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Beyond the Martial Arts
A Book Review by Phil Elmore
Allen Graham’s inspirational e-book is a brief treatise on a very important
idea. Think of it as a packaged pep-talk, a common-sense guide to going
beyond the doors of the dojo and becoming the best martial artist you can be.
To accomplish this, Allen advocates — among other things — completely
full-contact training when possible.
Allen is president of the International Jurate Federation, based in Western
Australia. I must admit that I’d not previously heard of Jurate, developed
by Allen (who earned a black belt in 1965 from the International Society
of Jiu-Jitsu in Kyoto, Japan) to address common forms of assault with practical,
no-nonsense techniques. (Allen also sought to develop a martial art that
did not require repeated throwing, as a spinal injury prevented him from
engaging in these.)
As I said, Allen’s book is a brief treatise on the theory of practical
self-defense. He jumps right in to discuss the psychology of self-defense,
including the essentials of a successful attack (you must understand how to
attack to understand best how to defend, he explains). Often his
discussion appears geared to those who’ve already “completed a course in
self defense” — those with training in the martial arts. Allen’s
book, however, will be of particular benefit to those just starting out in the
arts, as a lot of the common sense knowledge he relays will have experienced
students nodding in agreement.
Allen cautions against fear as the biggest obstacle to self-defense.
Knowledge, he explains, will eliminate fear — for when you understand what an
attacker must do to be successful, you understand what you must do to stop him.
Allen also advocates full-contact training — an idea near and dear to me:
Build your training tempo up to the point where you’re meeting FULL-ON
attacks. Your training partner must be doing his very best to get through your
defence. He must completely put it out of his mind that he might hurt you if
he goes in too hard. HE must have as much confidence in your ability to defend
yourself against him as YOU need to have……It’s also vitally important that you don’t delude yourself when it comes to
the INTENSITY of the attacks you’re facing in training. It’s just too easy to
get the idea that an attack’s full-on when it’s not. …Your attacker must be
giving it ALL he can! It means if his attack gets through your defence you’ll
be hurt. As disturbing as this may sound there’s no other way to get the
confidence is vital to your ability to defend yourself successfully in a real
situation.
This left me wanting more. While training in this manner most certainly
will develop effective, confident martial artists, how exactly is this done
without crippling damage to one’s students? I would be very interested to
hear Allen give specific examples of how to implement the training he advocates
— especially with regard to safety precautions. How does one engage in
this kind of training without becoming seriously, even permanently injured, in
Allen’s view? I train both near- and full-contact myself, so I have my own
ideas — but I’d love to hear Allen’s. If this is a taste of the
philosophy of Jurate, consider my whistle whetted. I wish Australia wasn’t
quite so far away, for I would love to explore this further.
Allen discusses the importance of timing, the value of visualization, and the
significance of body language and decisiveness. He also ties his emphasis
on decisiveness to another martial philosophy I have embraced: the
importance of taking the initiative in the face of the credible threat of an
attack, moving to make the “first strike” when warranted. You
are, he explains, reversing the roles: you are becoming the attacker, and
forcing the attacker to become the defender.
Weapons may turn some martial artists’ feet to clay, Allen observes, but they
shouldn’t. Allen explains the basic theory behind stopping an attack that
is an extension of the arm — with the caveat that facing a gun from a
“short, but inaccessible distance” leaves you pretty roundly out of
luck.
One section I found particularly good was Allen’s admonition not to fear
making a mistake. “The fear of making a mistake is the greatest
mistake of all,” he writes. “It’s a cancer that eats away at
your confidence and grossly inhibits your ability to act as soon as you have the
opportunity.” This resonated with me, because it closely matches some
of the first advice my teacher gave to me in facing him during sparring.
He, too, told me that I must learn to release my fear in order to improve and be
successful.
There’s more good advice in this book, much of it available from other
sources — but all of it worth hearing. The size of your assailant, for
example, is not a factor when you understand how to take down someone regardless
of stature. (A sumo wrestler’s groin is as vulnerable as your own, Allen
points out)
Allen couples his discussion of visualization to the martial artist’s
self-image, emphasizing yet again the importance of confidence to martial
success. He also spends some time discussing non-striking attacks and
elaborates on confrontations between individuals of disparate size. There
is a brief section on threats, and another on women’s self-defense.
The book concludes with something for the reader to ponder: Are you
learning to fight, or are you learning to defend yourself? The assault you
are most likely to face, after all, is not a martial arts duel — but a vicious
attack that often comes from an experienced and cunning thug. “You
live in the REAL world,” Allen insists — and I agree.
I had a few linguistic quibbles with the book. Allen tends to
CAPITALIZE a lot of words for emphasis, and I found this distracting. Were
I to edit the book I’d reduce the emphasized terms significantly and use italics
or bold font to set them apart.
As I stated earlier, the book also left me wanting more. Allen’s
thoughts on training and real-world martial arts are good, but I wished he could
have elaborated on full-contact training and specific training guidelines.
Some anecdotes and comments from his experience teaching his Jurate students,
and more on Jurate itself, would also have been welcome (though one must concede
that a Jurate text is a separate writing idea).
These minor criticisms do not detract from the book’s overall value, however.
As a training guide and a write-up on the importance of integrating mental
training with one’s physical training, this is a great addition to the
computer-savvy martial artist’s virtual library. As an inspirational guide
to the value of full-contact training and a no-frills, real-world approach to
self-defense, it is even more valuable. It’s also inexpensive, which never
hurts.
You can find a link to purchase Beyond the Martial Arts
on
this page. While I chose to download and review the PDF e-book, Allen
also offers a “slide book” version, an interactive text viewable through your
browser. This is a neat take on the electronic book concept and you may
find it worth your while. I don’t know if reading Allen’s book made me a
lethal weapon, but I certainly enjoyed it.
So will you.