Stop Defending Yourself! Nobody likes a defensive person : )

   
I know I have addressed this before, but it is incredibly important to know and enact.  I have said many times over the years, ‘there is no such thing as self-defense’ and I am reiterating it here.  Once you start defending yourself you are allowing the opponent to offend, you are behind in the action. The very nature of reaction, re-action, is to act afterwards, and therefore being manipulated by the attack.  Am I saying don’t fight? NO! You must change your state of being, your mind frame from defending against an attack to attacking an attack.  These are two entirely different things with vastly different outcomes.  In the first the opponent controls you and in the second, you immediately make the opponent react, make him respond to you.  This doesn’t mean mindless flailing, but what it does mean that everything you throw back at your attacker is meant to cause damage; to leave no doubt that you intend to do whatever it takes to subdue the attacker.  You shouldn’t be fighting unless you must, and then, you do your best to neutralize the situation.

Something that occurred to me while writing this just now.  The very approach to even studying a martial art has a strange dichotomy.  Martial arts schools all proclaim, ‘learn to defend yourself’ while boxing gyms say ‘learn to box’.  Quite a difference in the approach.  Many martial arts schools talk about the offender and defender; you’re attacked, you’re the victim and now you must defend yourself, instant dichotomy. A boxer does not step into the ring to defend himself but to fight.  This might just seem like semantics but there is a mindset to this. Learning to defend yourself in a dojo is entirely different than learning to fight in MMA. 

Recently I was talking to a young grappler I know.  He’s been wrestling and grappling for several years and competing at it.  He expressed to me that there is this one fellow that regularly submits him and he didn’t know what to do about it.  Just his body language while telling me this gave it all away; he was trying to defend himself from this guy, even moving back on his heels while telling me about it.  I bluntly told him that he was intimidated and mentally pulling himself back from this guy, clearly in a defensive mode.  I told him he had to bring it on faster and harder than this guy, attack his attack.  He admitted that he was intimidated and tended to be defensive when rolling with this guy. Well, a week later I saw him again and this time he was grinning. First thing he said to me was “I beat him”. He was so thrilled.  He said that once he turned the tide offensive at the start, he took the guy down.  He was amazed at the stark difference. This guy was now controlled by him. This brings me to my art, Jook Lum.

For years practitioners say that this is a defensive art, a soft art where you can control the fight and subdue the opponent.  I have received a lot of criticism from others in this art for my intelligently aggressive approach to fighting.  When I was young doing this art our Sifu, Mark Foon, was a beast to deal with.  Always good natured and kind but clearly threw a switch when he fought.  He would shut you down with extreme intent and no escape, no playing. It was clear he meant business. Again, not a bully or mean spirited just letting you know that a fight is a fight.
I did not see many others express the art like this.  There are tons of soft flowing drills that few practice with any real time power or aggression.  I could never see this working in a real situation. Coming from Philadelphia, I am all too familiar with street aggression and its realities. When I first started sparring, I got trounced mightily. I could not reconcile what was happening in the school to real time fighting.  Sifu Mark could but I couldn’t. After a long time, I turned around, stopped trying to be defensive and leaned into the fight.  Immediately things changed for me. You only fight if you must and then it’s a matter of survival, not trophies. Do your absolute best to avoid a fight but if you must, make them sorry for it.  Historically speaking this is what the art is known for; doing the real thing, but after decades in the West it became more of a set of drills and forms, the antithesis of its roots. Sifu once said to me, “you got the eyes to see this”!

Why do I bring this up now?  One of the Philly team went to the Jook Lum school in Hong Kong recently and was introduced to the Sifu there. He was given the opportunity to work out in the class and work with them which was quite an honor since they notoriously don’t teach outsiders.  This is the central school of Jook Lum in China and it is where my SiGong, Lum Wing Fay, left for the West.  So, there’s this disconnect with the root here in the US. The night before this team member was to meet Sifu Dieu I sent him a simple text message, “Be Fierce”.  I was not asking him to be mean or inappropriately aggressive but to be real, alert and strong; don’t acquiesce.  After working with Sifu Dieu for a few minutes Sifu said ‘you are doing good but not aggressive enough, not coming in, too many blocks!”  The team member showed Sifu my text and laughed and told him that this is something I had always stressed to him.  He explained that the Philly school had always emphasized this aspect but not so much other schools and yet it wasn’t enough for the Hong Kong school. Sifu displayed this ‘attack the attack’ attitude the entire time they were together. I always felt that this would be the case if we ever connected with the temple in China and that they would be uncompromising.  This art is known for real time application and efficacy, not forms and drills.  Many might disagree with this, but I wonder how many have actually fought a real fighter/boxer.  The first time I did all I thought was ‘this guys not giving me a chance to attack, all he wants to do is hurt me”, Duh and yes, I ended up on the floor. 
                                                    Good luck out there!  Keep it real.