Anyone Can Beat Anyone

Years ago, I was lifting my daughter from the floor. She helped by jumping as I lifted, and our combined energy drove her head into mine – head butt. She was fine. I, one the other hand, was staggered. That event (combined with a similar story when my son was an infant and my groin was much younger) led me to understand an important principle of combat: Anyone can beat anyone.

Think about it another way – we have the best trained, best equipped military in the world. The Taliban, on the other hand, are basically medieval tribesman with very modest weaponry (AK-47's, RPG's, IED's). This being the case, we nonetheless hear about regular troop losses. As great as our troops are, they can still be ambushed.

It turns out, there is no such thing as invulnerability. I know that invulnerability is often what we seek when we are beginning our training. We have watched Zatoichi slice his way through dozens of assailants. We have watched Bruce Lee dispatch numerous enemies. And we have watched many a martial arts demo in which the defender dramatically emerges victorious from all kinds of attacks. But all of that is fantasy. The reality is anyone can beat anyone.

I learned a long time ago how difficult this fact is to accept. I taught a 2 week self-defense course in a High School co-ed gym class. When I taught some blunt trauma things, I found that the young men loved it, but the women had trouble relating. When I taught finger locks, everything changed. The young women suddenly felt empowered, and the young men couldn't handle the humiliation of being easily put on the ground by the young women.

Here's how I knew they couldn't handle the humiliation – the teacher told the students that for the first week I was around, they had to participate; but the second week, they could choose between the self-defense training or going to the weight room to pump iron. Inevitably, week two, all the guys fled. Yeah, they couldn't deal.

Those high schoolers were not unusual – accepting the truth of vulnerability is harder for men, because our culture tells us we are supposed to be strong and mighty. If a man is humiliated by an overwhelming force, the question often asked is, why did you allow this to happen? Women are almost always facing an overwhelming force when they are assailed, and so, women are more familiar with the experience of vulnerability. But, even so, when women are victimized they are still often asked, why did you let this happen?

I was with my sensei (George Dillman) recently. As is often the case, he invited participants to demonstrate knock-outs. Among the demonstrators were several children – children, who then knocked out adults. And there it was again – anyone can beat anyone. I train an art that works as well on me as it does on others. I train an art in which I am as vulnerable to a beginner as that beginner is to me. I train an art in which I have experienced over and over the ease with which I can be defeated, and the ease with which I can defeat others. And this has changed how I approach things.

I used to adopt a strong kamae, an en garde position with fists held protectively and body positioned against attack. Now, I adopt an open, welcoming posture, as if I want to give a hug. I do not push the attack away, I invite it in. I accept that the attack comes; I accept that I will be injured; I accept that I can be defeated. And accepting these things empowers me to act without fear, without worrying about the bad stuff that might happen, but rather, to focus on the simple task of fighting back.

I will write on this stuff more in the future, on the concepts of "rescripting" and "welcoming" but I wanted to start here – I wanted you to understand that I begin, not from a posture of strength or one of defensiveness, but from a place of acceptance.

Thanks for reading.

Now, go train!

Chris Thomas

Dancing with the Dark Side

Let me continue a bit on the discussion of my last post:

I had an interesting conversation with a member of my group (Kyusho-jitsu Kenkyukai, KJK for short). He was telling me about how troubling an experience it is when you realize that you have both the skills to take a life, and the will necessary to employ those skills. It is the moment when you become the kind of person who is actually capable of killing.

Most of us start martial arts training because of a fantasy about martial arts. We imagine we are going to learn what the movie ratings people call "stylized violence." Stylized violence is noble, fair, cool, exciting, even fun. Real violence is messy and brutal. At some point, the true martial artist must come to grips with this messy, brutal reality. I call this "dancing with the dark side."

In order to be true martial artists, we must accept violence, accept that we are studying methods whose purpose is ultimately the harm of other human beings, accept that we have the capacity to cause such harm.

This applies even to our training. To do a pressure point knock out, one has to accept that – safe as they are to perform – our training partners might be injured. And, when we practice the more dangerous techniques (toate-no-waza being among the more dangerous) we have to accept that someone might be hurt, and be willing for our training partners to suffer harm at our hands.

This is a difficult step in the development of a martial artist. It involves finding a way to accept violence, finding the capacity to commit violence, finding the willingness to act violently, and finding the ability to control that violence. It means learning how to resolve the warrior's contradiction – to be able to kill when necessary without becoming a mere killer, to be able to cause injury to others while maintaining the strength of character to never cause such injury unless it is absolutely necessary and right. It is brutal power coupled with moral control, and it is a difficult task to master.

