Below is a video of a smooth arrest by police. It begins with an arrest by an off duty police officer who controls the suspect until Vancouver Police arrive. When the police arrive, despite running and showing signs of andrenalization, they quickly take control and hand cuff the suspect. Now this video is a good example of a clean arrest. While I’m sure many people will attribute the behaviour of the police to it being filmed by a private citizen, the truth is probably a little more simple.

The suspect in this case is just trying to escape. And he’s not fighting to escape, he’s just trying to get free in the most instinctual way possible. He’s not really fighting back, he’s not using strikes to create an opportunity to escape, he’s just trying to find a gap and feel his way free. And the off duty RCMP officer does a great job of taking away his space and keeping him down until the VPD arrive. When they do, even the poor effort the suspect is making to escape ends, and they are able to control him without much effort.

This differs in large way to the way most arrests that end up on YouTube occur. So, without further ado here’s 6 things that make many arrests appear more violent than they are. 

1) It’s easier to escape than to hold someone. If you’ve ever held a cat that doesn’t want to be held, you know how true it is. Now imagine that cat is a person, the same size as you, adrenalized, and like the cat doesn’t care whether they hurt you or not. You can’t just grab someone’s wrist or arm, put them in a lock and conduct your arrest when someone is fighting you. When’s the last time you saw someone in the UFC just apply an arm bar without hitting him? Chances are they guy who applied the submission hit the other guy, probably in the face, repeatedly at some point. Police and security aren’t supposed to do that. They’re required by society to be as humane as possible, despite the fact the suspect might be fighting as if their life depends on it. So that’s why, even when there are multiple police involved, they use things like knee strikes to a suspects legs in order to distract them to create an opportunity for control. 

2) Safety in numbers – numbers for safety. I was working an event where a large football player size guy hit a security guard. It led to a scuffle, and while other security officers attempted to take the man down for an arrest, one of his large buddies tried to join the fray. I put myself in his way and advised him to stay back. 

“Why is there four of them on him? They’re beating the **** out of him,” he argued.

In my best bad dog voice, I asked him if he actually saw them hit him. He got a confused look on his face and took a step back. When it was clear he had realized they weren’t hitting him, he asked again why they needed four people.  

“Your friend is a big guy, and he’s fighting. The guards don’t want to get hurt, but they also don’t want to hurt your buddy,” I said.  ”He has four limbs, ergo four guys. This way they can hold him down without getting hurt and they don’t have to hurt him.”

It certainly looks bad when there’s four or five guys around one guy on the ground. But the next time you see a video and see that, look for the actual violence. Most likely the guy on the bottom is going crazy, while the police are using their body weight to hold him down, and strikes are to large fleshy muscles and the like, which they are using in order to force the suspect to free up his arms for handcuffing.

3) Our safety first, your safety second. At the end of the day, making an arrest is challenging and dangerous. And the longer a fight for control exists, the higher the probability someone will get seriously injured. It might not even be intentional like an errant elbow to the head as someone pulls away to try and escape. Or it could be a suspect reaching for a weapon. Force is generally applied when there is a credible threat to those conducting the arrest and/or they’ve demonstrated their intent to resist. If you fail to obey police commands, or resist their attempts to arrest you, then force is an option, and can be the safest option. Overwhelming force, delivered quickly before the suspect has a chance to mount an effective defence has a higher probability of success, while generating a lower degree of risk to everyone involved. (And by overwhelming I don’t mean a baton blow to the back of the head, I mean mentally overwhelming.) If that means that the suspect ends up with a charlie horse in his leg, then society and the courts have accepted that as  reasonable if it ensures everyone gets out of the scenario without grievous injuries or death. And to those guys who promise to behave after they’ve been resisting? Nope. Officers are going to control you for their safety and your own. That’s why security will keep you in that arm bar until they throw you out or hand you over to police, even after you’ve stopped fighting. There’s no guarantee you won’t start fighting given the chance.

