|
 Self-Defense 101
A Step-by-Step Guide to Making Your Martial Arts Skills Combat-Ready
by Daniel A. Middleton
Face it: If you’re like 99 percent of your fellow martial artists, you don’t get into fights very often, and when you do, you rarely find yourself in a back-against-the-wall, life-and-death struggle for survival.
Unfortunately, that puts you, the dedicated student of self-defense, in a quandary: How do you hone your skill in an endeavor you almost never take part in?
Ask yourself that question, and the floodgates will open: How do you translate the raw techniques you’ve learned in class into useful—and applicable—self-defense moves you can use on the street? What types of attacks should you practice defending against? How do you come up with new situations to build your self-defense training around? How can you make your training effective and spontaneous? How do you, in essence, gain experience in something you hope you’ll never gain experience in?
Some self-defense instructors argue that scenario training is the magic bullet, but it’s only part of the equation. Outlined below are the other components, all of which are needed to transform a martial artist into a street-savvy fighter.
1
Build Your Toolbox
Before any benefit can be gained from scenario training or role-playing, you must invest time developing the individual techniques and skills you’ll be using. That makes choosing those techniques and skills a critical first step, for you’ll need to determine which ones are most appropriate for your age, strength, speed, flexibility, body type and so on. For example, moves that fit a 6-foot-4-inch high-school athlete with eight years of taekwondo or wrestling under his belt might not be appropriate for a 50-something professional who practices kenpo once a week.
For help finding out which techniques are best for the street, seek out the wisdom of those who’ve been there and done that. Self-defense instructors, both those who teach face to face and those who teach via videos and DVDs, offer loads of invaluable information gleaned from their “adventures”—and it’s always safer to learn from experience when that experience has been experienced by someone else.
Once you’ve settled on the moves—among the most popular are the jab, elbow strike, front kick, knee thrust, standing armbar and reaping throw, as well as various blocks and checking techniques—you’ll need to spend lots of time practicing them. Focus on fine-tuning your ability to execute each one without thinking and without telegraphing. Avoid stringing them together into overly complicated sequences. Remember that a dozen techniques that you’re comfortable doing will serve you better than 100 techniques that you’re only familiar with.
|
Among the most effective self-defense techniques is the reaping throw, shown here by
Jason David Frank. PHOTOS BY RICK HUSTEAD |
2
Perfect Your Tools
One of the best ways to move beyond the familiarity phase of skill development is shadowboxing and pad work. Start with a technique that’s been deemed effective. First, perform single repetitions in the air to ingrain the body motion and mechanics. Then move on to partner training using a hand-held target, focus mitt or kicking shield to develop a feel for striking objects.
Practice each technique from different angles. Change the variables—speed, height, distance and so on—while visualizing targets on an imaginary opponent. That will not only spice up your basic training and make doing the reps more interesting, but also help you start thinking about which tools are most effective for different targets.
To practice grappling or defense against grabs, it’s necessary to have a partner who does more than just hold pads. Proceed as described above: Aim to develop a familiarity with the techniques, then perform them on your partner while he cooperates.
3
Develop Generic Techniques
Now it’s time to assemble your tools into usable self-defense sequences. This is where creativity comes into the picture as you develop combinations and applications. An integral part of doing that is devising generic techniques, or broad-spectrum moves that can be used in a variety of situations. Don’t think “pen knife”; think “Swiss army knife.” A tool with only one application is virtually worthless on the street.
The key to accomplishing that is to look at techniques and applications with the goal of understanding the principles behind them. Do that and you’ll be able to adapt each move to a variety of circumstances.
