Recently there have been a rash of murders on the strip in Las Vegas. In fact as of this writing there have been 3 unrelated murders on the strip in the last 11 days. In all three cases there was some sort of a verbal altercation before the physical violence escalted and left three men dead. There was also collateral damage and even more violence as a fallout from one of these incidents. Here is the thing that jumps out. These men left their homes and headed to the Las Vegas pressumably for fun and laughter. How did it all go so wrong?
A closer look at the incidents reveal some more pertinent details that are worth noting. In all three incidents there were verbal altercations prior to any violence. In 2 out of the 3 killings a weapon was used. Two of the victims were fatally stabbed multiple times and the other victim was punched in the face, knocked unconcious and died on the spot. In the last incident a much longer verbal altercation occured prior to the fatal blow being struck.
According to police reports two men were inside of a restroom in a casino on the strip. The victim made a racial comment to his would be killer. The verbal jabs continued as the men exited the restroom. The vicitim's hands were in his pockets while he was jawing back and forth with this man. The attacker pretended to turn and walk away and instead turned back around and delivered a vicious right hand to the victim's jaw. The victim was knocked out immediately and never regained conciousness. The punch knocked him out and the fall probably killed him. In a matter of seconds, both mens lives and the lives of their families were changed forever.
What went wrong? Who's fault is this? Did the victim bring this upon himself? Did his attacker overreact? Was his attacker acting out of fear or out of anger? There are so many questions that will unfortunately never get answered. But what I think is more important than that is the concept that we all should really consider our actions and the impact that they can have on our lives and the lives of others.
Everytime we get into an altercation verbal or physical our lives are at risk. We have to recognize the inate dangers of aggresive behavior. These types of scenes are played out every single day and most of them do not end in the death of one of the participants. Unfortunately all of these types of altercations have the potential to end exactly like that. So how does our training prepare us for situations like this.
We should always remember that it is more important to avoid altercations such as these because of their unpredictable nature. Tactically there is no advantage for exchanging verbal barbs with another individual, when you add alcohol, insulted pride and macho attitudes to the mix you can see where the volatile nature of these types of incidents can explode in violence.
Let's take a look at the victim here. First according to police accounts he was the one who "started" the altercation by making racial remarks to the attacker. He also continued verbally insulting the man after first exiting the restroom. When the man was approaching him, he kept his hands in his pockets and allowed the man to be in striking distance without preparing himself for the possibility of violence. He was talking and not paying attention to the assailant's body language or the fact that he was agitated. Why did he have his hands in his pocket? Was he trying to convey to the attacker that he was not going to become violent? Was he reaching for a weapon?
The attacker also participated in the verbal insults. He too was willing to exchange insults and profanities all while making the decision to strike the victim. He moved closer and closer to the victim and feined leaving prior to hitting the man. Was he angry because of the initial insult? Was he in fear for his safety because the man had his hands in his pockets? Or did he see the victim's hands in his pockets and take advantage of the opportunity to strike the victim?
A confrontation over an insult leads to one man's death and the other man's incarceration and two families destroyed by violence. We have to take these things very seriously. We have to maintain our civility and only us violence as means to to stop an aggresor who is clearly posing a threat to our lives or that of our loved ones. Our training must include scenarios that instill in our students the understanding of defusing and removing themselves from the threat as early on in the altercation as possible. The type of training that we do breeds confidence and that confidence can sometimes cause a student to remain in a situation linger than he or she should.
Violence has a potential of breaking out wherever humans frequent. We are all training to deal with violence should it come. We must never forget that the best way to deal with an altercation is to avoid said altercation. If that fails then we have to remember to constantly evaluate the other person's body language. We have to look at his hands first! We have to move to a better strategic situation ie, not be directly in front of him, We have to use a firm but fair tone and avoid directly challenging them with our words. We must be able to read and sense when he is going to act violently and respond with an appropriate amount of force. If you have a verbal altercation you must remember that the potential for violence is extremely high. Prepare yourselves accordingly.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Liberate Yourself From Traditional Krav Maga
LIBERATE YOURSELF FROM TRADITIONAL KRAV MAGA!