4) Suspect’s actions dictate response. When police and security officers are well trained, their actions in high stress scenarios are automatic. Their subconscious processes information and they react according to their training. If someone is compliant, they go through the same routine to arrest them without having to use force. As soon as someone starts fighting, their training kicks in. So even when a suspect says they’re not fighting back, the police are judging by the actions, whether they’re pulling away, continuing to struggle. In high stress situations there is often a disconnect between what the suspect is saying and doing, as panic sets in and instinctual fight/flight responses are activated. They don’t want to fight, but they’re trying to pull their limbs in and get into the fetal position. That’s still resisting, and the officers involved are required to react accordingly. 

5) There are no videos of compliant arrests. You can walk down Granville street in Vancouver on any weekend night and find at least one person handcuffed, probably standing chatting nearly amicably with the police. For every violent arrest there are probably a dozen or more compliant arrests where people listen to police and comply. And the handcuffs are on before anyone can think to break out their phone and capture a video. And even if they did, what’s the likelihood they would share something as mundane as someone following a police officer’s verbal commands? It doesn’t make for the next YouTube sensation.

6) Context. This is pretty straightforward, but it bears repeating in such a list. For citizen shot videos, we rarely have context. Did the guy start recording after the police disarmed the subject? Because in that scenario, the police are now in a potentially life and death battle to get control of the subject to see if he has anymore weapons. Or did the guy crumple up a jaywalking ticket, so the officer punched him in the face? In the age where anyone can shoot a video, edit it, and toss it online, you’re almost guaranteed to be missing pertinent details. A video can go online, people are up in arms, and it will be months, sometimes years before all the details come out in court. 

There are appropriate uses of force every day, and some of them look pretty violent when you don’t know what to look for. There are also excesses where police and security cross the line and become the assailants. If you can keep these 6 items in mind, then you might have a better idea of what you’re watching the next time someone shares an arrest video. 

The basic idea is that everyone’s can take a certain amount of pain when their nerves are affected by strikes or pressure. However, the more the same nerves are stimulated in a short period of time, the more sensitive they become. This principle comes into play in a variety of ways.

Multiple Strikes to Nerve Motor Points

Nerve motor points, as opposed to nerve pressure points, can cause motor dysfunction to the muscles in the area surrounding the point when struck (more info about the differences between the two types of nerve points). Most people are affected by a single strike with time-on-target (leaving the striking implement on the target surface for 3/4 of a second) on a nerve motor point, such as the lateral femoral. But if the person is intoxicated or more resistant to the strike than usual, doing a second strike soon after is more likely to yield the desired results. The first strike causes the area to become sensitized, and the effects are compounded with multiple strikes.

Deep Pressure to Nerve Pressure Points

The overload principle can be similarly applied to nerve pressure points. You usually start with surface pressure only when applying to a nerve pressure point such as the mandibular angle when the goal is compliance. For many people this can be enough on its own to get the desired results. However, if the person is more resistant, you can apply deep pressure using a strong, sharp, invasive pressure to the area for greater effect.

The Overload Principle Compassionately Applied in Training

It’s important to keep the overload principle in mind when training, not just for effective application but also to be compassionate to our training partners. When we do partner training, we typically apply strikes/pressure to the same nerve points repeatedly until we change to a new technique. And because train making enough contact on the points to cause a reaction in our training partner, it is possible to cause sensory overload after multiple applications even when the contact is relatively light. This happened to my demonstration partners a lot when we were shooting the footage for the DVD accompanying my book, When the Fight Goes to the Ground. As you can see in the above “making of” video, the “attackers” in the video had some loooong days.

While my demo partners didn’t have much choice but to grimace and bear it, there are ways to reduce your partners’ discomfort in a training context. After you’ve successfully applied a strike with a little force a few times, it’s a good idea to lower the level of force to touch contact or surface pressure rather than striking contact or deep pressure. That way you can still get the feedback from your partner to ensure accurate target location. As a training partner, you also play a role in this by communicating to your partner when an area has gotten overloaded. Letting them know when to ease up on the contact will make training motor and pressure points much more bearable.