Essential to this phase of training is the resistance offered by your partner. It should be reasonable—firm and adaptive, but nonspecific. In other words, he should resist in a general way. He shouldn’t specifically fight against the technique he knows you’re trying to execute.
|
In training, the author says, it’s essential to have a partner who resists in a general way so you can evaluate the effectiveness of your moves. To illustrate, the martial artist allows his partner to grab his shirt (1). He then traps the man’s left hand (2), breaks his hold and effects a standing armbar while the partner opposes the technique (3).PHOTOS BY DANIEL A. MIDDLETON |
Once you and your partner are comfortable with how to resist, you should work on gradations of resistance. He should avoid using too much force right out of the gate. Instead, his opposition should be relatively light, increasing only as you become more comfortable with the move.
The next step is to have your partner try several types of attacks to determine if your chosen defense works. Don’t be afraid to experiment, and be prepared for the possibility that not all tools will work in every situation.
4
Use Storyboarding to Develop Scenarios
Storyboarding is invaluable in self-defense training. It entails imagining various violent scenarios and devising your responses to them step by step.
The term “storyboarding” comes from the TV and movie industries. It’s the process by which a description of each action in a scene is laid out as a series of drawings. In this way, filmmakers can see how the action will unfold and appear on-screen. Likewise, self-defense storyboarding enables you to “see” how an altercation will look as it unfolds.
The next time you see a real fight or are watching a big-screen brawl, ask yourself, What would I do if that happened to me? Envisioning yourself in the middle of such battles will reveal the dangers of limiting your potential response to those you’ve practiced in your school or to those taught in your art. Once you’ve experienced that tunnel vision, it’ll be easier to think outside the box.
Tunnel vision is a common problem in martial arts training. In kuk sool won or aikido, beginners often mistakenly believe that an attacker will grab them using a single static technique. In karate and taekwondo, they often expect their foe to attack with a straight punch to the face delivered from a low front stance. In Brazilian jujutsu, they often think their opponent will allow them to grapple for as long as it takes to get a submission—without an accomplice with a two-by-four coming to the bad guy’s aid.
The creativity you need to move a technique from the training environment to the street can come from one of several sources: technique flow drills, grapple sparring, technique sparring or role-playing. It’s in this final area that the idea of self-defense storyboarding can be most effective.
5
Keeping It Real
When using the storyboarding method, you must be realistic in your approach. You can use the creative ideas of self-defense instructors and movie choreographers, but you must also use common sense. As comedian Harry Anderson said, “The thing is to keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out.”
 |
A common mistake beginners make is never feeling what it’s like to hit a target. To remedy that, practice with a partner who knows how to hold a body shield and a focus mitt.
PHOTO BY DANIEL A. MIDDLETON | Don’t devise elaborate fight sequences and try to build a self-defense package based on them. Instead, focus on a single type of attack, then study it, dissect it and determine what type of realistic response from your arsenal would work best. Perhaps you’ll conclude that several responses are valid, and that’s fine. Perhaps you’ll deduce that none of your techniques would work effectively, and that’s OK, too—as long as you make an immediate effort to fill in the gap in your toolbox.
Scenario training should also be realistic. Devise one scenario and run through it, then change the variables. Practice not only in street clothes but also in different types of street clothes. Would your response be different if the attack took place in winter? Would your response be hampered by heavy footwear? What if you were forced to defend yourself while you were carrying grocery bags?
Conduct your training in environments in which objects and obstacles must be taken into consideration. If possible, construct mock walls, tables and vehicles. Use plastic guns, rubber knives and padded batons. Sprinkle the workout area with simulated weapons of opportunity: bottles, bricks, telephones and so on.
Once you’ve become comfortable with the scenario, adjust it by having your role-playing partner attack unexpectedly, from different angles or in varied lighting conditions. When you have that down, move on to the next scenario. If need be, revisit some of your favorite films and TV shows for ideas. Tap into the million-dollar budgets that Hollywood uses to create realistic fights, but keep your drills grounded in reality even as you experiment with fantasy.
About the author: Daniel A. Middleton is a freelance writer and kuk sool won instructor based in Anderson, South Carolina. To read more of his work, visit http://www.blackbeltmag.com.
|