There are several reasons why I chose to write this article and I will touch on those reasons throughout the course of this writing. I have stated this before and I feel it bears repeating once more. Bruce lee has had a tremendous impact on me personally and as a martial artist. I specifically chose this title because Bruce himself wrote an article titled, Liberate Yourself from Classical Karate which was first published in September 1971.
In this truly groundbreaking article Lee encouraged the reader to free his/her mind from their chosen style in order to seek their own expression. The article was not anti Karate. In fact it was anti style. That is to say, that it was anti- all styles, or the trappings of any given style, even his own. Bruce thought that the ultimate level for any martial artist to reach was to be “form - less”, to have “no-way” as a “way”, to have “no-style” as a style. Bruce was trying to share his vision with the martial arts world in an effort to help them liberate their own minds from their own styles.
So it is in this spirit that I write the following article about Krav Maga. The purpose of this article is not to attack any specific organization or for that matter any specific instructor, school or students. Quite frankly I am not concerned with whether or not you as the reader agree with me or not. I only hope that you read this article and then re-read the article in the hopes that you are able to find the courage to question your training. If we are not constantly trying to improve we are by default ceasing to grow into our greatest potential.
WHAT WOULD IMI SAY?
“It is conceivable that a long time ago a certain martial artist discovered some partial truth. During his lifetime, the man resisted the temptation to organize this partial truth, although this is a common tendency in a man's search for security and certainty in life. After his death, his students took "his" hypotheses, "his" postulates, "his" method and turned them into law. Impressive creeds were then invented, solemn reinforcing ceremonies prescribed, rigid philosophy and patterns formulated, and so on, until finally an institution was erected. So, what originated as one man's intuition of some sort of personal fluidity has been transformed into solidified, fixed knowledge, complete with organized classified responses presented in a logical order. In so doing, the well-meaning, loyal followers have not only made this knowledge a holy shrine, but also a tomb in which they have buried the founder's wisdom.”-Bruce Lee
I have had the honor of training with the very best instructors in the world. Some of these men learned Krav Maga directly from the founder, Imi. Many did not have the pleasure of learning from The Grandmaster. We all owe Imi a debt of gratitude because he had the courage to fight for those who could not do it for themselves and he also had the courage to share his knowledge with the rest of us. His system, Krav Maga, is a principle based system that has specific techniques that all of us have learned, practiced and taught thousands of times. While I firmly believe that Krav Maga is one of the most effective systems being taught today. I am not so blinded by my respect for the system and more importantly Imi, that I don’t see the holes in our system. Yes there are holes in the system. Some of these holes are unavoidable because of the unpredictability of combat. Remember, there are no guarantees that anything works 100% of the time. There are some holes however that are created by our training methods. I recently had a conversation with Jeremy Stafford, a dear friend, a warrior and a top notch Krav Maga Instructor! We were talking about training at combat speed vs. a knife attack. Both he and I agree that the only way to train against a knife wielding attacker is to do so at combat speed. If you are not training at combat speed against an attacker that is trying to stab you, you are not training. More on this later though.
The biggest issue that many top level instructors encounter in finding solutions for the holes in our system is that they are afraid to make changes to the system that Imi founded. I know because I have trained with these men. I have spoken to them at length about some of the issues with various techniques in the system. Some of them have openly acknowledged the problems but they are unwilling to address them because they know that their peers will be very critical of them should they make an addition or even more blasphemous, a subtraction of a technique that Imi wanted in the system. John Whitman , one of the world’s leading authority on Krav Maga and in my opinion the best teacher on the planet, is one of the men who will make such changes to the system because he sees what the others are afraid to admit. Simply, we have some things in our system that need to be changed because we have found that the techniques are too difficult to perform at combat speed for most practioners.
It takes a great deal of courage to take a look at ourselves and ask the tough questions. It is much easier to sit around a table with our peers and students and listen to them tell us how awesome we are. We can sit around and wait for change to come from above or we can “Be like water” and adapt to any given situation as needed. It is not disrespectful to improve the system through understanding and training methods that put each individual under the most duress possible. This is the only way to assign a value, a tangible measurement of our technical performance and the methodology behind our training approach.
