joint breaks.

 

Pretty much as I suspected - sorry but whilst useful in its place it is not the same thing at all

 

Then explain to me exactly what you have in mind?

 

What do your awareness and conflict avoidance drills consist of?

 

Wait, is this referring to the "I have to register myself with the local police, because my black belt technically means my body is a lethal weapon" thing?

 

No, that's a stupid myth people like to spread to make themselves feel like badasses. But I've heard of cases where a judge got a little carried away with martial artist, because he must have felt that as martial artists they didn't need to use as much force as they did.

 

http://youtu.be/Z1q-xMSyIIo

http://youtu.be/R5yS1HYV2fI

What you describe is isolation drilling - as I said useful for its purpose but NOT self protection training

 

Name three