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Jason Lester
Jason Lester's picture
This is guaranteed to work!!!!

Hi everyone,

i thought this would be best under self-protection regarding the following.

How many of us have ever been in a class, course or seminar when whoever is teaching or showing a technique says, i can guarantee this will work, or this is guaranteed to work? I cringe when i here this i really do, but why?

Well, firstly whoever has said without explaining the realistic side of it first has obviously never been in a real fight or confrontation, secondly whatever has been shown or taught really wont, or is guaranteed to work and any instructor who says otherwise is lying and misleading their students.

Let me explain:

When teaching i always stress to my students that nothing is guaranteed and one should not take anything as gospal, however, what i also say is that it may very well work if you have got the better of your attacker. Anyone who has really been there for real will now that even then its not that easy.

Real fights are fast, brutal, dangerous and unpredicable and are over in about 30 to 60 seconds if your lucky, when confronted by drunk who is staggering, unstable and no real threat, if he/she trys to throw a punch they tell you by swinging the arm back first, we now the sort of thing. In this a block defense is very possible, Jodan uke, Uchi uke etc.

When fights start from chest to chest for example or it just kicks of and the rain of punches are comeing at what seems like 100 miles per hour, one really does not have time to block, this is when your blocks come in very handy as strikes, a point to be well remembered. The saying, there is no first attack in karate can somtimes confuse a lot of people, like most animals if they feel threatend they attack, we are no different, Master Gichin Funakoshi explains this response in karate do kyohan indepth.

To experience the 100 miles per hour exercise is one on one to start, the attacker comes in full throttle hitting randomly wearing focus mitts, then 2, then 3 attackers etc. CAUTION: a head guard is advised for the one being hit and this exercise should only be done under experienced supervision! Also remember in any attack the head is the main target and must be protected atall times!

This kind of training is vital against multible attackers and really helps to find your feet regarding balance and how the body works under realistic stress/attack.

We all train and train tobe the best we can be, an instructor is teaching the students tobe the best they can be, learning how to avoid confrontations and the saying the best way to avoid a punch is not be there must be kept in mind, but sadly somtimes we can end up in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Teaching bunkai etc is as we now a different ball game as we are teaching & showing how to study kata and bunkai, and we all have our own ways of doing this, there is no right and wrong to a point. 

But when doing so to say this is guaranteed to work in a real street fight is what i feel the wrong point / approach of teaching.

I have no doubt not everyone will agree with the above but i hope it is of interest.

Kind regards,

Jason

diadicic
diadicic's picture

Yep,  I say it all the time when I show off my Saiga 12, 20 round Simi auto 12 gauge clip loaded.  Every shot with 00 takes off a limb "Guaranteed"

But with almost anything in life.  Nothing is Guaranteed.  I shoot for highest probability.

Dom

Stevenson
Stevenson's picture

I tell my students, all you are doing is improving your chances at prevailing or at least doing better than you would if you didn't train at all. That's how I see it - as a continuum of chance.

If you didn't train at all, your chances of a positive outcome (no serious injury, escape, or disabling the threat) are at a certain level determined by your age, health, fitness, size and any other variables that consitute your ability to defend yourself.

Learning a martial art improves those chances - and that's all.

Even karateka, who have not seriously looked at budo and train fairly superficially, probably improve their chances. In fact, I know people who would fall in this category that have successfully defended themselves (all women as it happens). 

And we have all heard stories of black belts getting pasted. In fact over-confidence might even reduce chances as a result of MA study. I'd suggest though, a half-decent experienced practitioner ought to consider that they have significantly improved their chances, but there is never any guarantees. A lucky punch, something unseen and unexpected, freezing - any number of things could mean that encounter could end badly for the the experienced MA. It's just that you would expect or hope those random elements to be trained for to some extent improving the MAs chances of not being confounded by them. It's a raffle in which you want to buy as many tickets as you can - but there is still a chance yours won't be the winning ticket.

Zach Zinn
Zach Zinn's picture

The thing is, as an instructor its your job to be skeptical. A new martial arts student doesn't even have the tools to be skeptical in a productive way yet. If you are dealing with someone who has never been in a fistfight, let alone experienced anything more serious, it's a long term thing to get the wheels churning about that kind of stuff.

It seems like the real issue is just how things are phrased, we want people to have confidence in what we are teaching (and honestly, if it's ever going to "work", some of that confidence has to be there), but understand all the caveats.

I'm lucky enough to get some training with Kris Wilder, one thing that has always impressed me learning from him is that pretty much everything you learn he has a drill that is a kind of "proof", it actually shows you not that only that what you are doing works as advertised, but more importanly it shows why it works as advertised. This makes a huge difference in long term understanding. It brings real confidence instead of just confidence in the theory behind the technique. I do my best to emulate this type of teaching in my own class, i'm sure I don't come near it, but i'm aiming in the right direction at least.

swdw
swdw's picture

Zach Zinn wrote:

I'm lucky enough to get some training with Kris Wilder, one thing that has always impressed me learning from him is that pretty much everything you learn he has a drill that is a kind of "proof", it actually shows you not that only that what you are doing works as advertised, but more importanly it shows why it works as advertised. This makes a huge difference in long term understanding. It brings real confidence instead of just confidence in the theory behind the technique.

So people don't jump to a wrong conclusion, should mention that although Kris teaches that way, he still won't use the words "guarantee that it will always work". He's been around too long and seen enough that he won't make that claim. One of the things I like about him.

Zach Zinn
Zach Zinn's picture

swdw wrote:

Zach Zinn wrote:

I'm lucky enough to get some training with Kris Wilder, one thing that has always impressed me learning from him is that pretty much everything you learn he has a drill that is a kind of "proof", it actually shows you not that only that what you are doing works as advertised, but more importanly it shows why it works as advertised. This makes a huge difference in long term understanding. It brings real confidence instead of just confidence in the theory behind the technique.

So people don't jump to a wrong conclusion, should mention that although Kris teaches that way, he still won't use the words "guarantee that it will always work". He's been around too long and seen enough that he won't make that claim. One of the things I like about him.

Wasn't really worried about that, I thought my post was fairly unambiguous. the mention of Kris' teaching method was meant to contrast with saying things like "guaranteed to work", not the other way around.