Growing up in the 60s and 70s, karate, kung fu, and judo all seemed mysterious and mystical. The term “martial arts” wasn’t used much then.</h3>
In 1975, I was a green belt and rumors of me as the “karate guy” started circulating in middle school. I distinctly recall standing in the lunch line. A kid behind me asked, “Is it true that to get your black belt you have to pull the heart out of a cow with your bare hands?”
I wasn’t sure whether to correct him or let him think I was trained in instant organ removal.
I went to a rough school in a rougher neighborhood. But once I was the karate guy, no one messed with me. After all, maybe I could pull a guy’s heart out and show it to him before he dies.
I knew I couldn’t do that, but I was convinced I could defend myself. It seemed the other students were convinced as well. Thank goodness. In hindsight, all a kid had to do was tackle me, and I would have been a fish out of water.
In our first white belt class, my instructor Walt Bone explained that we were learning tae kwon do, an art that emphasizes kicking, making it the superior martial art.
He said, “The leg is much longer and stronger than the arm. Plus, an attacker would have to get past these deadly kicks to get close enough to punch or grab you. We always have the advantage.”
My 13-year-old “empty cup” of a mind consumed every word and begged for more.
Once I started teaching, I advertised self-defense and presented myself as a self-defense expert. I look back and see a classic case of unintentional misrepresentation. Unintentional because, “Ya don’t know what ya don’t know.”
Like many of you, I repeated the party line and taught our “self-defense” techniques. To be truthful, they were not bad. They were just narrow in scope.
We focused on defenses against a headlock, a full nelson, a wrist grab, and a few other grabs and attacks. The only non-contact strategy was controlling distance and turning your body to the side. It’s fine advice but terribly insufficient.
To be clear, I’m not picking on TKD. Any system where the “attacker” stands still while holding their hand out while the “defender” slaps tiny pressure points or delivers powerful strikes is in the same picture as our deadly TKD kicks.
I point this out for a few reasons best illustrated by recent events. In preparing some anti-abduction segments for TV shows, it became clear that 99% of what we were teaching had nothing to do with martial arts.
Can martial arts help in escaping an abduction? Of course. Some studies show that fighting back or making it hard to hold on to the victim improves the odds of escaping. But is that enough? Not even close.
If your martial arts school is asked to teach an anti-abduction seminar, the class will likely be mostly knees, elbows, wrist escapes, etc. Essentially, the playbook from our tae kwon do school—narrow in scope and insufficient.
Will your audience know this? Unless some law enforcement-experienced parents are watching, most will be happy with what they see. Ignorance is bliss.
We’re also doing Real Estate Safety Seminars. Again, 99% of the content has no basis in martial arts. If a school gets the call to teach a local Real Estate Safety Seminar, most instructors will be limited to deadly karate chops, etc.
Anti-bully programs might be the best example. Most martial arts instructors will spend 90% of an anti-bully seminar teaching the well-worn techniques described above.
The reality is that every bully situation has a storyline that typically follows a pattern of escalation. This starts with verbal abuse, unwanted touching, and eventually more serious physical attacks. Throw in social media abuse, and you have the storyline of most modern-day bully situations.
The mistake in focusing your anti-bully class on self-defense is that you are intervening WAY TOO late in the storyline. Control of the storyline needs to start long before the first bully encounter.
Again, the bulk of self-defense has nothing to do with martial arts or physical engagement.
The excuse for unintentional misrepresentation no longer holds up. If you are still teaching one-steps and kata as self-defense, you may need a fresh look at what you are teaching.
When it comes to learning a style, one is as good as the other. Whatever style the school you join offers will be the best in the world as far as you are concerned when your “cup is empty.”
I’m not talking about learning martial arts. I’m talking about expanding your understanding of self-defense and safety beyond simple escapes and distance control to include scenario training.
The people you teach deserve more. Today, you have the resources to learn what a law enforcement officer (LEO) learns. LEOs spend every day on the front line engaging with the worst of the worst bad guys. It’s part of their job description.
Their world is in the middle of the bad crimes we see every day on the news. For every year you and I spent learning kata, they spent learning how to stop a home invasion, an abduction, or an ATM robbery.
There is nothing wrong with learning kata. But no martial art can touch the day-in and day-out experience of 40 to 70 hours a week dealing with the bottom feeders of the world.
Military training doesn’t deal with criminals. Martial arts hybrid self-defense doesn’t deal with criminals. The padded dummy training doesn’t deal with criminals. Law enforcement does, every day.