Just Kick Him In The Groin – Part II

How do you make yourself or your students ready for the street?

I’m not going to get into technical issues – fighting distance, techniques, etc. – as I’ve already shared my thoughts on some of these. What I intend to do is share some of the stories and experiences I use to help frame my approach and raise my students’ mindsets.

It’s long been an educational given that if you want to be successful in preparing yourself or your students for any situation, you need to train in a manner that’s as close to the actual situation you’ll encounter as possible.

In our case, this doesn’t mean just learning how to quickly and powerfully execute techniques or self-defense responses. More importantly, it also requires enabling yourself or your students to become proficient at applying those techniques under extreme stress. Knowing what to do and being able to actually do them when needed are two separate and distinct skills, generally requiring different training methods.

All instructors can achieve the former to some degree. But not all know how to achieve the latter, often producing students who possess fast and powerful techniques but can’t apply them in actual situations.

In the old days, instructors might tell their students to get as much experience on the street as possible, to test their techniques and themselves. Obviously, there are problems with this approach, legally and morally. So I don't advocate it. But students need to clearly understand the reality of what they may have to confront some day on the street.

My advice to my students has long been the same. Don’t imagine when training that you’re fighting some untrained guy who you likely could have beaten even without training. Train as if you were fighting Mohammed Ali at his prime with a baseball bat in his hands and on PCP.

I’ll stop here for now. I’ll begin getting into more specific, actual situations in my next post. Thanks again for your continued support. I appreciate it.