The Martialist: The Magazine For Those Who Fight Unfairly

Let’s take the first part of the quote and work from there.

“Once the combative mind frees itself of the obstructions from necessity
(primarily caused by the fixation with technique), it will evolve to its
highest state of absorption and enhance its moment to moment capabilities
with refined accuracy.”

The majority of combative systems today, traditional and modern alike, rely
either solely on or 90% of the time on physical tactics. It’s either about
grappling or striking, or about which ‘technique’ is most efficient under
which attacks, etc.

When the fight isn’t bound by rules, codes, or previous agreements such as
sparring or athletic events, then human behavior becomes the primary source
in which information is filtered. The state of mind in which the individual
is in at the moment, based on the time and events of the day or week’s
occurrences, will have a predominant effect in his reactions in that moment.

We cannot change an individual’s core behavioral components, but it is
possible to activate quicker tactical reactions to behaviorally rooted
situations. ‘Freeing the combative mind’ of necessities implies being open
to spontaneous improvisation. Each element of a confrontation will require
a different tactic.

For instance, fighting or defending against an unarmed man requires
different tactical implementations then fighting or defending yourself
against two armed men. If you possess but a solidified technical response
then you will be consistently prompted by your ‘mind’ to perform that
response, whether the situation calls for it or not. If the situation
presented happens to be outside of your combative comfort zone, then you
possibly may either freeze up or radically fail at successfully defending
yourself.

When sparring or competing, we are in a ‘prepared’ state of mind. When
exiting a funeral of a loved one who passed away at a sudden early age, we
are not. If unfortunately confronted during such a traumatic event, our
state of mind and perception time will be much slower and more difficult to
shift. Anger may inevitably take over, but it won’t be controlled. Emotional
inertia will have an impact on both your mental state and physical
retaliation.

In a nutshell, if you’re fixating or limited within the factions of a
‘style’ or ‘system,’ anything that happens outside that realm will not
necessarily be handled properly. The majority of these sport systems do not take
into consideration behavioral elements or tactical awareness.

It’s not about a takedown, an arm bar, a choke, a kick, or a 3-punch combination; techniques are INCIDENTAL. Emotional inertia and behavioral
filtration are the delivery system that allows these technical applications
to succeed. The wrong tool at the wrong time can get you killed.

We’re not talking about the drunk at the local watering hole either. A fight
is just a fight. You win, you lose, an ego is bruised, a nose is broken, and
it’s over. This is the commonness that creates presumption that sport combat
is fully functional… under these types of ‘common’ situations, sport
combat is highly functional. But what if the level has been upped a couple
of notches?

The majority of sports fighters will state the impossibility of defense against
such situations. I really like what a poster named Paul wrote on Sammy
Franco‘s forum regarding
that issue. He made reference to Cicero’s 6 mistakes of man, one of
which is insisting that something is impossible just because YOU
cannot accomplish it. It really irks me when people impose their failures
and limitations on others… “If I can’t do it, no one can.” This is the
statement of a loser, plain and simple. If every innovator, creator,
scientist, etc. believed these losers, then we’d still be in the dark ages.
Thank God some people don’t adopt other people’s failures as their own.

Let’s examine the second part of the quote.

“The ‘fight,’ from its earliest point to its state of incompleteness, is so
vast that any attempts at locking onto specifics deludes our chances of
survival from the minimal… to the extreme.”

As stated above, a fight isn’t purely a physical phenomenon, it is one that
involves psychological warfare, emotional contingencies, and tactical and
situational awareness – as well as intuitiveness and an ability to read the
‘future’ based on an accurate perception of the past and present.

