“You can’t learn to swim standing on a beach.” -Bruce Lee
I was a teenager studying martial arts and that quote made a huge impression.
In 1980, my very first student lost a fight.
He didn’t lose because of what I taught him, he lost because of what I failed to teach him.
At the time I was heavily inspired by my grappling, TKD, boxing, and Wing Chun background.
On the surface, that’s a pretty formidable toolbox - but that’s the trap and blind spot we all have and I hope this article inspires a new level of self-awareness that makes you safer.
I taught him what I knew, understood, and believed in.
So what exactly am I hinting at?
I feel like many instructors and students of martial arts confuse techniques for tactics - and inadvertently confuse 'martial' with martial 'art’. [Martial refers to things related to soldiers or war.]
In a truly violent encounter, there are effects to the neurological systems that affect our access to complex motor skills.
The ‘surprise’ of a sudden attack triggers primal responses that bypass executive function. We must recalibrate - we are [temporarily] off-balance emotionally & physically, the initial movement is unpredictable, targets are moving. This takes time.
There will be fear.
The goal of all SPEAR System® research and our drills is to explore how to move when we are off-balance emotionally, psychologically, and physically.
This helps us improve how fast we think and recalibrate. I refer to this as our mind speed.
Since violence thrives on speed, working on mind speed is one of the most intelligent skill sets to develop, especially for sudden violence.
I’ll dig deeper into this in Monday's newsletter.
BTW if you’re only reading this on Substack, you'll want to subscribe to my SPEARtips newsletter here.
Coach B
PLEASE HELP ME MAKE GOOD PEOPLE SAFER!
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“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting”
The fight before the fight! Gotta get that martial part down. Thanks for sharing coach!