View Single Post
Old 09-17-2009, 12:39 PM   #48
Kevin Leavitt
 
Kevin Leavitt's Avatar
Dojo: Team Combat USA
Location: Olympia, Washington
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 4,376
United_States
Offline
Re: Aikido - Martial Arts - Fighting

Good stuff,

I hate to be cliche, but "know yourself, know your enemy" and "don't bring a knife to a gunfight".

Being outnumbered or outpowered is never a good thing and knowing that you cannot or will not win the situation is important to consider and I would hope that most police officers have sense enough not to engage in these situations.

I am sure though that there are situations where they must get involved to protect or defend someone else in which they don't have the luxury of "waiting until a better day to fight".

Militarily speaking, since that is what I know...we always try to position ourselves for success and I can't think of really any instance where I would purposely go into a situation without superior firepower or number of soldiers....so I kinda agree with Don as far as the tactical advantage thing goes...at least based on the fact of how we fight in the US Military...we have that ability. Taliban may not, but we do.

So when we are talking about hand to hand situations it is dealing with "point of failure" if we get to that point a bunch of stuff has gone wrong and we are not trying to "win" the fight maybe so much as mitigating loss, "not losing the fight", or regaining control of the fight.

So, yea....winning a fight in competition is much different than "winning" a fight militarily. Actually I think in many ways it is much easier since I simply have to avoid "losing" until my buddy can come along, or I can render the other guy inoperable.

So, in some sense, "combatives" simply need be about being ahead of the other guy.

Sort of the old joke about out running the bear..you don't have to be the fastest guy...just faster than the slowest!

That is why when we talk about "Combatives" it really comes down to managing the fight. OODA, getting ahead of the guy, being agressive, being tough, and being able to turn the tables.

Training this way though It is not necessarily something that is exciting, fun, or sustainable, or intellectually stimulating, so we come up with methodologies that "fit" well.

We train ground fighting for a number of reasons. One it is very useful and point of failure. Two, it is sustainable and safe. Three, it builds warrior ethos. and probably most important, it is fun, measurable and soldiers love to do it.

So, it is a compromise, as everything in life seems to be.

Also, I always point out that in many ways we are "over training". You need to understand the basics of the guard for instance, but having a awesome spider guard, butterfly guard, X guard is not really all that important, but makes for good training and develops principles and skills that will allow you to sweep/reverse a guy or simply holdl him there until help arrives.

However, in reality, you simply probably just need to keep the guy from stabbing you, clubbing you, hitting you, etc until your buddy arrives...or if his does..well...none of it really mattered anyway probably!!!

Anyway, alot of rambling, but good points all the way around by Don and Michael Hackett.

maintaining a honest and healthy perspective on your training is important and understanding WHY you are training and WHAT your training is actually doing for you is important...which I think is the point Ledyard Sensei is trying to make.

  Reply With Quote