Do you use nerve motor or pressure points in your training or on the job and seen the overload principle in action? If so, please share your experiences in the comments.

Getting to Know You

When preparing a lesson plan for a seminar, I try to find out as much as possible about the students I’ll be teaching, what their style is like, what their experience is with the seminar topic, how many students there will be, how much training experience the students have, what the space where the seminar will be held is like, etc. I then write my lesson plan to address the unique needs and circumstances of the seminar in particular. If the students are less familiar with the topic, I’ll spend extra time covering foundational concepts. If there is cross-over with their style of martial art, I’ll draw on their experience where it make sense to do so. If there will be a lot of students in a limited space, I’ll create groups of a sensible size and allot more time for each technique so that students can train safely. I’ll even ask instructors if there are any particular situations they want to cover as part of the seminar. In some of the recent ground defense seminars I’ve taught related to my book When the Fight Goes to the Ground, I’ve asked if there were any positions that their students struggled with more so than others. Of course, I still have my own ideas as to what I intend to teach, but I can often incorporate some requests as well.

Concepts vs. Techniques

Because I am usually not going to have the opportunity to continue to build on the skills I teach at one-time seminars, I focus more on concepts than I do on teaching particular techniques. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t just stand there and lecture for hours either. I do teach techniques, but as part of a over-arching conceptual master plan. With my ground defense seminars, I don’t care so much if students learn to apply the techniques exactly as I show them, unless there is a good reason to do so. I am more concerned with them taking home the base principles so they can continue to develop on that base at their own dojos. With my ground defense seminars, I’ve been focused on making sure students learn to apply a combination of both body shifting techniques and attacks to vital targets to get off the ground as quickly and efficiently as possible. When it comes to defending against joint lock submission, I focus on trying to keep limbs closer to the body so they can more effectively block or counter them. While I do teach specific techniques, I always come back to the underlying concepts that make them work, so they can more easily improvise other defenses against similar but different attacks.

Training Drills and Exercises

In addition to teaching concepts, I always try to introduce different ways of developing the skills presented so they have something to take home and can continue their development with after the seminar is over. I did this in my recent ground defense seminars in a variety of ways. I taught a favourite warm-up game, Pitbulls vs. Poodles, that serves as a great ice-breaker while simultaneously warming up the body in a way that also works with ground defense skills. The game starts with everyone on their hands and knees and one or more people being “pitbulls” who go around trying to flip the “poodles” onto their backs, transforming them into pitbulls. I also taught different live training exercises to pairs of students in which one person took on the attacker role and one the defender role so they could work on specific skills in a more adaptive, unpredictable context, rather than just working techniques in a compliant manner. These are just a couple of examples, but whatever exercises I choose, they always keep objectives of the seminar in mind.

I find it very rewarding to teach martial arts seminars outside of my own dojo. Not only to I get to have fun meeting people from other areas and other styles, I often gain insights from the different contexts that I might not have otherwise gained at my own dojo based on the different types of student needs and backgrounds. If you’re interested in having us run a seminar for your school or organization, you can find out more info on our martial arts/self-defense seminar page.

What common links have you found in all the different martial arts seminars you’ve taken that you’ve found most useful? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Primary Strength Workout

After a 10-minute warm-up (either skipping, biking or hitting the bag) I start my primary strength workout. For my workout with a stronger emphasis on upper body, I do the 4 sets of the following with one-minute breaks in between sets:

• Jump squats (30 seconds): Can be done as regular squats to make it easier, or with ankle weights or a weight vest to make it more challenging.
• Clap push-ups (30 seconds): Can be done on your knees to make it easier, or with a weight vest to make it more challenging.
• Single arm upright row with kettlebell: 12 reps on each side.