Now, most people who practice a martial art never face this challenge. They practice their fantasy of stylized violence, imagining confrontations which result in winning without any harm, and without feelings of sorrow, or regret on their part. They imagine victory without cost, victory which results in everyone becoming friends and drinking tea together. And maybe that is fine for them, but I practice a classical art – tode-jitsu – an art which is about the reality of conflict and the desire to somehow survive such a reality with one's life and character intact. I practice an art which is, at its heart, about dancing with the dark side.

Thanks for reading.

Now, go train!

Christ Thomas

It Helps to Not Give a Sh*t

Back in 1997, DKI member and physician Chaz Terry helped set up a small investigatory study of pressure point techniques which was conducted at University of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. My account was published in Black Belt Magazine (click here to read the article) and as a chapter of Humane Pressure Point Self-Defense. I was present for the sole purpose of recording and writing about the event. So, I did not participate directly in the process. But, I had the best seat in the house.

The room was cold, lit with fluorescents and generally "institutional". Each subject to be knocked out was wired up with electrodes to monitor such things as brain waves, heart rhythms, blood pressure, and so on. This took 20 minutes. Then the subject would stand on a wrestling mat (a safety precaution) while "pre-strike" data was gathered. Cameras were synced to medical monitoring devices and time was spent waiting for everything to be ready. Then, the person who was performing the strike was told to proceed, but, oh, not too forcefully because we don't want to dislodge any wires, and be careful not to cause too much movement because that creates artifact, now go ahead and knock him out.

This was an incredibly stressful setting in which to do anything. Those doing the striking were out of their element, anxious, being asked to think about more than just the technique itself. Not surprisingly, many had some difficulty with their techniques. When this would happen, when the simple craziness of the setting got in the way, and someone would fail in performing an effective knock out, George Dillman would say, "Ed, you do it."

"Ed" is my colleague Ed Lake. And Ed would do it. He would walk up and "bam" the subject would hit the ground.

At one point, Dillman-sensei was speaking to one of those struggling to get the knock out to work. "Do it like Ed!" He said. "But, Ed doesn't give a sh*t!" came the reply.

This is an important observation. When striking a pressure point, it can be our own anxieties and concerns which keep the technique from working. We hinder our energy from flowing. We worry that we won't be able to succeed, so we don't. We worry that our uke (the person who receives our knock out technique) will be injured, so we fail. We strike too hard, or not hard enough, while holding back our intent, our energy, because of all our concerns, all our fears, all our issues of ego and morality, all of our thoughts about "what if it doesn't work" and "what if it does."

It helps to "not give a sh*t." It helps to have clarity of intent – action without concern for all of the possible, undesired outcomes. Such an attitude increases the possibility of success because there is nothing to hold one back from success.

Of course, my problem is that I do "give a sh*t." All sorts of concerns, fears, worries, etc., plague my thoughts, and clamor for my attention. And I become, worried, fearful, anxious, ego-invested and the like. I become weighed down with the detritus of my own emotional baggage, and divide from singularity of purpose by a cacophony of mental chattering.

Of course, it is easy to say, "Do it like Ed!" It is easy to tell myself that I shouldn't be distracted by inner conflict, shouldn't be bogged down with useless concerns, shouldn't give a sh*t. Yeah, easy to tell myself, but it doesn't make a bit of difference. All the useless stuff is still there. Instead, I have to make it irrelevant. So, I have taken tactical approach.

Anyone who trains with me will often hear me talk about redundancy. The idea of redundancy is this, "If you screw up your technique, it should still work pretty good." This is why I seem to put pressure points at the end of the line. I believe the pressure points are incredibly important – I want to guarantee that things will always work.

Imagine it like this: Someone grabs me and I begin my defense. In that slow motion of crisis, the thought goes through my mind, "Gee, I hope this works." Suddenly, I am invested in a particular outcome and I give a sh*t. "What if a miss the pressure point? What if I don't hit with enough energy? What if I hit too hard? What i he is resistant on that point and I should have aimed for another?" Suddenly, in that moment, the fear and anxiety hit. My chi and my anal sphincter pucker and withdraw – and I have defeated myself. But, if my technique is sound, if it is redundant, certain to work well even if I screw it up, then I think, "Doesn't matter, even if I miss the point, or it doesn't work right, I still get to hit him, and I still have the advantageous position, and I still have superior control, so it will be fine." And suddenly, I don't give a sh*t anymore, because I have created the circumstances under which I am guaranteed a satisfying outcome. The result? I relax and my chi flows, and my technique works great.

If you want to read more about redundancy, you can read another article of mine in Black Betl (click here).

Now, go train.

Chris Thomas