THE POINTY END.

But we are not and have never claimed or pretended to be training to become Elite Combat Athletes

Hey Tribe.

I had a fantastic two and a half hours with James Monday evening, mostly talking through what we have been doing for the last month and a half while he was away.

I have been a mentor to James for over twenty years we have a very open training relationship, James has never cared too much about the “Art” side of our thing, he cares more about what happens when the rubber meets the road, at the pointy end of the stick.

He sees what we do as a capital M …..  Martial -art, and not a capital A, ….. martial-Art.

If James thinks anything is in any way ‘suss’ he calls it out.

So Monday was probably 70% chat as I tried to explain the whole three-legged stool thing.

You know Mind – Body – [fighting] Spirit thing.

Being able to see beyond what we are doing at that moment in training, to be able to see things as dynamic relationships can help us see where and how our training fits into the bigger picture of surviving and escaping violence. This is I.M.O. The key to being a capable, competent human being.

This can only be done later in our down-time, going over events in our mind, comparing what we did to what we meant to do, when we self-evaluate the actions we took in training or in a shit-storm.

In the military this would be referred to as an ‘after-action report’, or debrief.

In training, we work on how to defend/defuse all and any of the usual attacks we can think a Bad Guy may use.

This is referred to as ‘generic attack training’.

Through this method we see that we can deal with any generic shape, any generic attempts to hit us, in short, we can beat anything a generic attacker will throw at us.

The complaint many Armchair Warriors throw at this generic approach is that all of the things we train against are nothing less than feeds, that we are ready for them, and that we not only know what is coming but make sure our training partners avoid trickery so that we do see it coming.

The claim is that in a real fight the Bad Guy will not let us see it coming.

On the surface, this sounds like a fair call.

But it is not and here is why.

Perhaps if we are two highly skilled Elite Combat Athletes that have trained intensely for this fight for months, watched videos to understand each others style and have come up with new ways to beat established defences this would be true.

On top of all that we, the Elite Combat Athletes, arrive at the venue for the fight fully rested, in peak condition, full of confidence and self-belief to the extent that when it gets hard and messy we can stay calm and not get stressed in anyway, hold off adrenalin, stay focused and stick to the game plan.

This complaint may appear to make sense.

Especially if you have never been a guest at one of these occasions.

But we are not and have never claimed or pretended to be training to become Elite Combat Athletes

For everyone except Elite Combat Athletes this claim is just as self-delusional as the claim that generic training is self-delusional.

The IDEA of training IS “to be ready for it”, and the IDEA of developing awareness IS “to see it coming”.

But training is never fighting and we all know this.

Not for ourselves or the Elite Combat Athletes.

Things never go the way we plan or the way we hope.

But if we start without a plan we cannot change our plan.

If we start without hope we have no hope.

There is a maxim in the Military, and if anyone truly knows about conflict it is the real Warriors, the guys that go to war, the Military. They say….

…. “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy”.

What we are trying to achieve through training is a condition, a mind-set, an attitude that when it is “Go-Time” we have the “IDEA” of being ready and the “IDEA” of awareness.

That will put us streets ahead because in a real shit storm the Bad Guy will soon have no IDEA ….. just anger.

Let’s keep this conversation going, we all speak English in slightly different ways, feel free to ask me what I mean by certain word choices. 

EVERYONE HAS A PLAN…….

IRON MIKE