Can we talk for a minute about something that really bothers me in the martial arts? I’m going to come off super-judgy talking about this pet peeve, but that’s okay. Because this is important, or at least important to me.
This is true of every self-protection concept I’ve ever come across, and is best illustrated with a conversation I’ve had with more than one second amendment enthusiast.
2A Enthusiast: I just bought the coolest new gun. It’s a pistol on a KE Arms forged aluminum AR receiver, with a modified grip and a Crimson Trace CMR-201 laser sight. It can put out ten accurate rounds in a minute, and that’s before I fiddle with the trigger. Anybody who comes after my family had better watch out!
Me: Hey, that is cool.
2AE: Damn right it is!
Me: Awesome. Out of curiosity, what kind of fire extinguisher do you have at home?
2AE: Uh…the red kind?
Me: When’s the last time you went to the range?
2AE: I go every week. If you don’t put a few hundred rounds downrange every month, you shouldn’t be carrying a gun!
Me: True that. When did you last do a fire drill?
2AE: Uh…we haven’t.
I’m not saying any of this because I’m anti-2A, or think people who are responsible with their guns shouldn’t have guns, or even have fewer guns. That’s not my point.
My point is, if somebody’s telling me how important their guns are to keeping their family safe…or how important their hand-to-hand training is to keeping their family safe…but they haven’t practiced their fire plan, or kept up their first aid training, or they still text when they drive…
It makes me suspect they’re not really that serious about keeping their families safe. What they’re serious about is how cool their self-defense training is, and what a badass they feel like because they train.
And Hey, I’m Just as Guilty
In my youth, I spent 20-25 hours each week in the dojo, training my guts out for “self-defense.” Then, embarrassingly looking back, I’d go look for trouble and often find it. I came out mostly okay in most of those situations, but how on earth is picking fights “self-defense”?
Even after I outgrew that, I still made a lot of dumb decisions that endangered my life and well-being while simultaneously making my living as an expert in protection. And I’m far, far from alone here.
Which brings me to my pet peeve in martial arts today: “self-defense” instructors who limit what they teach to only the physical, combat-oriented forms of self protection. This usually happens for two reasons:
- Instructors for whom the idea of self-defense leading out into cardio, fire safety, swimming lessons, and defensive driving never occurs to them. I feel like this is more common, because it’s not traditionally part of what we teach.
- Instructors who think it’s important, but don’t feel like they’re qualified to teach material outside of what they’ve earned their belts in. I understand this more, since the only thing worse than not teaching something important is to teach it wrong, but there are easy ways to fix it.
What I’d love to see is more schools teaching self-defense from a full-circle standpoint. If I had to make a list, I’d include:
- Making sure all students know the break falls they use in partner work also applies to falling off a bike or slipping on ice
- Emphasizing how the cardio and flexibility training on the deck will protect you from the most common causes of injury and death
- Working to build fire plans for families
- Encouraging defensive driving, especially putting down our phones
- Setting up partnerships with local swim centers to get lessons for all students
- First-aid training, up to and including stop the bleed certifications, hosted in-house and required for all black belts
- Communications training for all students
- Hosting workshops on travel safety, in-school safety, workplace safety, and so forth
- Teaching social media and internet risks, and how to combat them
- Training on how to build emergency kits for the car and home
As martial artists, we’re training on how to stay alive and healthy, and to keep the people we’re responsible for that way. As martial arts teachers, we’re training others to do the same.
Okay, Yeah, So What?
So, that’s my rant about a pet peeve. Whaddayagonnadoabout it?
I’m not the boss of martial arts. I’m not the boss of you. Heck, I’m married with two kids…I’m not usually the boss of me. So I don’t get to tell anybody what to do, stop doing, change, or double-down on in their training.
But here’s what I dare you to do.
If you’re training, I dare you to make these safety topics part of your training. Read a book. Watch a video. Take a step in the right direction. Talk to your teacher about incorporating it into your training, so it’s linked with the punch-kickery we all love so much.
If you’re teaching, develop the skills and contacts you need to make this part of what you do. As you already know, violent assault is vanishingly rare in most neighborhoods where people can afford your tuition — and becoming proficient in a martial art ironically makes it less likely. Make it your mission to also teach the things your students and their families are probably going to use.
Thanks for listening.
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Excellent points – I love this! We began to incorporate verbal de-escalation of situations (from ‘my brother took my toy’ to life-threatening) as well as some of the things you’ve listed, into our training. I tell my students when they’re learning how to fall how I’ve slipped on ice, rollerblades, and wet floors at work, and knowing how to fall saved me from serious injury. Well said, sir.