ARTICLE : " What should I do if I want to start martial arts in order to ......

[Adam]

What should I do if I want to start martial arts in order to be able to really defend oneself?

   This is  a  question that I have recieved many times. And in order to examine it accurately, I think the most important requirement first is to examine some mental attitudes in learning a martial art ; this is vital in order to save time wasted because I've find that a large amount of students approaches martial arts in a "best style" mentality ( ie MMA, JKD , Wing Chun etc) :

1 First ask yourself " how serious am I about the answer? ". For example , recently, I've just met a student applicant who said he was interested in learning martial arts so he can defend himself in a quick time period. I then ask him if he have any past training. He reply that he does ; after crossing hands briefly, he found out that somethings may not work all that well. The reason had nothing to do with the style he is practicing but rather the way he trains. I never said anything but I was thinking to myself that if something doesnt work well, why do people keep going with it for years? The major reason for this is  because we all have ideals and opinions of how things "should be", dreams and hopes and when the results in reality does not matches our ideals in our heads , it is a hard thing to accept . So I think the first essential ingredient needed to find " what can I learn quicky to defend myself?" can only be answer if one is willing to give up whatever doesnt work rather its an idealogy , an assumption or whatever. I am pretty stubborn when I love something so I understand that it is very hard , but it must be done if real results is what you are after, at least temporarily  Not many people ( especially instructors) are willing to do this despite how many people appear to be open minded.

   I do not mean that one should give up ones dreams - I am a firm believer in chasing that . There are many times that things ( what you dream to do) that dont work NOW  will work great once you have enough attributes ( awarenss, sensitivity, distance control, co-ordination, speed, power, accuracy etc) in the future to pull it off but in my opinion, the best thing to do in those circumstances is to  file these methods away until you have the required attributes ( your body will tell you when) to pull it off. Tommorrow is tommorrow and now is now - practice the stuff that you can make work at your current level of development ! So it is  important to organize your stuff with clarity and organize it separately - there's the " proven methods" that you trust enough to use in the street and then there's the " under research not yet proven stuff " that should not be let out the lab yet. If you get the  2 confuse , you might get hurt badly in real battles. There are days that you will train hard on things you need and there are different days that you are relax and just having fun with things that you are researching. Needs and wants are not the same.

 2 Lets assume after number one that you develop the courage to admit and give up what doesnt work for you now ( while keeping it in storeage) . The second thing to consider is that you have to respect yourself enough to realize that everyone is  different mentally and  physically and that it will not be good for you to try to copy and fight like someone else . This simple idea has been stated over and over and over again by different teachers from different disciplines through the years. And even now , at this moment , as I am typing this , it feels so redundant but I am still shock and surprise at how many people in the public still aproaches learning how to fight from a " best style"  point of view . " you are great , how much do you charge I want to learn how to do THIS "  , which is a nice way to say " how much will it cost for me to copy you and pretend I am someone else" . " MMA is the best , I want to learn how to fight like that; I wanna fight like St Pierre"  lol . " JKD is awesome, I want to move like Bruce Lee ".  " Wing Chun is the best , I want to be like Yip Man"  etc etc .But YOU are not Bruce Lee, Yip Man , St Pierre etc etc .In fact , a key ingredient that made the great fighters great was because they refuse to be like someone else . YOU have to find your own way or at least find a teacher who is willing to help you find yourself. A naturally small and fast person cannot fight like a naturally slow and huge person ; a person who is gifted in grappling should not fight like a natural puncher , the way a short person fight will not be the same as a giant etc. Maybe , people who are interested in self defence or fighting ability are not interested in Philosophy or  Psycology in anyway but look , can't you see that the study of any physical endeavor requires the examination of ones learning attitudes? Motivation and the way you look at things are directly connected to the physicial since the mind controls the body and its actions.

   For example, a good friend of mine , Kevin loves to box, he's not a big guy but he can hit really really hard and he also naturally like to use combination punching like a boxer , he doesnt like to get tie up with his temper and he have hip injuries from decades of skate boarding and he's not lightning fast ; so trapping and kicking is out .So when I first started to coach him , I put alot of time in his ability to move in and finish the fight fast with great punching abilities ( he have since develop alot of other skill-sets).Chris , naturally is very non-telegraphic ( for his size, he's a big guy) and sneaky with a natural gift for anything trapping-like so closing in before people can blink , tying people up in knots is a great way for him to beat people up when he needs to; but he's also sometimes wwwwway too nice so we work alot on balancing that with when to ethically pull the trigger with certain scenario drills.  Tyler , another good friend/ student is a natural slugger at heart and he have a personality that you would have to shoot him dead before he would stop coming in lol, but because of his height it is very dangerous for him to lead in like that - not good for his face or spine. However , once he started training and quickly developed ways of moving directly with more economical tactics, it allowed him to use his natural asset very effectively and he can more than defend himself as he have proven when needed. The moral of the story is that you have to find your own way !  Everyone have strengths and weakness; captalize on your unique - strengths, instead of spending your life worrying about the million what ifs; for whats ifs never ends . Dont be problems oriented , be solution oriented- lifes too short, so is a street fight.....

