Ninety Fights

Caveat: This post is mine and mine alone. I the author of this blog assure you, the reader, that any of the opinions expressed here are my own and are a result of the way in which my meandering mind interprets a particular situation and or concept. The views expressed here are solely those of the author in his private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of other martial arts and/or conflict/violence professionals or authors of source materials. It should be quite obvious that the sources I used herein have not approved, endorsed, embraced, friended, liked, tweeted or authorized this post.

In a recently viewed video of an interview with a prominent practitioner of martial arts they professed adamantly that they have participated in over ninety fights and never lost one. Considering that many of my associated in martial arts knew this person I had to then ask the question, “how do you, the person, define fights?”

Were the fights in the dojo? If so, then I have fought over 3,120 fights over a span of twenty years in the dojo. I can’t say that I won them all because it was training and not a competition. I can say that I learned a lot from them yet have to admit that there are some components missing that would make them adequate for training self-defense. That is a whole separate post/story.

Were the fights sport/tournament oriented? If so, then you got me beat because after the first couple of years in martial arts I got so disgusted with how tournaments were handles I stopped going. Regardless, one fight or ninety fights in a tournament tell me you can handle yourself well, in a rule based controlled tournament environment and that does not necessarily translate into legal self-defense nor fighting on the street nor combatives, i.e., combatives as in the hand-to-hand stuff the military uses in combat.

The only serous and relevant experience in fighting that would be considered appropriate to self-defense, social and asocial types of violence, would be those that meet the criteria that Rory Miller notes in his book, the six phases of self-defense. He believes adamantly that any one of those phases missing means your training, in all likelihood, will fail in the self-defense arena. 

Take a look at his books and find the phases, analyze the martial arts training you use (remember your training is good, it just may be missing some critical parts), and than make the changes to take your training, practice and application of self-defense martial arts to the level necessary in meeting the six phases of self-defense - then keep on avoiding conflict and violence as you should. 

As to the prominent practitioner of martial arts ninety fights with no losses, wellll, I just have my reservations as to how that makes you the ultimate fighter you feel you are in your system of training and practice. 

Me, I tend to rely on some aspects of my training early in my life, mostly from personal experiences in a few street altercations and my training from the Marines, i.e., exposure to a more realty based training that allowed me to experience adrenal flooding and mind-set/mind-state type training (I will go with mine over a false sense of security from not losing ninety fights in the dojo, etc.), etc. As to one fight or even ninety, I tend to feel that regardless of the level of experience one has to consciously step up each and every time unless experiences exceed the norm such as those of professionals, i.e., military, police, corrections, bouncers, security forces, and so on.

Then again, who the f^%$ am I anyway? Just another arm chair martial arts master I is! In addition, many of the professionals that I study, the books, etc., tend to say that even with a large experience base sometimes things just don’t go your way, meaning, to me, that just because you have fought before does not guarantee it will work the next time. More reasons to study this self-defense stuff in its entirety and then make avoidance your primary, not sole, goal in self-defense. 

Finally, if the fights you are using for your self-defense martial arts resume don’t involve conflict/violence without rules and are not in the nature of a sudden assault that is fast, hard, close and a surprise involving both fear and pain that occurs immediately, directly and explosively then I would say that experience does not count fully and completely. Granted, all physical training toward self-defense is good but again does it contain all the parts of the whole that is self-defense martial arts?

Primary Bibliography of Self-Defense:
MacYoung, Marc. "In the Name of Self-Defense: What It Costs. When It’s Worth It." Marc MacYoung. 2014.
Miller, Rory Sgt. "Meditations of Violence: A Comparison of Martial Arts Training & Real World Violence" YMAA Publishing. 2008.

Secondary Bibliography of Self-Defense:
Ayoob, Massad. “Deadly Force: Understanding Your Right to Self-Defense”Gun Digest Books. Krouse Publications. Wisconsin. 2014.
Goleman, Daniel. "Emotional Intelligence: 10th Anniversary Edition [Kindle Edition]." Bantam. January 11, 2012.
Miller, Rory. "ConCom: Conflict Communications A New Paradigm in Conscious Communication." Amazon Digital Services, Inc. 2014. 
Miller, Rory and Kane, Lawrence A. "Scaling Force: Dynamic Decision-making under Threat of Violence." YMAA Publisher. New Hampshire. 2012
Miller, Rory. "Force Decisions: A Citizen's Guide." YMAA Publications. NH. 2012.
Miller, Rory Sgt. "Facing Violence: Preparing for the Unexpected." YMAA Publishing. 2011.
Elgin, Suzette Haden, Ph.D. "More on the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense." Prentice Hall. New Jersey. 1983.
Elgin, Suzette. "The Last Word on the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense" Barnes & Noble. 1995
Morris, Desmond. “Manwatching: A Field Guide to Human Behavior.” Harry N. Abrams. April 1979.
Elgin, Suzette. "The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense" Barnes & Noble. 1993.
Elgin, Suzette. "The Gentle Art of Written Self-Defense" MJF Books. 1997.
Maffetone, Philip Dr. “The Maffetone Method: The Holistic, Low-stress, No-Pain Way to Exceptional Fitness.” McGraw Hill, New York. 2000
Strong, Sanford. “Strong on Defense_ Survival Rules to Protect you and your Family from Crime.” Pocket Books. New York. 1996.
and more … see blog bibliography.

My Blog Bibliography

Cornered Cat (Scratching Post): http://www.corneredcat.com/scratching-post/
Kodokan Boston: http://kodokanboston.org
Mario McKenna (Kowakan): http://www.kowakan.com

Wim Demeere’s Blog: http://www.wimsblog.com
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