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Self Defense Positioning for an Attack

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Strategic self defense positioning is probably one of the top three most important concepts you have to own if you want to develop high level martial arts skill. It can also be a difficult concept to grasp for many folks.

Unlike ground fighting stylists who spend the majority of their training how to achieve desired positions on the ground, stand-up stylists tend to have less understanding of how to train positioning for stand-up approaches.

What does positioning mean in a broader sense?

Positioning means that you are occupying a piece of space in time (or space-time for you B theorists of time out there) that is optimal for strategic advantage. This means that the place you chose to be was the best place you could have been. It had the greatest defensive and offensive capabilities.

On the macro level, the optimal positioning you can take is to locate yourself far away from the likelihood of attack. This means that you try not to live (position) yourself in a high-crime area, you don’t visit your local abandoned warehouse district in the middle of the night, and you get your gas and groceries during day-light hours when the likelihood of attack is relatively low.

This is macro positioning and is optimal positioning to avoid an attack. You know that friend of yours who is always getting in fights? This is probably his problem. He is probably positioning himself to get in fights (but you already knew that).

If we scale down quite a bit (and skipping a few important ranges as we do), we find ourselves squared up with an attacker. In this situation, positioning comes from controlling distance, how our bodies are aimed at each other, and hand position relative to the attackers.

As the attacker approaches you, are you optimally positioned for how he is coming at you? Are you controlling the distance, the aim of both your bodies, and do you have your hands positioned in the best place to defend and attack?

If not, adjust things. Considering the context of what your attacker is bringing, what would be optimal right now?

Initially you can do start and stop sparring with your partner where you size each other up at a stop to notice where you are position-wise. Then make adjustments to find the optimal position. If you train this, you can begin to position yourself relative to your attacker while moving in real time.
Finally, on the micro level, comes internal positioning. From where you are, is your lower back in its best position for power? As you defend or strike, is your body aligned all the way up through the structure? These considerations absolutely factor into proper positioning and developing high level skill.

Your positioning skill is one of the most critical factor is beating faster stronger opponents.

The Clear Defense Method will teach you exactly how to use position to dominate your opponent.

Learn how to apply this method at the Clear Defense Certification Workshop in July.

…and if you can’t make the workshop, get the Clear Defense Instructor Package when it goes on sale for 3 days. (April 19-21, 2016)

Stay safe,
Jared Voelker

Don’t Drink the Kool-Aide (How to Keep It Real in Martial Arts)

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We often talk about how an organization can sometimes change the way its members see reality. Being immersed in the culture of any organization tends to change a person, and sometimes the ways a person views the world around them.

If the culture is good, this kind of immersion is great for a person. If the culture is not so good then…

One insidious element that can permeate a martial arts school culture has to do with the reality of street attacks.

No one (I hope) does this on purpose, but the temptation to view street attacks through the artificial lens of a particular art or style is powerful. The result of this split with reality is that people train differently than what is best.

Ever heard of the popular phrase “train the way you fight and fight the way you train?”

The reality is that people “train the way they expect to fight.” Your expectations of what will happen in the street ultimately guide what you end up working on and how hard you work at it.

What happens so often in training is that our perceptions of what will actually happen are slowly obscured over time by our preferences and biases.

  • If you train a lot of grappling, eventually you can develop a bias towards believing that every attacker grapples and doesn’t lead with strikes.
  • If you strike a lot, you can eventually develop a bias towards believing that no attacker is going to grapple you.
  • If you train empty hand, you can forget about guns and knives.
  • If you train patty-cake, you can forget the speed, ferocity, and viciousness of actual attacks.

This happens without anyone noticing, and no school is exempt from the temptation to do this.

Despite the difficulty in overcoming bias, there are a few safeguards to help you avoid drinking the martial art school kool-aide.

First, do brief meditations on being attacked throughout your training. When you do so, sculpt the attacker into someone who is strong, fast, and vicious… and sort of sloppy but in an effective way. Keep in mind weapons and multiple attackers. This is a great way to keep your mind and expectations sharp regarding attacks.

Second, pressure test everything you do. Skimping on this element can get you and your students/classmates in a lot of trouble if they have to use what they’re training in the street. When using pressure testing, work to expose your own weaknesses instead of masking them over with speed. Take your time to make everything solid and powerful.

“The Art of Sparring” is an in depth resource on how to pressure test your art for self defense.

Here are a few examples of the drills & sparring games we teach in that video:

The Art of Sparring is included with the Clear Defense Package that will be on sale for 3 days starting April 19th.

This is just one piece of learning to teacher Clear’s Silat. If you’d like to become a Clear’s Silat instruction check out the Clear Defense Certification Workshop in July.

Stay safe,
Jared Voelker

Why Your Self Defense Training is Taking Too Long.

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There are two kinds of folks who want to learn kung fu.

The first is people who have had some exposure to kung fu. They are passionate about the abilities that kung fu can offer and are willing to invest years in getting what they are after.

The second is people who need real self defense training. Right Now!

…and sign up without knowing that standard kung fu operating procedure for most kung fu schools is “It’s going to be awhile before you can fight with this.”

The first group of people understand that fighting comes later and don’t mind. In fact, they take it to be a part of the “kung fu experience” and are a little put out if the teacher focuses too much on fighting.

The second group doesn’t understand what’s available in the marketplace for self defense and that different styles have different timeframes for fighting ability.

So they see a kung fu master who has impressive self defense and figure that’s what they need. They haven’t researched self defense much and don’t know that there are kung fu schools where they could get quick and dirty self defense.

So why do most kung fu styles often take so long before it becomes effective for self defense in the first place?

It’s not out of necessity.

Many styles of Kung fu assume a vague “until further notice” probation period for students, which means that the student doesn’t get real kung fu until the instructor deems the student worthy.

By the way, there’s no clear criteria for deeming a student worthy. It tends to be subjective, takes years to happen, and passing the student on to serious training is not the instructor’s top priority.

(many modern instructors don’t even realize this is how they were taught, so they perpetuate this sub-par training without even realizing it.)

The first group of people I talked about are happy to engage in this game of dice. Maybe they’ll get fighting ability, maybe not. It’s about the journey not the destination anyway, right?

The second group doesn’t have time for it.

They need combat skills yesterday.

But the whole situation is unfortunate because everyone is taking the long route to self defense… and there’s only so much time.

However, there is a category of Kung Fu called Kuntao (also known as Old Hand Kung Fu.) These are martial arts systems that migrated south to Indonesia and Malaysia losing many of their superficial traditions and formalities along the way.

Kuntao starts immediately with fighting. It has been refined in a culture where that student probation period we talked about earlier results in dead students.

No one has years to get fighting ability, they need it yesterday.

This doesn’t mean that practitioners level off after they can begin to defend themselves though. The full range of kung fu abilities is still contained in the training, and skills are refined and honed after basic self defense is achieved.

It can be summed up like this:

Most Kung fu refines now and fights later.

Kuntao fights now and refines later.

Master Clear has a Kuntao fighting method that is the best example of this that he has seen. It fights quickly, ferociously, and doesn’t take years (or even weeks) to learn.

Once the basic fighting method is learned, it can be refined to be even more effective, powerful, and sophisticated.

You can learn and become certified in this fighting method during the Clear Defense Certification Workshop which is happening July 14-17. At this workshop you will learn the fighting method and how to use it against a full speed attack.

Register now while you can get the early bird price.

https://www.clearsilat.com/clear-defense-workshop

Or, if you can’t make it then get the training DVD when it goes on sale April 19 – 21.

Stay safe,
Jared Voelker