Almost every martial arts style advertises and promotes their school using the term self defence, but is what teach applicable on the street? Martial arts techniques will work in a specific time & place; the problem is that the time and place is quite often just movies! So how do you determine what’s useful & what isn’t? One way is scenario training
I’m not one for telling my ‘war stories’ as I don’t want to look like these guys who make things up to enhance their reputation, besides how do you know if they are true? I’ve been to seminars where the stories grew from year to year and were adapted to suit the topic being discussed and/or the audience! Shouldn’t the material you present speak for itself? This article is called reality check not tall tales! Realistically self defence is about decision making and avoidance & if you are good at that you don’t have many stories. I find it interesting that the big tough guys have the most stories when in actuality I would think they would be a ‘hard target’ that people are too scared to mess with? The exceptions to this rule is being in the wrong place at the wrong time or maybe you are put in that position by your occupation or perhaps live in a place with him crime rates. My excuse is work put me in a few predicaments, I often spent time in areas of high crime & I was a dickhead with an ego! Many of my stories including this one I would not consider self defence because by definition self defence is when you are devoid of choice. That is if you choose to be there it’s a street fight, not self defence. Self Defence is when that choice is taken away from you, someone has decided you are the object of their unwanted attention. So the story I chose isn’t that sexy, it wont have you on the edge of your seat or thinking I’m Jason Borne however it has a few good takeaways and teaching points to consider.
|