For my workout with a stronger emphasis on lower body, I do the same amount of sets and breaks but with these exercises:

• Jump lunges (30 seconds): Can be done as regular lunges alternating to make it easier, or with ankle weights or a weight vest to make it harder.
• Alternating kettlebell swings (30 seconds)
• Reverse lunges with bicep curls or lateral raises (30 seconds)

Workout Finishers

I follow up each of the above workouts with 3 sets of “workout finisher” exercises with 30 seconds rest in between sets (using ankle weights to increase the difficulty level):

• Bulgarian jump squats: 12 on each side
• Cross mountain climbers with legs up on bench: 24 total, alternating sides
• Bicycle ab exercise: 40 total, alternating sides
• Burpees: 12 total. Use a version that’s appropriate for your fitness level.

When I do a strength training workout, complete with warm-up, workout finishers, and stretching, it takes me about 25 minutes, so it’s easy to work into my day. It can be pretty intense as a workout when you’re first starting out, so be sure to go at a pace that makes sense for your fitness level if you’re going to try these workouts. Use weights that make sense for you in the primary workouts, and adjust the number of reps in the workout finishers as necessary. Make sure you’re using proper form if using a heavier kettlebell because it can be hard on the back if your form is off. It is safer get instruction on the form and to start out with a lighter kettle bell until you get the hang of it. It’s good to vary exercises, so I’m putting together other workouts I can alternate between to keep things interesting.

I know not everyone enjoys working out, especially when they first take it up, but I find that you come to enjoy the feeling you get after working out, which you then start to associate with the workout itself. And it does enhance your performance in the martial arts, so it’s a great thing to do when you don’t have the time or opportunity to go to class to train.

Do you have a home workout regimen that you follow outside of your martial arts training? If so, please share it in the comments.

In Jiu-jitsu, some will start a technique then stop half-way through as they realize they’re not getting it quite right. If I let the student keep doing this, it would be entirely possible to see that student stop and re-start a technique over and and over without actually getting through it once before the class is called to see the next technique. Another way the unwillingness to fail can manifest is when a student either asks lots of detailed questions, or spends a lot of time talking about it, analyzing how it’s supposed to work, etc. These types will spend so much more time talking about it, fooling themselves into thinking that simply talking about it will make them better at it, that they don’t spend as much time practicing it. These types strategies for avoiding looking foolish or “failing” at a technique can hurt one’s mentality towards self-defense, as well as one’s development as a martial artist.

The Practice of “No Do-Overs”

One of the first discussions on “no do-overs” was at a knife defense seminar I attended a while back with Steve Hiscoe Shihan. We discussed the importance of accepting that if you’re unarmed and defending yourself against a knife wielding attacker, you are at severe disadvantage. You need to accept that you will probably get cut in the process of defending yourself and be ready to keep fighting as long as you have to regardless of how badly you’re cut. So when we practiced our knife defense techniques, if we were “cut” by the practice blades, we were told not to stop and start again as though the fight were over, but to keep going until we had dealt with our attacker. We were being trained in the mentality required to fight against the odds, in addition to learning some defensive tactics.

This doesn’t have to be limited to knife defense training. This can apply to all forms of self-defense scenario training. Of course, there are some exceptions, like when safety is a concern, or when students are learning a technqiue for the first time and need to correct some fundamentals in order to be able to actually do the technique, but overall, it’s a useful mindset to adopt in training.

Failing Forward

I’ve discussed this concept in a previous article, Black Belt Is When the Real Learning Begins, but it’s worth repeating here. The concept of “no do-overs” can help you learn faster. Students are better off cast aside their egos and just accepting that it may take a while before they feel some level of competence with newly introduced techniques. The more spectacularly they fail, the easier it is for themselves or their teachers to correct them so they can improve their technique. The feedback you get from failure propels your learning forward. So rather than discussing a technique at length in order to “get it right” or stopping mid-technique and trying to correct everything to “get it right” (or your estimation of it), just bite the bullet and follow the technique through to it’s natural conclusion, right or wrong, you will learn from the experience, on and OFF the mats.

Do you apply the concept of “no do-overs” at your dojo or in your life? If so, please share your experiences in applying it in the comments.

