by Luis Gutierrez, One Dragon Martial Arts

While sparring, how many times have you witnessed an instructor try some complicated or intricate technique on an athletically built and capable new student and fall short of success? The answer for many is seldom and for most never. The reason why this is so is one of safety and unforeseen injury. High-ranking instructors don’t usually spar the new guys until they have been “trained” to fight “correctly”. New students often fight wild. They respond to being attacked in a random, uncontrollable, unpredictable and frenzied manner…naturally. Therefore, the caution displayed by the instructors is valid and to some degree understandable and necessary. Let’s face it, to learn a martial art, one must do so under the correct and controlled guidance of a qualified teacher. How else could one master the intricacies of techniques and concepts from a particular style without taking the time to train them in the proper atmosphere, with the proper method and manner?

But then a certain unmistakable fact arises. It is not in a dojo’s or kwoon’s controlled atmosphere that method and manner are ultimately tested with any real consequences. It is in the shock of the moment when actually confronted elsewhere that reality questions the trained practitioner. It is in the street that your personal safety is threatened and in the street that injury is not to be minimized but in a crucial instance, becomes the sole means to the end of the problem. Styles, their uniforms, gear, and regulations do not exist at this crucial point. It is here that adrenaline and its emotional counterparts, fear and/or anger come into play. The deepest regions of the body immediately urge you to fight or flee and not think. If the trained practitioner hesitates trying to mold and refine his or her reactions at this moment, whether beginner or master they simply end up the victim. This break in nature’s plan of response leaves them unable to function at all or very poorly at best. Their potential and creative force is stifled and made almost obstructive to their basic well being.

So for how long and how far do you train the individual? Tame him with form and repetition? Confine him to prearranged movements? Mold him with technique and pattern? Trained, as he may be, a guard dog posses no threat to a wolf or for that matter, the average black belt to the average seasoned product of the state penal system. The reason is that mankind or society has not domesticated either of them. Moral judgements aside, when it comes to they way they live, they are both predatory and wild. The word wild being defined as unbroken, untamed, and in the natural state. Though it is man’s wit, nobility, and grace that separates us and has allowed us to rise above this primal existence, struggle and the will to survive are aspects shared by all of life. Fighting is completely common to the wild, natural. It’s an innate survival response. Now, let’s return to mankind’s art of fighting.

We have witnessed the rude awakening of the martial arts over the past few years with reality based events and many instructors, justly so, have modified their training methods and concepts. But again, haven’t they simply misdirected the focus elsewhere? Haven’t many simply gone from building the mind and body for balance and focus to building them for sport? Where once they had classrooms of martial artist kicking, punching, and pin point striking away at multiple attackers in synchronized harmony, they now have one on one clinching, throwing, choking and locking. Where they practiced endlessly at breaking boards, bricks, and wielding all sorts of modified farming implements they now busy themselves bobbing, weaving, jab, cross, and hooking focus mitts, heavy bags, and themselves. Their once, very specific, ancient, and studied, breath (chi, ki, prana) work and its vocal projection has become the aerobic huffing, puffing, and grunting of being struck, striking, being slammed or slamming. All good and proven as all this is, isn’t it simply another part of a larger equation and solution, one written and inscribed since the dawning of life itself? Aren’t these extreme shifts in polarities forgetting they must ultimately balance and flow as one to benefit the other? Isn’t this just martial arts 101, surviving, finishing, and therefore escaping the fight with your life?

Fighting does not belong or limit itself within the confines of any art form. It is alive, virtually unpredictable, and spontaneous. It can and will change into a myriad of possibilities. This is its natural state. Natural not formulated or theorized. It’s not a stiker or a grappler, traditionalist or progressive. It is both and none, and all encompassing. It just happens. It does not concern itself with the right or wrong of angles, conceptual theories, or technique preferences. Nor does it care for the country of their origin, its people, and history. It lives in and at the moment with no regard for cultural biases or the ego’s own preconceived notions. Lastly, it is hard wired into the deepest recesses of our brain and evolution. It is the initial primal root and reason for us being here today. Fighting’s only real, honest, or natural purpose and source is survival. Its use for anything else is ego oriented and therefore not fighting.

Where do we go with this? Ideally we can cross train for technique, power and endurance. Perhaps perfect movements with controlled sparring and over time eventually gear up heavily for all out mock fighting against a myriad of different opponents. Add some open-minded research and psychological de-escalation tactics and we would have a more fight or flight oriented mechanism for defense. That would be the ideal. Realistically? We must first begin today by asking ourselves how far from that ideal we currently stand. Are we as martial artist really that which we believe ourselves to be? Are we both system trained and field-tested? Can we flow with nature’s chaotic surge for survival and do so with man’s added refinements? Answering these questions honestly can be the beginning of recovering the martial arts from its media fueled dilutions and rediscovering one’s place as a true martial artist. It’s coming full circle, back to the core of its ancient traditions, and towards the forefront of its purpose today in the modern world.

A seasoned practitioner doesn’t fear the amateur because he has accepted fear as part of the process and has mastered it and freed himself. He will recognize the strength of the amateur within him…the use and acceptance of the unexpected, the natural, and the untamed.