Feb
Street Fighting Samurai Style
We always have to grapple with our mind between studying a martial art, style or system and it being practical for use on the street. On the street it is messy, dirty, aggressive with no judges to call yame (stop) usually you are out numbered and once you are in the confrontation it is not so easy to get out of it.
Many people think that if they get attacked they will do this technique or that one or they believe that they have a trusted right hand or roundhouse kick they can rely on, maybe they could put them in a lock or do a take down and go into an arm bar alla MMA style.
Should they try a new technique that Sensei (teacher) showed them back in the dojo because it looked cool.
Here is the deal, street fighters only know one or two things but they have tested them time and time again and know they work. An example is to get close to the victim and headbutt him on the nose if they miss they get the eyes, teeth so it does not matter as the damage is done. Hard to recover from that and normally a quick right hand follow up and it is all over. Time taken 1 to 2 seconds max. They strike first and they strike hard, rules to live by for self defence.
The problem with martial artists is that when they defend themselves they have far too many techniques and methods in their head so when a confrontation does take place it makes them very indecisive. They can not go into a front stance and do a stepping punch or high block but they train like this and then expect to defend themselves differently on the street. So what you then have to do is forget about 50% of the training you know and in some cases 90% in order to make it real.
Do you have a plan? Well I would caution against it Why? Because every scenario is different. The aggressors are different, the terrain is different, your health, mood could be different at that particular time. What I would say is practice two or three techniques over and over again so they are like second nature to you and locked into your subconscious. They must be multi purpose techniques that you could apply to any given situation. An example would be a knee to the groin, eye poke gouge with fingers and I am sure you can think of many more.
‘‘I don’t fear the man who has practiced 10,000 different kicks once but the man who has practiced 1 kick 10,000 times!” by Bruce lee
Train safe, train smart
GM Angelo