Misconceptions about Martial Arts and Self Defense

First, let me start off with this; What does the term 'Martial Arts' mean?
For those who aren't familiar, 'Martial' means 'War', the term 'Martial Art' means the 'Art of War'.
Martial Arts at one time, were meant to be used for violence, for combat, for wars, not for entertainment or enjoyment or hobbies. But with the invention of new weapons like firearms and other advanced weapons, Martial Arts have become obsolete as far as wars are concerned. Most of the soldiers in combat never even get into situations that require them to use H2H methods. But still many Martial Art schools promote their style/s as a "military method".

This particular subject is filled with so much confusion and twists, it's like a tangled up rubber-band ball stuck together with superglue.
With movies making people think that they can do impossible things and with mcdojo's and money hungry instructors capitalizing on the guilibility of the masses and selling "effective street programs", there is not much left that can be called Martial Arts. From "children's self defense" to "fitness for martial arts" and other recreational programs, there's not much of the "Martial" part left in Martial Arts today.

Now as far as self-defense is concerned, there's a whole mess of things that need to be addressed. One of them being that Street Fighting and Self Defense are not one and the same thing; Here's why.

Start questioning these things, research more on these subjects, then you'll see for yourself how you've been manipulated into believing the reality that doesn't exist.

Terms

In my past posts, I've used many terms to describe violence, and I've used them in a not so correct manner, but as time goes and i educate myself more, i tend to improve myself and my mistakes.

So, here's an article that clears up some things on proper 'terms'.

First, Violence is violence no matter what you call it.
It's the various situations that the violence is used in that differs from each other.

Usually, i don't like to have a big fuss over terms, but in this case (training for violence), terms can help determine how you will train and what you will train for, rather than just blindly training to punch and kick, you would learn and understand the dynamics of violence and be able to apply the principles as required.

Alright, here's a list of terms that clear up somethings as far as training for different types of violent situations is concerned;

Street Fighting and Fights; Street fighting is nothing more than what you see in those youtube videos, two people going at it, dancing around and punching each other while their friends cheer on. I'm sure many of you are familiar with 'worldstar'. That's what fighting is. It's not an attack on someone, all involved in a 'fight' are equally willing to hurt each other for fun or their status among peers.

Self Defense; It's a legal term used if you're able to prove that the force used by you on another person was the result of an unavoidable assault or attack on you by that person. Self-Defense is not something you "do", it's what you did when your life was in danger and were you justified in doing so, that's self-defense. It is also a part of a much larger area of study of violence called Conflict Management.

Self Protection or Personal Protection and Safety ; These terms are used as a synonym for self-defense by many, but actually they're just used to describe the measures taken by an individual or a group to protect themselves from threats before they occur. Avoidance, having situational and environmental awareness, being alert of suspicious individuals around you, trusting your intuition and instincts are all a part of self-protection measures. It is a bigger part of Conflict Management than self-defense.

Attack and Assault; An attack is the the use of aggression and violence (physical and/or verbal) on another individual, usually to get something from them or for self-gratification.
An assault is a legal term that has different meanings in different countries, so you would have to look up as to what constitutes as an assault in your own country. In common law, it's defined as; "The act of creating apprehension of an imminent harmful or offensive contact with a person".

Violence; This is an 'umbrella term' for the many different violent situations that take place. From asocial violence such as; muggings, home invasions, rapes, mob attacks, assaults, etc. to anti-social and social violence such as; ambush attacks by groups for their fun, street fights, bar fights, etc. There are various sub-categories of violence. (I'll also post on that subject soon).
Violence is used in self-defense situations, and it's used in sport fighting, it's used at home, it's used in the offices and even in nature, it exists everywhere in some form or the other and there are many different ways to describe violence, but that doesn't mean it changes what violence is, and that's; Violence; The act of using physical force - lethal or non-lethal - intended to bring bodily harm on it's victim. It has many forms, but the goal is always the same, to put it simply; Put your target down.



That's it. Thanks for reading.

Why Verbal Violence can be more scarring than physical

I will start with a simple quote;

"Wounds heal, but scars remain - Pain is temporary, but memories are permanent."

I don't know who said it, but this simple quote says more than many books written on this subject might.


In a violent confrontation, the fear you feel, the intimidation, the hopelessness, it's not because of the physical trauma you suffer, it's because of the psychological trauma.

Even if there is no physical attack, the behavior of the individual who is aggressive enough will cause your mind to be affected in a certain way, your emotions will flood in all at once, hormones are released that cloud your clear thinking, which in turn could lead you to freeze, or do something that might make things worse.

You see, we are conditioned by the society today to be pacifists. We are raised to suppress our emotions, especially our anger. Since we are little kids, we are taught to be polite to others, taught to never insult them, respect authority, respect our elders, etc.

Due to that conditioning, we will always behave in a docile manner, and until we are pushed beyond our limits, we will never go "savage". Of course, this too has quite a few exceptions. There are individuals who aren't like that, they don't think like the rest, they don't act like the rest. They don't mind breaking the norms of the society and crossing the limits that create victims from innocent bystanders.

When the rule followers meet rule breakers, chaos ensues and the rule followers end up the victim. Now, I'm not implying that being a rule follower is a bad thing, all i'm saying is that majority of the rule followers won't know what to do, when they get into it, everything will feel surreal to them, they will be confused and won't know the appropriate response to such a threat.

See my point is, when you are faced with an asocial criminal, both your mindsets will exactly be the polar opposite of each other. You will be the one who would want to reason, but the other one will be aggressive and will only want to hurt you to get what that individual wants from you, that's all there is on their minds, you are not a human to them, you are just a target, a dehumanized target.

Now to get what they want, those criminals will always use intimidation of some kind, whether it's a weapon, or extremely aggressive "in your face" type approach with a really angry and loud voice and curse words, etc. or physical assault and life threats.

Most muggers don't actually physically hurt their targets, it's too risky for them to do so, all they want are your valuables, and so, the sudden ambush attack and the aggressive behavior, and just their overall method to scare the living daylights out of their target is enough for majority of people to lose their minds and just comply with them.

During and surely after those situations, even though the victim isn't physically damaged, the psychological after-effects will leave them in a stressful state of mind a.k.a. Post-traumatic stress.

When that happens, the victim's behavior in their everyday life will change dramatically. If they were outgoing, they will prefer to stay indoors after a certain time of day, they could also develop trust issues and might not be able to make friends as easily as they used to. Behavioral changes like that can affect an individual's day-to-day life on a very high level. Certain psychological damage can last longer than almost any physiological damage.

Now unless you are prepared to face something like that, your chances of coming out of something like that without psychological scarring, are basically none. Even with training, you will be shaken up for sure, maybe not as badly, but still.
Now without any training, it will be a nightmare you live out everyday for a very long time, and you might have go see a psychologist or a therapist to deal with and get over those issues and it's not an easy task, far from it actually.

Look, I'm not writing these things here to scare you, these are just the cold hard facts, people have gone through these things, they still do, and the sooner you face these facts, the sooner you can take steps to make sure that you won't go through something like that yourself.

That's the main reason why i focus about 60% of my self-protection training on psychological conditioning, 30% on the technical and physical part and the rest 10% on the unpredictable external factors that contribute to the outcome of a violent altercation.
Training for these situations by making your mind used to these things is the only way to prepare yourself for them. There are no short-cuts to these things.

Alright. That's it. Thanks for reading and please think about what you read here.