As Bruce mentioned in the excerpt above, the system only represents the founder’s mindset or personal understanding at the time that the lesson was being taught, the curriculum was being developed or the book was being written. It is the followers who make his words dogma and thus creativity is smothered. So in our own training are we challenging our students to find their own truth? Are we afraid to step outside of our own training methodology because we know that Imi did not provide the answer to the questions that are guaranteed to come? Imi is not coming back anytime soon. We have to remember that Imi left us with the beginning, not the end of our growth. It is up to us as instructors not to provide absolute answers, no, we have to provide a light on the path for each student.
The YIN AND YANG OF THE CURRICULUM
I have trained with exceptionally talented instructors from various systems and the thing that separates the average system from the extraordinary systems is the quality of the curriculum. When the curriculum is put together in a structured manner that is supported by high level instruction, the student can expect to grow quickly and consistently. Additionally if we are to treat our schools as true places of learning, we must have a tangible way of discerning each student’s ability and giving the student attainable training goals followed by a realistic training schedule. Without a curriculum the student will be limited by the instructor’s lack of lesson plan and therefore the lack of measurement of each student’s growth. So from a practical standpoint, an instruction standpoint and a learning standpoint, a concise curriculum is extremely important.
By the same token a curriculum can also cripple a student’s growth, limit the student’s understanding and stifle and instructor’s ability to find answers for his students if the curriculum is valued more than the needs of the individual practioner. No system is more important than the individual training in the system. An instructor must be able to understand the curriculum so well that he sees its flaws and immediately seeks to correct the flaw in the technique or the way that it is presented. If the instructor is not doing this he is falling into the trap of blindly following the dogma of his instructor. His instructor either lacked the skill set or the courage to see a problem in our training and find an answer for the problem.
UNDERSTANDING COMBAT
I have included two quotes from the aforementioned article for this section. Read these carefully as I believe that most instructors, regardless of what style they teach, do not understand the concept of true combat.
“One cannot express himself fully when imprisoned by a confining style. Combat "as is" is total, and it includes all the "is" as well as "is not," without favorite lines or angles. Lacking boundaries, combat is always fresh, alive and constantly changing. Your particular style, your personal inclinations and your physical makeup are all 'parts' of combat, but they do not constitute the 'whole' of combat. Should your responses become dependent upon any single part, you will react in terms of what "should be" rather than to the reality of the ever-changing "what is." Remember that while the whole is evidenced in all its parts, an isolated part, efficient or not, does not constitute the whole.”-Bruce Lee 1971.
When a student first begins studying their chosen system they understand very little and are forced to mimic their instructor or another student. This is a normal occurrence but if unchecked it can cause the student to misunderstand their abilities and more importantly cause them to misunderstand the harsh realities of combat. The need for personal exploration must be stated often and early on in the students training. Without this critical understanding of learning vs. being systematized the students progress and therefore the instructors ability to grow is stifled.
“Prolonged repetitious drillings will certainly yield mechanical precision and security of that kind comes from any routine. However, it is exactly this kind of "selective" security or "crutch" which limits or blocks the total growth of a martial artist. In fact, quite a few practitioners develop such a liking for and dependence on their "crutch" that they can no longer walk without it. Thus, anyone special technique, however cleverly designed is actually a hindrance.”- Bruce Lee
If we are not careful we can become that which we despise the most. The patterns and training flaws of traditional systems are creeping their way into what we are doing and we must rectify this immediately. This is most evident in our striking. You can watch any Krav Maga student and see how they move and strike. You can see which strikes they favor and you will know who they train under. It is human nature for a team to take the personality and in many cases the physical traits of their leader. However this can also be a negative if the instructor is not adept at teaching reality. What good is it to teach a student how to throw a knee by repeatedly throwing knee after knee after knee during a self defense scenario? The instructor must be able to make a clear distinction for the student. The instructor must know the difference between on the mat training and street application.
