Complete Self Protection By Al Peasland


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TODAY I'M NOT TRAINING FOR SELF DEFENCE - Deal With It!		Return to Articles
With the rise of everything “Urban” and “Street” related combative self protection arts and systems, it seems to me that everything has gone a little “aggressive”, for want of a better expression. It seems to me that more and more people are focusing heavily on what works and what doesn’t work in real life confrontational situations and developing and training in systems that promote that type of effective and destructive technique.
I partake in such a system myself; in fact I have done for the past 23 years, even way back in my early Karate days, which, in my humble opinion, were some of the most effective training sessions going. I would go further by saying that those early Karate days of mine were perhaps more effective than some of the “Deadly Combative” systems on the market today. They were physically ferocious, extreme in their level of contact and totally honest.
However, the reason for this article isn’t to promote my tough martial arts background. I have no reason to exaggerate or self promote that as I have nothing to prove to anyone about it. No, the reason for this article is to question why it seems that anything other than ultimate, killer, street effective, reality based, self defence, extreme combative…… the list of impressive and aggressive words can go on and on….. is not worth doing.

I’ve been questioned on seminars when teaching some techniques whether it would work for real outside, or if what I am drilling is worth doing as it’s not going to work against multiple attackers. I’ve been challenged on many occasions that the drills I am practising or the combinations I am blending together are not realistic and would not stop a determined attacker in the Saturday night chip shop or the busy nightclub dance floor. My responses to these are varied and I will try to cover all of them in the following paragraphs, but my first response is almost always… Today I’m not training for Self Defence! Firstly, just because I haven’t used a technique for real, and neither has the person questioning its validity, doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t work. Sure, we can apply our experiences and knowledge of real situations to make certain qualified assumptions and educated estimates over broadly what will work and what won’t. In fact, most instructors spend their whole lives doing just that in order to build up a big enough system to teach to others that they can still call “Reality Based”. After all, ask most fighters what techniques they’ve used for real and the list will usually be pretty short because when you’ve perfected one thing that works every time, you tend to use that one thing as often as possible. Why wouldn’t you? You have to be pretty confident of your support systems to take the right of experimenting and testing new moves out there on the pavement, so it makes sense to stick with what you know will do the job every time.
Secondly, never say never, and just because it doesn’t look like it would work, it doesn’t mean there may never be an opportunity where it will be the perfect technique to get you out of a hole and save yourself. Trust me, the “Say You, Say Me” style of training (thanks Mick for the phrase), has absolutely no place in the real world. Say You do something to me, and then Say I counter with something else, and then Say You fall forward and Say I then follow up with a knee to the groin, etc etc, all assuming that your assailant will behave in a predefined way based on your attack is really the world of Movies and Television.
I’ve hit different people with the same technique and they’ve all reacted in different ways. Some have fallen forwards, some backwards, some have crumpled in front of me, and some haven’t moved at all, which was very worrying at the time I can tell you. What I am getting at is that, whilst we all have a good appreciation of what can and will happen outside, there will always be a lot of variables that can change any situation into something you hadn’t expected. So don’t be too blinkered in your presumptions of what will work and what won’t and what is effective and what isn’t, there is a very wide and very blurred line between effective and non-effective. Finally though, I move on to my real reason for this article. Often my answer to the comment of, what you’re training here won’t work outside, is……… Today I’m not training for reality. Why does everything I train and teach have to be about reality, even if I am training in a Reality Based system? Can’t we train just for the sake of the art and what joys that can bring us without focusing on the reality aspect all of the time? I responded to a posting on our Self Defence Forum a short time ago, about awareness and staying alert, what to look out for and what not to look out for when on the street. For me, it’s all about balance and keeping a balanced life, no excesses but no needless abstinences. If we are balanced individuals then we should be able to handle the ups and downs of life by smoothing them out onto a nice level terrain. We should be able to look for and deal with the positives and negatives in order to keep equilibrium within ourselves. So for self defence I always talk about looking out for positive things such as the Police man whom you can ask for help or the safe place to run to, as well as the dangers of suspect individuals and dark alleyways. Training should be no different. Balance in your training helps to keep motivation, interest and also helps to progress your knowledge far more than simply focusing on that one, rare but crucial event session after session after session. So, when I say Today I am not training for Self Defence; just deal with it. Not everything has to be about how quick it can knock someone out, or how much pain it can inflict. Perhaps we’re training it simply to get good at something.
But wait…….. here’s the best bit. Here’s where it really starts to get interesting. What IS Self Protection; Self Defence? Is it purely saving your physical skin in a street confrontation? Is that all it is?
If that’s the case, I might as well stop training now, because, if after 23 years of top quality instruction I am not able to physically protect myself against an attacker in the street, then I’m not sure when I would ever be able to, least of all be able to teach that on a one day self defence seminar to a complete novice. Self Protection is about far more than just the physical confrontation between you and an attacker or a burglar or a rapist. Contrary to popular opinion, those events are still quite rare. You are far more likely to suffer stress related illness, have your quality of life reduced due to pressures of work, life, relationships, or have your marriages fail due to stress or lack of self control, than you ever are being attacked in the street. Yes, physical attacks still happen. Ask the 4 million people involved in violent crime incidents last year and they will tell you they do still happen. However it’s still not the prime objective of Self Protection training. So, when I spend two hours drilling a technique on the ground with a compliant partner, maybe I’m trying to learn something far more valuable than just practising an impractical technique. The dedication to practice a technique past the point of boredom, the physical stamina and endurance to drill a technique for hours, the growth and knowledge of discovering new things when you drill something to monotony, and the mental strength to maintain focus and intent on the task in hand. All of these things and much, much more are the result of Not Training for Reality. So there’s the twist. Today I’m Not Training For Reality – but actually I really am! In my Complete Self Protection class on Sunday we taught some basic ground fighting pins and escapes. We spent quite some time on defending the pin, maintaining control with technique and positioning. We didn’t include striking or biting or any techniques that you could associate with "ground-n-pound" and reality training. We simply worked pure technique. Sure, any of the guys could have made the pin easier to control or easier to transition to a finish if they added a few good solid digs to their partner’s heads. But to be able to get the same result in a more clean and artful way was the primary intention. Adding the punching back in afterwards would have only enhanced their technique, rather than their technique relying on the application of strikes in order for it to work.
And yes, before anyone writes in, if I’m going to be striking outside when I do those techniques, then it makes sense to put them in the training, I completely agree. But on Sunday we Weren’t Training for Reality – well, not your idea of reality training anyway. Those who question the effectiveness of another system or another technique taught by a skilled martial artist remember these points.
Are they selling that technique or system as a physical self defence technique? Or are they training the “art” and developing a core skill that has far wider reaching benefits? When I kick a football, or serve a tennis ball, no one runs up and offers their advice on how that last serve or that last penalty kick wouldn’t knock out an attacker. That’s because I’m not training for reality today, I’m playing tennis or football. So when I’m rolling on the mat or sparring in a Gi, I may not be training for reality today………… but then…….. in actual fact, I Really Am! It’s all about balance! Thank you for reading Stay Safe and Have Fun Al x


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