WHAT WARS IN GENERAL CAN TEACH US.

Even when all the ammo is gone, a rifle becomes a club and a pistol a hammer.

This post is still about Wing Chun and us.

 Things to keep in mind, and relevant to ourselves, are that all Militaries in the world teach unarmed combat, and that, in my opinion, the Navy and Air Force represent our legs, and the Infantry represents our hands.

Sometimes taking a very “Big Picture” view can really help us with the small details.

Before the creation of any Martial Art of any shade, there was a bunch of guys with no training looking to do no good.

This minor detail is important; it is beneficial if all the guys fighting together fight the same way, to the same end. The specifics are slightly different for different environments, but at its core, it is all the same.

This is the genesis of ‘Basic Training’, and initially, this is all there was: pick up a sword, swing it like this and off you go.

War was the ground troops/infantry of one country vs. the ground troops/infantry of another country.

And often they would march miles and months to do this.

The first really big leap forward was when someone put troops on boats to get them further faster and arrive in better shape, and keep the supply lines open.

And as Naval warfare evolved, soften up the enemy troops in advance of the Infantry/Marines landing.

As awesome and terrifying a thing that Navies have evolved into, this is still the most valuable asset in a war, to put “Boots on the ground” and keep them supported.

Legs and Hands people.

The advent of the Airoplane, for all intents and purposes, put the Navy into the Air and did the same job.

Think of WW2, despite all the bombing runs, it was the ability to drop thousands of Paratroopers /ground troops deep behind the front lines that brought Germany to its knees.

And of course, the airdrops, open supply lines meant never running out of ammo or food, which after all is what did poor old Rommel in down in North Africa.

Bringing it back to “Legs and Hands”, as powerful and varied as kicks may be, their job is to keep our bum off the floor and set up the final attack from the hands.

Killer kicks that can be seen, stopped, or even worse yet, countered, are a bit like dropping bombs on our own men.

We will cover this in training this week.

Back to big picture stuff.

Wars are fought by large groups of men with basic training and a couple of basic weapons, a rifle, a pistol and a knife, for instance.

We could think of this as our generic ‘Bad Guy’.

As the war continues and evolves, the training uses small adaptations or improvements of the basics to reflect the changing situation; no one learns two sets of methodology.

As the groups get smaller,  the training becomes more specific, and the weapons get more numerous, the smallest groups would be ‘Special Forces’, five or six-man teams that are highly trained in many disciplines, very heavily armed, usually the team will have at there disposal an underbarrel rocket launcher, machine guns, sub-machine guns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, various pistols and hand grenades, knives, axes, garrots, and some secret agent shit.

And yes, they are trained and capable of killing unarmed, but why would they? 

We will get to this in a minute because this is us.

Firstly, take a minute to think about this: has there ever been a war, or even just a battle, even just a skirmish, where everyone was unarmed?

Was there ever in history a siege where the defenders did not take up anything and everything as a weapon, even olive oil and human feces?

Has anyone heard of any pirates leaping from ship to ship with nothing in their hands except perhaps their dicks?

No one in any man’s army ever goes on an active combat mission alone or unarmed, so why is any soldier/warrior trained in empty-hand fighting?

Even when all the ammo is gone, a rifle becomes a club and a pistol a hammer.

Why ‘Empty Hands’?

Because everything has gone to shit.

They have lost their mates, lost their weapons, support is not coming, and they are more than likely deep in Indian Country.

This is where we need to think like true soldiers/warriors.

If we are unarmed, it is about survival and escape, not domination and definitely not winning.

And if we are behind enemy lines, in deep shit and on our own, we cannot afford to be nice or take prisoners.

The takeaway from all of this, and what we will work from, is, as amazing as our kicks may be, they are only there to support our hand work, defence or attack.

Also, the ‘Empty Hand’ martial arts styles are for getting out of trouble quickly, decisively, and effectively without any hesitation; it’s not fighting.