There are several reasons why I chose to write this article and I will touch on those reasons throughout the course of this writing. I have stated this before and I feel it bears repeating once more. Bruce lee has had a tremendous impact on me personally and as a martial artist. I specifically chose this title because Bruce himself wrote an article titled, Liberate Yourself from Classical Karate which was first published in September 1971.
In this truly groundbreaking article Lee encouraged the reader to free his/her mind from their chosen style in order to seek their own expression. The article was not anti Karate. In fact it was anti style. That is to say, that it was anti- all styles, or the trappings of any given style, even his own. Bruce thought that the ultimate level for any martial artist to reach was to be “form - less”, to have “no-way” as a “way”, to have “no-style” as a style. Bruce was trying to share his vision with the martial arts world in an effort to help them liberate their own minds from their own styles.
So it is in this spirit that I write the following article about Krav Maga. The purpose of this article is not to attack any specific organization or for that matter any specific instructor, school or students. Quite frankly I am not concerned with whether or not you as the reader agree with me or not. I only hope that you read this article and then re-read the article in the hopes that you are able to find the courage to question your training. If we are not constantly trying to improve we are by default ceasing to grow into our greatest potential.
WHAT WOULD IMI SAY?
“It is conceivable that a long time ago a certain martial artist discovered some partial truth. During his lifetime, the man resisted the temptation to organize this partial truth, although this is a common tendency in a man's search for security and certainty in life. After his death, his students took "his" hypotheses, "his" postulates, "his" method and turned them into law. Impressive creeds were then invented, solemn reinforcing ceremonies prescribed, rigid philosophy and patterns formulated, and so on, until finally an institution was erected. So, what originated as one man's intuition of some sort of personal fluidity has been transformed into solidified, fixed knowledge, complete with organized classified responses presented in a logical order. In so doing, the well-meaning, loyal followers have not only made this knowledge a holy shrine, but also a tomb in which they have buried the founder's wisdom.”-Bruce Lee
I have had the honor of training with the very best instructors in the world. Some of these men learned Krav Maga directly from the founder, Imi. Many did not have the pleasure of learning from The Grandmaster. We all owe Imi a debt of gratitude because he had the courage to fight for those who could not do it for themselves and he also had the courage to share his knowledge with the rest of us. His system, Krav Maga, is a principle based system that has specific techniques that all of us have learned, practiced and taught thousands of times. While I firmly believe that Krav Maga is one of the most effective systems being taught today. I am not so blinded by my respect for the system and more importantly Imi, that I don’t see the holes in our system. Yes there are holes in the system. Some of these holes are unavoidable because of the unpredictability of combat. Remember, there are no guarantees that anything works 100% of the time. There are some holes however that are created by our training methods. I recently had a conversation with Jeremy Stafford, a dear friend, a warrior and a top notch Krav Maga Instructor! We were talking about training at combat speed vs. a knife attack. Both he and I agree that the only way to train against a knife wielding attacker is to do so at combat speed. If you are not training at combat speed against an attacker that is trying to stab you, you are not training. More on this later though.
The biggest issue that many top level instructors encounter in finding solutions for the holes in our system is that they are afraid to make changes to the system that Imi founded. I know because I have trained with these men. I have spoken to them at length about some of the issues with various techniques in the system. Some of them have openly acknowledged the problems but they are unwilling to address them because they know that their peers will be very critical of them should they make an addition or even more blasphemous, a subtraction of a technique that Imi wanted in the system. John Whitman , one of the world’s leading authority on Krav Maga and in my opinion the best teacher on the planet, is one of the men who will make such changes to the system because he sees what the others are afraid to admit. Simply, we have some things in our system that need to be changed because we have found that the techniques are too difficult to perform at combat speed for most practioners.
It takes a great deal of courage to take a look at ourselves and ask the tough questions. It is much easier to sit around a table with our peers and students and listen to them tell us how awesome we are. We can sit around and wait for change to come from above or we can “Be like water” and adapt to any given situation as needed. It is not disrespectful to improve the system through understanding and training methods that put each individual under the most duress possible. This is the only way to assign a value, a tangible measurement of our technical performance and the methodology behind our training approach.
