The truth

I like many others out there developed an interest in “real” self defence through Geoff Thompson, I followed his teaching’s as if they where gospel, he seemed to be the only out there to my knowledge with different views, I had no one else to make a comparison with and with my limited knowledge of fighting I didn’t know any better, I think there is a great danger with totally believing someone tells you, this isn’t an attack against Geoff or any of the other leading self defence instructors out there this is simply a rant that has been on my mind for a while now.

I presume there are a lot of people out there who are in a similar situation to myself, by that I mean very limited experience of the street, for me personally this amounted to some scuffles at school, I have been lucky to have been able to diffuse most situations that I have encountered and unlucky to have lost some possibly valuable fight experience, I have however had countless what I call “confrontations”, this is partly due to my work in retail security, whilst these have brought about some exposure to adrenalin, fear etc they are most definitely a world away from what I guess a real fight is.

So who is right out there? There is now a plethora of “real” self defence instructors out there, a lot have followed on with Geoff’s views about the fence and pre-emptive striking and some have different approaches.

For a while there it seemed to seen as credible as an instructor in all things real you had to do a stint on the door, whilst I’m sure this guarantees exposure to some of the nasty elements of society it is in the end a specific role, there is an element of discussion when dealing with punters on the front door that may lead itself to deliver that pre-emptive strike, there usually is a uniform which lends itself psychologically to an air of authority which may be useful in defusing of situations, I’m only presupposing all of this, I have never done a stint on the door, I’m not denying that if done well would provide excellent exposure especially if the door was hard one, I would be a fool to make such a ridiculous statement that doing the door is a waste of time, maybe if I had more bottle I probably would do it myself, my issue is it just seems that some of the techniques/tactics proposed seem mostly door specific.

So who to believe? I rather foolishly slagged off a 2d dan black belt in taekwondo because of his claims that he could kick people in the head in a fight, who the f**k am I to make such a statement? I really regret this; I feel that I could have learned a lot from this bloke, my head was stuck in my own little world where only a punch to the jaw would work, whilst kicking someone in the head may not be the most efficient of techniques, if he can pull it off then hats off to him, I think a read a post by Nick Hughes where he kicked people in the head?

The more I think about it there is certain things that I feel are true, this truth doesn’t come from my experience rather from the sifting through of posts, articles all written by noted instructors that I trust to tell me what is real and what Is bollocks and from the limited training I have received from said instructors.

When it all goes pear shaped banging a guy in the head repeatedly till you get the desired effect seems the way to go, notice I didn’t say with what, it’s a personal preference could be a palm, fist, elbow, your c**k if so endowed! My preference is now the palm, after reading all the information I didn’t fancy a broken wrist or some ------- teeth lodged in my knuckles especially as I deal with junkies a lot, looking at what I have just wrote it seems all so simple that little statement, maybe the best things always are.

You have to train physically really hard, not only to develop the physical attributes that may help you succeed in a fight but also the mental attributes of spirit, aggression and tenacity, this training should push your limits maybe not all the time to avoid over training but some of the time the training should make you tremble in anticipation and possibly make you puke!

Hard physical training should be augmented by skill work, there’s no point of training the techniques under pressure all the time, the technique deteriorates into mediocrity, the skills should be developed in isolation first then integrated in training sessions where they are worked under pressure.

Learn to hit f**king hard, a key message from Geoff Thompson simple and to the point.
How is the average joe to make the distinction between the good and the bad out there? I believe the forum is a useful tool I really do, like all forums however personal opinions come into play and objective viewpoints are lost and mad rambles like this one find their way onto it! I guess in the end you have to trust your gut and use your noggin and hopefully come up with the right answers, hopefully the above list will garner approval from the great and wise and not the humiliation of thinking I finally cracked what I need to do and finding out I’m way off track (has happened before!).

BUSTER