In self-defense or live training exercises like sparring, it is rare that you would get to hit a completely static target unless you managed to stun or distract the person first. That’s why it’s important to practice target tracking and this drill covers one particular aspect of it. It allows you to practice striking while your target is moving backward or while you yourself are backing away for whatever reason.

Manufacturing Stillness

While this chasing/retreating drill sounds simple enough, it can be tricky for people with less experience who are only used to doing their strikes from a static position. A few pairs of students who were working together coped by changing the desired movement of the drill to manufacture the static position from which they were used to striking. Essentially the person holding the pads would take a step or two then stop while their partner did a couple of punches then they would take a couple more steps then stop for the next couple of punches. But this wasn’t the point of the drill.

Find the Stillness in the Movement

I stopped the class momentarily to correct the situation. “The partner should keep moving. It doesn’t have to be fast, but it should be constant. An attacker is not going to stop their movement just so you can hit them.”

“But it’s hard to strike well while you’re feet are stepping,” one student pointed out.

I nodded. “Yes, that’s because you need to learn to find the stillness in the movement.”

It sounds contradictory, but it isn’t when you break it down. Even though you’re constantly stepping there are fleeting pauses as you take each step. The trick is to time the impact of your strike with that pause, which occurs just as your step touches down. This allows you to use your legs and hips more effectively to put more power into your strikes. When you get used to this, you’ll find that the movement can even serve to add more power to your strikes.

Now over to you. Do you use any drills that allow you to practice strikes with movement? If so, please share them in the comments.

Guard Hand Position in Martial Arts Sport

Sport-oriented martial arts are naturally influenced by the rules of their sport. In Olympic WTF rules Taekwondo, you’ll often see that the hands are held quite low in sparring competitions. Punches to the head are not allowed and kicks to the body are going to come in faster than kicks to the head simply due to distance so it can make sense to hold the arms in a lower position, as you can see in the video of Olympic Taekwondo sparring below. And because the vast majority of kicks used are to the body, often to the ribs, it makes sense to keep the arms lower and wider. Clinching and grabbing are also not allowed, so keeping the hands low and wide are not a disadvantage. When kicks do come into the head area, the idea is to use speed and evasive manoeuvring to avoid impact.  (*Please note that this description specifically applies to WTF Taekwondo competition sparring. ITF Taekwondo is different, allowing punches to the head, and while a lower guard may be used more often in WTF competitions, there are other guards that are taught for self-defense applications.)

In Kyokushin Karate, sparring is full contact, continuous and point-based, with no padded gloves or foot pads worn for protection. No hand/arm strikes are allowed to the head, but they are allowed to use elbows and knees to the body. Kicks to the head are allowed, but aren’t used as often as the punches to the body. Foot sweeps and knockdowns from strikes are allowed, but grabbing or clinching are permitted. This seems to result in a lower hand position that is held more central to the torso (though not as low as in Taekwondo) to protect against the barrage of body strikes that occur with the arms held closer to the body to minimize the body’s target area. It can also be handy for blocking body blows and movements that could serve to knock a person down. You can get a good idea for the overall hand position in this video below.

Of course, the above thoughts are based on my personal experience with these styles and what I have seen of them. Every school and instructor has a different approach, which can lead to variances in hand positions. The point of writing these thoughts is more to explore how different rules/equipment in competitions might affect where people hold their hands.

Hand Position in Self-Defense Oriented Martial Arts

A non-competitive martial art like Wing Chun, however, is not concerned about points, and but has fairly unique operating principles. The “centreline” of the body, from the top of the head down to the groin, is considered to comprise of all the main striking targets, including the eyes, throat, solar plexus, groin). Wing Chun strikes primarily emphasize attacking straight to this centreline, using direct lines of attack at close range. As a result, most of the strikes are straight punches rather than arcing strikes. As a single punch, Wing Chun style punches don’t utilize the whole body as seen in arts such as Karate and Western Boxing. The art relies on chain punching instead, blasting one punch after the next, moving forward with ones feet, throwing more of their body weight with each step as they close. For these reasons they use a more front-facing stance. They keep their limbs closer to the body, protecting their centreline, also allowing for both arms to perform straight punches with equal effectiveness, as you can see in the photo below in which Ip Man (right) is in a traditional Wing Chun stance.

