"Break One Thing"!!!

[BLACK LION]

Something to chew on....enjoy!

BREAK ONE THING
Because fighting and wrestling are hard work.
You have a choice when it comes to training for violent conflict:
You can throw yourself into the crucible of physical conditioning to get bigger, faster, stronger; study tactics, strategy, color-coded alert levels, zones of control, and defensive stances; drill blocks, counters, counter-counters and maybe, you know, if there's time, counter-attacks...or....You could break one thing.
If you really believe that you will perform as you practice, then what do you want to practice for? An epic, marathon struggle, round after round, or for a single situation-ending injury?
Training to win in violence has no strategy or plan—it's the execution of the simple, the unfair, the unthinkable, the unpleasant. There is no set-up. It's all finishing moves.
But you already know this, right? Maybe. It's easy to get lost in the information, technical descriptions of injuries, proper leg dynamics, how to make a fist, where your mass is, where your elbow is, whether or not your back is straight, how your foot is turned. Important details, sure. But so easy to get lost in those trees and miss the forest entire.
If there is strategy or set-up in violence it's all predicated on that one broken thing. Bust it, and the rest follows. With ease. As Bas Rutten says of the humble groin-kick: "Man, if you want to win a street fight—BOOM!—that's the first thing to do. The guy goes down, you can do pretty much anything with him what you want to do!"
Words of wisdom. If you want to win, break one thing. So what does this mean for training?
Execute every strike like it's the finisher.
Could you end the situation with this one shot? Do it like that's what you want. Don't look at a given coordination set as an opener, a series of set-ups and then a finisher on the ground—if that were the case I'd personally bypass the crap and jump straight to the end. Instead, look at each strike, each injury, as a potential finisher. Strike not just to injure him, but to knock him down and make him bounce his head off the sidewalk. If it happens, great—now just make sure he's done. If it doesn't happen, then you keep going.
This is what coordination sets are for, and why we practice giving the man six-plus injuries in series—so you never hesitate or stop until you know he's done. But you want to train to see if you can make him be done with each and every shot.
Don't short-change a strike because you're in a hurry to get to the next one, or to the one you believe in. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy on either side of this: being in a hurry to get to the next shot because you don't think the one you're doing will have an effect means it won't... just as going after it like it's the end tends to make it so. I know plenty of people who've dropped men with nothing more complicated than a full-bodied, full-effort strike through the radial nerve target in the forearm off a thrown punch. It worked that way because they hit the man to drop him. Not to keep from getting punched, or to numb the arm, or keep him busy long enough to get to a "real" target. It was the first opportunity they saw to put the man down, and so they did. And the rest, as you well know, is easy.
Free practice is practice breaking one thing at a time.
It's not "doing techniques" or picture-perfect reenactments of coordination set videos—it's breaking one thing at a time, and seeing if you can't put him down in the process. If a coordination set gets interrupted by your reaction partner losing his balance and going down, it's not time to reset and redo, it's time to stomp him to nonfunctional.
If you get nothing else out of this training, get this:
Break. One. Thing.
Winning in violence is only hard if you work to make it hard—by squaring off, going toe-to-toe, wrestling instead of taking the eye. Adhering to rules both widely accepted and unspoken (if he grabs you, you have to grab him; groin kicking is dirty; it's never okay to take an eye), and thinking in terms of openers, set-ups, and finishing moves. It's only ever about breaking things, and if you get one, you get the rest for free.

Chris

 

[Andy Moynihan]

Something to chew on....enjoy!

To whom is that attributed?

 

[BLACK LION]

To whom is that attributed?

I dont understand why it has to be attributed to anyone?

I posted this so anyone can read it, all can enjoy it or dont it makes no difference to me...I thought I would share it.

 

[BLACK LION]

Nice sig line ANDY.... some words to live by for sure.

 

[Andy Moynihan]

I dont understand why it has to be attributed to anyone?

I posted this so anyone can read it, all can enjoy it or dont it makes no difference to me...I thought I would share it.

Because I Triple Super Extra Like it and want to pass it on or possibly use it in my book, and I won't do that without giving credit to the author and asking them first.

 

[Andy Moynihan]

Nice sig line ANDY.... some words to live by for sure.

Thank you very much indeed, good sir. Got it out of a Geoff Thompson book.

 

[BLACK LION]

Chris Ranc-Burr is the author and it comes from subcriber only emails and blog.

I will get his email and you can ask him.....Also I have a small saving of emails of this nature that I will post if you are interested???

 

[Andy Moynihan]

Chris Ranc-Burr is the author and it comes from subcriber only emails and blog.

I will get his email and you can ask him.....Also I have a small saving of emails of this nature that I will post if you are interested???

Oh, Ok, one of the Target Focus Training guys.

You can just PM me any contact info, that'd be fine.

 

[BLACK LION]

Oh, Ok, one of the Target Focus Training guys.

You can just PM me any contact info, that'd be fine.

Copy that... wait one.

 

[MJS]

Something to chew on....enjoy!

Nice article! This thread is still in the early stages...hopefully it'll grow ...but I can already see 2 sides...1 that agrees 100% with this line of thinking, and 1 side that will disagree, and say its overkill, that'll most likely land the person doing this, in jail.

Speaking for myself, while I dont think we should take it to this extreme in every situation, for the life and death ones, the ones where the guy we're facing is potentially going to cause us serious harm, then yes, absolutely.

Of course, even for those lesser situations, we can still use that same mentality, just slightly toned down. In other words, take it to the point of breaking something, but dont quite cross the line.

And speaking of sig lines, I like the one you've chosen for yours.

 

[Andy Moynihan]

Nice article! This thread is still in the early stages...hopefully it'll grow ...but I can already see 2 sides...1 that agrees 100% with this line of thinking, and 1 side that will disagree, and say its overkill, that'll most likely land the person doing this, in jail.

Speaking for myself, while I dont think we should take it to this extreme in every situation, for the life and death ones, the ones where the guy we're facing is potentially going to cause us serious harm, then yes, absolutely.

Of course, even for those lesser situations, we can still use that same mentality, just slightly toned down. In other words, take it to the point of breaking something, but dont quite cross the line.

And speaking of sig lines, I like the one you've chosen for yours.

Well it's like I said in the other thread BL posted: There isn't much that you or I, or many members of the forums haven't "seen before" as far as technique, but it *is* a good way to introduce the subject to people who've got no background, which is what I'm aiming at. In some ways this teaches me a little of both--how to present my material and how not to.

 

[BLACK LION]

MJS, I like to call it "throttle control" ...some situations call for jsut a tap on the gas...some call for putting the pedal to the metal...


Andy, that is a good way to look at it. I like these reads becuase it offers insight as to what needs to be done and also what one doesnt need to do... it is also specific as to when and why. "Full throttle" is only authorized when violence is the only answer.