A Look At Self-Defence Instruction
I have recently taken part in an interesting debate centering around the validity of Kata and Traditional Martial Arts (TMA) as tools for self-defence. This is something I have written extensively about, and you can read about this here, here and here.
My opinions aside, the average person who walks off the street into a dojo is unlikely to be able to tell the difference between what is effective to what isn’t. And all martial arts are advertised as self-defence. I have met very few instructors who are honest enough to say ‘the stuff we teach here will give you lots of benefits, but self-defence isn’t one of them’.
I have also written extensively about common mistakes in self-defence training. Read about this here.
If you read any of the above articles or any of my previous pieces, you are probably familiar with what I would consider effective self-defence training. You would also know that I am very dedicated to, and interested in, the art and science of teaching martial arts as much as I am interested in training. Admittedly this often makes me overly critical of how things are taught. That being said, I am as critical of myself and my teaching.
With all of this in mind, let’s look at the other stuff – the stuff that is not, in my opinion, effective. Why is it taught the way it is?
How Do We Gain It?
I believe it comes from how we gain knowledge of ‘what works’. We can break this down into 3 groups for now (there are some additions to discuss at another time):
- You were told that’s how it happens by your instructor
- That’s how it happened to you
- That’s how you’ve seen it happen to other people, whether those people are real or fictional
Let’s look at these in more detail:
1. ‘My Instructor Told Me’
There is so much debate (read ‘argument’) about what is effective self-defence, and there are so many experts (as well as ‘experts’) who give us contradicting views.
Most people who teach self-defence don’t have actual experience in self-defence or real violence. Most of their knowledge comes from their own teachers (who may not have any experience themselves). Other sources of knowledge include books, videos or workshops.
Oftentimes, the way they teach reflects that. My experience of training with instructors like this is that there are two common things I would consider ineffective – a reliance on a large number of sometimes overly-complex techniques, and training these techniques in a static, ‘one-step’ way, where the training partner is expected to react ‘the right way’.
This is not to say that this training is not valuable, nor does it mean that they cannot be good self-defence instructors. However, it takes a lot of guts to say ‘I’ve never really tried that in real life, dunno if it’ll work’. And it’s also not a great sales pitch. More on selling combat sports as self-defence in point 3.
2. ‘This Is What Happened To Me’
Even those who do have experience with violence have ‘experience bias’. In other words, while there are certain commonalities to violent behaviour, there is also an infinite amount of variation. This of all the different shapes and sizes humans come in, the infinite variation in environments and other situations such as time of day, place, state of mind, etc. Given all of these, it is almost infinitely impossible that the exact same incident will happen twice. In addition, it is much harder to accumulate experience because you don’t get to choose when the fights happen. Bouncers are exposed to certain types of violence that take place under certain conditions. Police officers are exposed to other types of violence under other conditions. The same goes for prison officers, military personnel, paramedics, nurses and social workers. The risks they face, the people they deal with, the environment they operate in, the tools they use, the support they have and the force options they can use all vary.
Because of that, it is very hard to be able to cater to every possibility. Let’s look at a couple of examples:
– Can someone who’s never been in a real life or death situation truly understand what it’s like to make the decision to end someone else’s life?
– Can a 6’2, 100kgs man, even one experienced with male violence, truly understand how a 5’2, 50kgs woman experiences sexual assault? And vice versa?
– Can someone who’s always relied on tools (i.e. tasers, OC spray, firearms) be a competent hand to hand instructor if they’ve never used those skills? And vice versa?
These are not rhetorical questions. Maybe the person can, and maybe they can’t. Maybe they are empathetic and open-minded enough to get it, and maybe they aren’t.
The point is, that exposure to one ‘type’ of violence doesn’t automatically make you an expert on all types of violence.
3. ‘The Jason Bourne’ and ‘The UFC’
Another interesting one. Most of the knowledge we have of violence is not experiential, and that’s a good thing. It comes mostly from the media, such as movies, YouTube, etc. I get one inquiry every few weeks of someone who wants to learn Krav Maga because they heard that’s what was used in the Jason Bourne movies. Two things; firstly, it wasn’t. Secondly, that’s not what real fighting looks like.
Where this becomes a problem is when what the student imagined it would be like and what it’s actually like are exposed as two very different things. It can be frustrating for the student, as well as for the instructor. I’ve had the pleasure of training with some amazing TMA masters who showed me stuff that is fantastically awesome to look at, try and get your body to do, but that I would not dream of trying in a real fight. Yet this is often the stuff that is being shown and taught as self-defence. A simple example is throwing a crescent kick to knock the knife out of the hand of an attacker. Looks great and easy to do when the person presents the knife and stands still… not so easy to do when a meth-fuelled crim in a frenzy tries to shank you for the $20 in your wallet. The point? Don’t teach self-defence from stuff you’ve seen in the movies.
The same can be said for watching combat sports – boxing, MMA, BJJ, Karate, etc. There’ a ton of stuff we can learn from it, but at the end of the day that’s not self-defence. More on this here and here. Simply put, even Freddie Roach can’t teach a 50kgs, 65-year old grandmother to knock out a 100kgs gangster who has been brawling in prison every day over the last 5 years and happens to break into her house.
Note: There is a ton of excellent footage you can learn from. Just look up the millions of videos of real-world violence.
A Couple Of Thoughts To Finish Up
This not to say that people who don’t have experience with real violence can’t be amazing instructors.
As in everything else in life, there’s good and bad in everything. I don’t believe that you had to have been involved in hundreds of real fights to be able to teach self-defence effectively, though it does help. I also don’t think there is anything wrong with making money from self-defence and martial arts training. After all, that’s how I make a living (more on this here). Combat sports are a great way to get fit and develop amazing attributes and skills that will enhance your self-defence skills. Lastly, martial arts and action movies are a ton of fun. I know heaps of people, myself included, who started training because of their childhood icons. I mean, do you know anyone who doesn’t love The Karate Kid or Bruce Lee?!
Where this gets complicated is when the realms of fantasy and reality are blurred due to ignorance, negligence or greed. Or because of what is probably the biggest enemy of our martial arts identity – fear of cognitive dissonance. The fear that what we are doing, or have invested a lot of time in, will not give us the results we need.
There are many ways to learn about what is good self-defence training, many of which I have listed in the articles mentioned here. More on this in an upcoming article.
For now, I invite you to do this simple check:
Look up some footage of real violence (there is an excellent piece by fellow Martial Journal writer Louie Martin on this and you can read it here). Answer the following questions:
Do you train in a way that replicates, at least semi-regularly, what happens in that footage from start to finish?
What does your answer, whether ‘yes’ or ‘no’, mean?
Stay safe, stay tuned.
Osu/Oss
- The Karate Kid (1984): Movie Review - March 31, 2019
- Fairy Tales: Even MORE Statements To Be Careful Of! - February 21, 2019
- Don’t be That Person! Thoughts on Giving Feedback in Class - January 30, 2019
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