You might think from this position that the head would be fairly vulnerable, but Wing Chun has a greater variety of defensive/intercepting hand positions that allow them to block and strike at the same time, using various parts of the arm in many different types of positions to block whatever is necessary. You can see some examples in this article about Wing Chun hand positions.

The stance we use in Can-ryu Jiu-jitsu, on the other hand, is based on the boxing/kickboxing stance. While its origins are from a sport-oriented martial art, the reason why it was chosen was because the goals and principles behind it are in line with the ones from our style. It was chosen for its simplicity and ease of use, while simultaneously being effective for self-defense. You need only learn a few simple blocks and strikes, which can be adapted with different hand/arm positions for different targets, making it versatile and adaptive.

We usually hold our main stance, which we call the “defensive stance” with our hands open. Open hands are a universal sign of non-aggression. They are also effective for striking targets on the head, while still allowing you to block and deflect blows. This also takes into consideration the fact that we wouldn’t be wearing gloves to protect our hands in a self-defense situation. The hands are held in front of the face with the fingertips above the chin and below the eyes. The under arms should be about one fist-width away from the body. The arms should be relaxed but not completely loose which would make it easy for someone to simply punch through your guard. The higher hand position is preferrable for self-defense because the vast majority of punches that are thrown in street situations are to the head. From this position, you can more easily absorb and deflect straight punches to the face, while a simple lift of the forearm can block hooking punches, and a drop of the rear palm can be used to deflect uppercuts. With the strong arm in the rear position, you make the most of the leg and hip torque in your power arm, while using your lead hand primarily to measure distance and set up power strikes, usually with straight jabs.

You don’t want to hold your arms too far from your body as it minimizes your power, while giving away your reach. It also makes it easier for your attacker to grab your arm to control you. Holding your hands too close is no good either as there is not enough space for you to absorb/deflect blows and make effective counter attacks.

We’re not the only ones who use this type of stance/hand position though. It is often taught within law enforcement and military organizations, as well as other reality-based self-defense styles such as Krav Maga.

Ultimately, every hand position has its advantages and disadvantages, which vary from style to style. It is interesting to analyze the differences. What hand position do you use in your standard guard and why? I would be most interested to hear some of the varying schools of thought on hand position.

That is one of the reasons that I’m also offering courses related to my book. There would be no point in taking these courses if all I did was teach techniques “by the book” so to speak. While I do take certain situational examples from the book to serve as a starting point, I expand on them from there, taking students beyond the example, and using the principles appropriately and effectively as the situations change as they inevitably do in live training. While I’m using ground defense as my example in this look at the use of principles vs. prescription, you can apply this to any type of self-defense applications.

Establishing the Principles Behind the Approach

If you’re going to learn a principle-based approach to self-defense, you should first understand what those principles are. In my approach to ground defense, there are two main tools that are used in various combinations as necessitated by the situation: body shifting and attacks to vital targets. These tools make use of a number of self-defense principles. Body shifting, such as shrimping, bridging & rolling, turtling, etc, are used to create space by moving your attacker, or to take advantage of space by moving yourself out of an opening. They make use of principles such as balance breaking and spacial awareness. Attacks to vital targets such as the eyes, groin, ribs, etc, exercise the principle of distraction by causing pain, flinch reactions, obscuring vision, etc, which weaken your attacker’s ability to control you. In combining these tools to respond to an attack, we also teach protective principles like guarding the head and neck areas (against strikes and chokes), keeping limbs close to the body (to protect against joint locks), gaining control of the weapon arm (in the case of knife attacks) and of course the ubiquitous principle of getting back to one’s feet so one can escape.

Whatever form of self-defense you’re exploring, there are principles behind the approach and if you’re looking to be able to apply your skills in a real situation, these are the most important things to focus on.