A ‘fight,’ per se, only ends when both parties agree that it is over and
that bygones will be bygones. Other than that, the ‘fight’ or situation
isn’t necessarily over even if you killed your opponent. For example: An
acquaintance I used to go to college with had gotten in a fight outside a
bar. He and three of his friends beat a Vietnamese guy to a pulp. Once the
man was completely incapacitated, they left him out cold lying in his bloody
mess outside the club and called it a night. A few months later, my
acquaintance was walking out of a movie theatre with his girlfriend, walking
hand in hand. The Vietnamese guy he beat up the month prior was also there and
recognized him. This time, however, the Vietnamese guy pulled a knife out,
rushed my acquaintance and his girlfriend from behind, and began stabbing
them both in the back several times before ran off. My acquaintance survived
but had to spend a number of weeks in the hospital. His girlfriend didn’t.
His girlfriend passed away because of a fight he got into a few months
earlier. His mistake was assuming the fight was over the night he beat the
guy up.

There are several questions one has to ask himself after a fight:

Will my opponent seek revenge?

If I kill him in self-defense, will his family or friends seek revenge?

Is my opponent ‘connected?’ Does he have ‘friends’ in high places?

Were there witnesses? If so, what did they see?

Will charges be made against me?

Do I know what my legal rights are?

Do I know what to say and what not to say to a LEO, a lawyer, a judge, a
jury?

Do I already have a criminal record? How can it be used against me?

The answers to these questions are crucial and require strategic
implementation. If you survived the encounter and no LE was involved
afterwards, there are several steps that need to be taken. One is elevating one’s state of awareness to code red for at least 3 months.
Avoiding the neighborhood and/or surroundings where the encounter took place is
another. Making a few changes to your look (growing or cutting hair, growing
or shaving facial hair, not wearing the particular clothes or similar
looking clothes that were worn on the day of the encounter – nothing that
could trigger a memory of the evening to your opponent) also helps. Paying closer
attention to anyone or anything out of place (profiling people and environments)
is another guideline.

This may sound paranoid, but I bet you my acquaintance would have loved to
know this information back then. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Imagine the following: You’re out with your girlfriend (fiancé, wife, whomever) and
this guy starts to hit on her in front of you. She politely declines and he
insists, saying, “Why don’t you leave this fag and come with me so I can show
you what a real man is like?” He shoves you off your stool, where you
lose your balance and fall to the floor. You get back up and confront him. Before you can go pre-emptive, his friend grabs you from behind and beats
the crap out of you to the point that you need re-constructive surgery.

Would you not seek revenge? Most would. Especially the high-ego, insecure
type (you know the type: most men).

Each and every physical altercation whose roots aren’t sport oriented has a
pre-contact stage, a physical stage, and lingering aftermath. One must be
prepared for all 3 eventualities. 

As practitioners of a reality based system, at Senshido
the first thing we do is help redefine an individual’s belief system into
one that is more congruous to their objectives of survival. We then impart to them 
the necessary skills (profiling, situational and environmental
awareness, intuitive radar, pre-contact cues and indicators, tactical threat
assessments etc.) to avoid a potential threat or confrontation. Then we arm
them with pre-contact psychology (fear and stress management, adrenal stress
conditioning, physiological and biological results, perception time
enhancement, reaction time reduction, etc.) in order to move, not necessarily ‘faster’
than the opponent, but earlier. 

The third step is the physical portion. We
cover all ranges of combat (contrary to popular belief, we’re not all about
eye gouges and groin strikes). We rely heavily on athletic ability,
conditioning the students through functional combative strength training.
We cover tool and target development in the kicking, boxing, close quarter
combat, grappling, and ground fighting game. I separate grappling and ground
fighting because you can grapple standing up. All the ranges are then
worked together through (if I may quote Matt Thornton here) ‘alive’ drills,
sparring, and scenario based training.

I fundamentally believe in Matt’s approach to training ‘alive.’ If you’re
not sweating, bleeding, and invoking stress on a physical, psychological, and
emotional level in your training, then you are not training for reality.
The last step (not necessarily in training time, but for explanation
purposes) is to teach students the legalities of their actions. It is important
to look at the legal, moral, and ethical aspects of self-preservation, as you
don’t want to end up being someone’s bitch in prison because you put some
drunk in a coma through excessive force.

All these elements are pieces of a complete puzzle. When it comes to
survival, you don’t want to have a chink in your armor.