As Bruce mentioned in the excerpt above, the system only represents the founder’s mindset or personal understanding at the time that the lesson was being taught, the curriculum was being developed or the book was being written. It is the followers who make his words dogma and thus creativity is smothered. So in our own training are we challenging our students to find their own truth? Are we afraid to step outside of our own training methodology because we know that Imi did not provide the answer to the questions that are guaranteed to come? Imi is not coming back anytime soon. We have to remember that Imi left us with the beginning, not the end of our growth. It is up to us as instructors not to provide absolute answers, no, we have to provide a light on the path for each student.
The YIN AND YANG OF THE CURRICULUM
I have trained with exceptionally talented instructors from various systems and the thing that separates the average system from the extraordinary systems is the quality of the curriculum. When the curriculum is put together in a structured manner that is supported by high level instruction, the student can expect to grow quickly and consistently. Additionally if we are to treat our schools as true places of learning, we must have a tangible way of discerning each student’s ability and giving the student attainable training goals followed by a realistic training schedule. Without a curriculum the student will be limited by the instructor’s lack of lesson plan and therefore the lack of measurement of each student’s growth. So from a practical standpoint, an instruction standpoint and a learning standpoint, a concise curriculum is extremely important.
By the same token a curriculum can also cripple a student’s growth, limit the student’s understanding and stifle and instructor’s ability to find answers for his students if the curriculum is valued more than the needs of the individual practioner. No system is more important than the individual training in the system. An instructor must be able to understand the curriculum so well that he sees its flaws and immediately seeks to correct the flaw in the technique or the way that it is presented. If the instructor is not doing this he is falling into the trap of blindly following the dogma of his instructor. His instructor either lacked the skill set or the courage to see a problem in our training and find an answer for the problem.
UNDERSTANDING COMBAT
I have included two quotes from the aforementioned article for this section. Read these carefully as I believe that most instructors, regardless of what style they teach, do not understand the concept of true combat.
“One cannot express himself fully when imprisoned by a confining style. Combat "as is" is total, and it includes all the "is" as well as "is not," without favorite lines or angles. Lacking boundaries, combat is always fresh, alive and constantly changing. Your particular style, your personal inclinations and your physical makeup are all 'parts' of combat, but they do not constitute the 'whole' of combat. Should your responses become dependent upon any single part, you will react in terms of what "should be" rather than to the reality of the ever-changing "what is." Remember that while the whole is evidenced in all its parts, an isolated part, efficient or not, does not constitute the whole.”-Bruce Lee 1971.
When a student first begins studying their chosen system they understand very little and are forced to mimic their instructor or another student. This is a normal occurrence but if unchecked it can cause the student to misunderstand their abilities and more importantly cause them to misunderstand the harsh realities of combat. The need for personal exploration must be stated often and early on in the students training. Without this critical understanding of learning vs. being systematized the students progress and therefore the instructors ability to grow is stifled.
“Prolonged repetitious drillings will certainly yield mechanical precision and security of that kind comes from any routine. However, it is exactly this kind of "selective" security or "crutch" which limits or blocks the total growth of a martial artist. In fact, quite a few practitioners develop such a liking for and dependence on their "crutch" that they can no longer walk without it. Thus, anyone special technique, however cleverly designed is actually a hindrance.”- Bruce Lee
If we are not careful we can become that which we despise the most. The patterns and training flaws of traditional systems are creeping their way into what we are doing and we must rectify this immediately. This is most evident in our striking. You can watch any Krav Maga student and see how they move and strike. You can see which strikes they favor and you will know who they train under. It is human nature for a team to take the personality and in many cases the physical traits of their leader. However this can also be a negative if the instructor is not adept at teaching reality. What good is it to teach a student how to throw a knee by repeatedly throwing knee after knee after knee during a self defense scenario? The instructor must be able to make a clear distinction for the student. The instructor must know the difference between on the mat training and street application.
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