Reality Based
Self Defense
The following article was originally written
for the August 2008 issue of the newsletter of the Quan Li
K'an martial arts association. The reference to 'Bruce' in
the article is Mr Bruce Miller 7th dan head of the Quan Li K'an
style of martial arts. Who is also an instructor of mine as
well as being a close friend.
Reality Based Self Defense – (RBSD) The real
reality!
by Robert Agar-Hutton ©
2008.
*** WARNING *** My opinions are not
sanitized or politically correct. If you don’t like them, tough
luck – hopefully the world’s a big enough place for us all to
have our own delusions!!!
Everyone seems to be talking about,
promoting, teaching or training in ‘RBSD’ and you know what,
most of it is total BULL.
When in a RBSD class did student ‘a’
suddenly, without warning, stick a knife into student ‘b’ so
that student ‘a’ could see how they reacted…
When did a group of students beat up on student ‘a’ and leave
him in a bloodied mess in the corner fighting for breath and
for life itself…
When did student ‘a’ have his leg broken in training and the
other students (and instructor) ignored him completely and left
him to crawl out to the nearest phone…
Well HOPEFULLY none of the above will ever happen in any class
and rightly so.
Obviously RBSD can only be very loosely
based on reality, because otherwise only the psychopaths (and
maybe Bruce and myself) would ever turn up for training.
NOTE: For the humour impaired – No Bruce and
I wouldn’t go there either.
So, what is it that we can do to make our
training ‘Real’ – the answer is, I suggest, both complex and
simple, both ancient and modern. The answer is ‘Kata’ (Also
known as forms, poomse, etc.) Now before I go on (and on and
on) let me explain that I train ‘kata lite’ that is that
although I do practice formal kata, I don’t do a heck of a lot
of it and I only know a few kata (about six – albeit with a
couple of variations – just to confuse myself).
Not all styles of combat have kata, but
somewhere in every style that I have ever seen (and happily
that is a lot of styles) there are the two components that
together make ‘kata’. The two components are ‘solo practice’
and ‘multiple techniques’. So unless you train in a style where
all that is ever done is partner (or group) work, and you don’t
ever practice by yourself and all you ever do is single
technique, Stop… single technique, Stop… etc… Then you have the
makings of kata.
So, every style is ‘kata capable’ – What the
heck does this have to do with RBSD?
Well the answer is in the way the mind
works, in particular, the way the subconscious works. You see
the subconscious finds it virtually impossible to tell the
difference between things that we actually do and things that
we imagine doing. So if you imagine doing something over and
over and over in your mind, the subconscious believes it to be
fact.
Now, let’s imagine that we are doing ‘kata’
(either a formal named kata or a string of moves that we choose
to repeat over and over because we happen to like them and
think that they are useful techniques – anyone want to guess
how kata originate…). So imagine doing kata and further imagine
adding the magic ingredient that will change the kata into a
RBSD training tool. The magic ingredient is to imagine
(vividly) that a person – or people – are actually attacking
you and that you are using the moves in your kata to actually
defend yourself.
Now we come to the next and equally
important step. Have you watched anyone doing kata recently.
It’s BOORING, it’s done at an artificial pace and generally
with a smooth rhythm. In order to make kata a RBSD tool, you
need to do it faster and you need to be able to do it to a
variety of rhythms including broken rhythm. Then you will start
to see, in your mind, in your imagination, yourself defending
against real enemies attacking you hard, fast and often at
unusual angles with unpredictable timing.
Wow, you might say, that’s great, it’s
sooooooo simple, I will do all my training in future lying in
bed just imaging stuff…
Well, sorry, NO – the above method is
fundamentally a ‘training drill’ and like any drill is only one
of many. So you still need to sweat, train, spar, whatever your
style does as well.
OK, you might say, so I will do all the
stuff my style teaches plus I’ll really get into visualisation
and broken rhythm whilst doing my kata and I’ll be a real RBSD
‘bada$$’…
Well, sorry, NO – you see in the Real World,
not only is conflict unpredictable, it is, in fact, even more
unpredictable than that. You may be skilled and survive a
conflict situation; you may be lucky and survive, however your
attacker might simply be more skilled or more lucky and they
may survive and you may NOT. So in conclusion, the first rule
of RBSD (or indeed any form of combat training) is quite
simple…
Sun Tzu (about two and a half thousand years
ago) said it most elegantly: “To conquer the enemy without
having to resort to war is a greater achievement than fighting
to win every battle.”
In simpler language, avoid conflict whenever
possible, that’s the real reality
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