Using the “Prescription”

When you first start your learning, it’s hard to avoid learning a “prescription.” You have to start somewhere after all, so you need to be given situations in which you can apply the principles you’re seeking to learn. For very new students, it’s safest to stick to a very prescribed approach so you can see and feel the moves and their relation to the principles in a safe, low-pressure environment. The problem is if you never go beyond that, you might fool yourself into thinking that this is all there is to self-defense.

Learning to Adapt

As you get comfortable with the prescribed moves, you’ll start to notice that they don’t always work if your partner doesn’t do exactly what they are “supposed to do”. Or perhaps they are a different body type that poses some sort of obstruction to your technique. This is when you start to explore a more adaptive approach. For example, if someone posts an arm when you try to bridge and roll them to escape their mount, you have to be ready to take their balance out in a different way, by taking control of the arm. Or perhaps the attacker sprawls their leg out to keep from being rolled, in which case you might shrimp your way out of the space that’s created. Or maybe you’re so firmly entrenched that you might pinch their inner thigh or grab for their groin to distract them enough so that you can attempt the bridge again to displace them. There are lots of possibilities, and that’s the point. You can make your training more “live”, more like a real attack, as in reality. An attack is never just one grab or one strike, and your attacker never reacts exactly the same way as you might expect. As you gain a higher and higher level of understanding of the fundamental principles, you’ll become more adaptive and will be able to more quickly transition from one tool to another as the situation dictates.

The Psychology of Self-Defense

Part of learning to adapt is adopting a “winning” mentality to self-defense. Law enforcement organizations are starting to use the term “winning” versus “survival” because it has less negative associations suggesting that you’re at a disadvantage. When you give up mentally, your subconscious mind stops seeing useful opportunities that might suggest otherwise. If you don’t believe you can win, your mind works to confirm that assertion. Once you have learned to become more adaptive, your sense of self-belief in your ability to defend yourself grows, and it becomes easier to see that there are indeed a wide variety of things you can do to give yourself the advantage. At that point, you can try adding higher levels of intensity to your training to help increase your confidence at handling higher levels of pressure, which then increases your self-belief further. It is a positive upwards spiral that all martial artists can take advantage of provided the right training environment.

Considering the Totality of the Circumstances

If you want to make your self-defense skills more complete, you have to see all the difference circumstances surrounding the situation and understand how it affects you so you can seize opportunities that may strengthen your defense and respond appropriately to hindrances that may weaken it. Is your attacker is significantly larger and stronger than you? Are you fighting on grass or concrete? Is there anything lying around you could grab and use as a weapon of opportunity? What is your attacker’s intent (i.e. mugging, sexual assault, showing off, etc.) The list goes on. Even if you develop a good set of adaptive skills, you may face unusual situations that have never come up in the dojo, either due to lack of opportunity (i.e. there simply aren’t a lot of much larger training partners) or due to training limitations (it’s not always possible to safely train all the situations that may come in a real attack). It’s important to at least mentally explore these considerations and train your sense of awareness so that you are less likely to be caught off guard by the different circumstances you may face in a real situation.

How does your martial arts school strike the balance between exploring principles vs. prescribed learning? Please share your experiences in the comments.

1. 3 Methods for Learning Martial Arts More Efficiently and Effectively.

2. Black Belt is Where the Real Learning Begins: Putting the Saying into Practice.

3. The Benefits of an Accountability Buddy.

4. Fail Better: How to Learn from Your Mistakes.

5. The Value of Visualization in the Martial Arts.

6. Taking Responsibility for Higher Learning.

7. The Importance of Self-Belief in the Martial Arts (or Anything!).

8. Focus Your Mind/Go with the Flow: Martial Arts Training Tips.

9. Getting into and Maintaining the Martial Arts Training Habit.

10. How Do Your Negative Behaviours Reward You?

11. Bonus: The Importance of Focus & Ways to Improve It for the Martial Arts (or Anything!) (*I couldn’t decide which last one to cut, so I just included this one too)

Which of these articles did you find most useful or interesting? Please share your thoughts in the comments.