3 The next thing that might be  good to consider is the fact that realistic achievemnent of skill in a self defence situation relies on an intensive amount of practice . This is where most hit a wall and get stuck. Yes , there are ways of training that harmonizes with ones more natural instinctive behaviors, tactics and movements. And these more " natural" simple methods are easier (relatively) to get " good" at ( we will discuss " good" later), however,  even these methods still requires at least a functional amount of attributes ( calmness, confidence, awareness,  power, speed , sensitivity, precision etc). The increasing of any attribute means - large amount of practice . For this reason it is vital to train in things that you enjoy - because you are gonna have to practice it alot to gain any real benefits. One way around this is to figure out many ways to practice one thing , a way which is great for those who are not use to doing one thing over and over again without quitting. However, even this method is not a guarantee. The fact is , each art , types of movements have its own personality and therefore , it fits different personalities - so find the one for YOU. In the current MA marketing for self defence , quick results is often stated. In my opinion , it is possible for someone to develop reliable skills in 3 - 12 months ( depending on their personal learning curve) BUT without exception - there is hard work involve! Some people , especially more peaceful individuals gets a little turn off when they hear hard training so they go and train in a "soft" style to escape it. Well , lol , authentic soft arts are usually more advanced and effective and therefore, will actually take even more hard work, patience , discipline, talent and perseverance to develop . You can't get around hard work thats why it is call kung fu in chinese which literally means  skill / WORK. If you are serious about developing skills in anything, be willing to work hard and sacrifice a bit of social time. Hard work gets alot of bad press but in reality there is defintely something worth experiencing in a pursuit which allows you to forget yourself completely and do what you never thought you could.

    The next thing is that you have to be  realistic about is how much training time do you have per week to train in relation to the  type of  skills that you want to develop. For example , kicking requires you to be fairly althletic , so aside from combative training itself , having good cardio , a marginal amount of flexibility, strong muscles ( at least in the hip stabilizers) are essential in order to develop a safe enough kick that can be reliable in a real confrontation ; things like palm strikes and power punching would be more suitable for an older or less althletic individuals to develop in the same time frame. Or things like short power, hitting without telegraphing requires alot of training in order to do these things with any amount of reliable power to KO a piss off opponent. If you dont have alot of time to develop these things learning bigger motion attack would be more accessible for the development of effective powerful striking. How much time do you have a week to train in your current life style? How old are you? Do you have any old injuries ? All these types of questions and alot more will affect what type of stuff is suitable for you for an individualized and effective self defence program. Approaching it  with a " best style" one size fits all mentality would just get people kill.
   
4 Approaching a teacher and how to benefit the most from the instruction given - First you have to choose the right type for your learning abilties ( note: the following are only opinions/advice based on my own subjective experiences meeting different teachers in the last 2 decades+ , it is not a "rule" )

   Commericalized environment - usually in such a large setting, there is  very little personal attention, therefore , what I found to be effective is to ask ALOT of questions; most schools nowadays are effectively train in customer service so go nuts - ask question after question, be a pain in the ass but be polite and get your money's worth. Record them , if the student in charge allows it , write it down for later reflection. Most classes are 1 hour long with 15-20 minutes of warm ups, exercises ,stretching , teachers talking and combative training . So in a 1 hour class , there's probably 20- 35 minute of actually combative training .  For basic self defence , you wanna log in 4 to 8 hours of actual combative training time per week. Therefore , a great thing to do is to make friends with fellow classmates and form a study group - get together to share notes and train together after class and film it for analysis.. If you follow this , you will improve faster than 90% of the other students. In such a setting , you are actually responsible to teach yourself ; another approach is to sign up for private lesson so you can actually train with your teacher , it usually cost 100-300 hour , but if money is not an issue , why not? For guys like me who dont have alot of money , I used the first method of "study groups" when I was a kid and it work great.
   This type of setting is great to find out what kind of art you would like to train in; most schools offer 1 ro 2 free trial lesson so you can go to alot of schools and try different arts. Also places like these are wonderful for exercises and meeting new friends while learning how to defend yourself.
 
    Underground schools , not commericalized - if you never been to one before , you maybe shock. Realize these people actually love their arts tremendously and they dont need or care about your money; alot of these guys dont charge for lessons. And even if they do charge for lessons , they will have the integrity to kick you out if you cross a line. The only reason why they teach is : 1) because they wanna help people or 2) they need people to train with and they dont even like to teach at all. So do NOT walk in acting like a customer and expecting customer serivice , in certain chinatowns and in Hong Kong , I've seen people get beat up with this attitude; it might not be right you say but it doesnt mean it doesnt happen; some of these places have had challengers come in so they can be a little over sensitive when dealing with "attitude". If they are very traditional, becareful how you ask for lessons , do NOT say " how much you charge , I am not sure but I might be interested in learning this, you seem kinda alright " lol, IF you wanna join maybe instead say " will you please accept me as your student? I promise to train hard ". Do NOT ask alot of questions in class , old timers are expecting you to train your ass off before they will give you a tip , you have to earn it. When they do give you a tip , dont argue, instead say thank you. If they do end up liking you, they might be very critical of you with alot of personal attention and rough hands on teaching ; it might seem harsh but you will learn alot and it will benefit you if you can take it; they actually care if you suck or not. The difference? You will become very good in such an environment if you can handle it - this is the real deal. Classes can be anywhere from 2  to 12 hours long ; it is not uncommon for people to end up talking ,eating after class and end up training again or discussing, researching all night until morning - when this happens , do not insult them by offering more money for their friendship. The type of relationship you will develop will be like brothers and fathers. 

   
     Now that we have look at  the learning attitudes of  the courage to give up things that dont work,  giving up the need to copy others, the willingness to practice intensively and choosing the right type of schools for your personality, we are ready to look at the physcial variables in answering the orignal question of " What system of style can one learn fast and be able to really defend oneself?" in  part 2 next week. I will make an effort to write an article once a week.