By Joel Persinger
Take it from one who knows from experience, when the time comes to fight your body goes on auto pilot. If you practice at a dojo and spar with rules, then when push comes to shove you’ll still be obeying the rules. I have seen this in my son. His Tang Soo Do and Tae Kwon Do instructors often limited strikes and techniques during sparing. This is important, because some strikes and techniques can cause grave injury. However, some rules go too far.
In my son’s classes, the instructors would only let the kids strike to the chest area. They called this “the box”. The problem is, when I started working with him on street fighting and basic self defense he had tremendous trouble striking to the face, groin, knees, ankles and so on.
This problem is more than significant because your practice becomes muscle memory. When you’re under the stress of an attack, your conscious ability to respond is overridden by your unconscious ability to react. This is why a famous master, when asked if he would kill a man were he attacked said “I would not kill him. It would”. The “it” the master was referring to was his training.
If we train to spar for sports, we will not be equipped for self defense. For sports, in many cases, you train to strike in the areas where you can’t hurt someone seriously. The “Box” is a great example. If all your muscle memory tells you to do is to strike in the chest (one of the best protected parts of the body) will your defense be effective? Probably not.
Take me for example. I’m six foot three inches tall and 230 pounds in weight. I’m also a trained and experienced fighter. I have been hit countless times and actually broken bones during practice workouts. So, while pain is not my friend it's not new to me either. Now that you know a little bit about me let's pretend that I am about to attack you. You don’t have time to respond, only time to react. If you take the time to think you will die. You only have time to do what comes naturally. So, if you hit me in the chest and expect to have any results at all you had better be able to hit harder than the average person. Otherwise, thug that I am, I’m likely to “take you to Disneyland”, which was my Tang Soo Do instructor's euphemism for the hospital or the morgue. On the other hand, no matter what training I may have or experience I may have gained, I still topple over when kicked in the groin, my knees can still be collapsed or hyperextend, my eyes still fog up and water if you hit me in the nose and if you poke me in the eye I’ll still crumple on the ground and cry “mommy”. The problem is that you won’t do any of those things if you don’t practice to do them.
So, here’s a practice tip for this week so that you can be ready if some big ugly bruiser like me comes after you. You and your practice partner go and buy some headgear, a cup for each of you and some racket ball goggles. Then, gently please, practice basic self defense by striking to the areas where damage can be most easily affected. Now wait a moment, before you go off half cocked. Don’t strike with full force. Just get use to the idea of striking those areas and practice the movements at half speed. Then practice the same strikes on a heavy bag and give it all you’ve got. The workouts with your partner will train your body to strike the right places and the bag work will teach your body to put some force behind those strikes. Remember, train to fight, not to die.
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