Train yourself to be a bad sport

Noise and intimidation can be legitimately used by law enforcement whilst subduing violent people

In the dojo, and especially at tournaments, a lot of emphasis is placed upon being a good sport, and playing fair. If an opponent falls down, many people will stand back and give them time to recover, and injuries and infirmities are not exploited. It’s also considered undesirable by many, to win a fight on penalty points (perhaps because the other person made contact or exited the ring).

Is your training teaching you how to defend yourself in the real world, or are you conditioning yourself to become a victim? There’s an allegedly true story about a US policeman who was also a karate black belt. Apparently he entered a store during an armed robbery, somehow managed to disarm the attacker, but then, as he had practiced time after time in the dojo, he automatically returned the man’s weapon to him, so that they could go again… I don’t know if that’s just a martial arts urban legend designed to serve as a warning against conditioning, but what’s not an urban legend are the many people who find it hard to fight for real because they are used to pulling their punches short.

Real violence is almost nothing like the dojo. It’s faster, harder, louder, more aggressive, more unpredictable, and above all, it’s more frightening. People who have studied real-world violence, and who have experienced it on a daily basis, talk about the mind-set of the violent professional. A violent professional is anyone who regularly uses violence, or the threat of violence to accomplish their objectives. Muggers, gang members, habitual brawlers, and even wife beaters and school bullies may all understand the darker psychology of violence.

If you ever see a policeman, prison guard, or riot squad officer arresting someone violent, you’ll notice that they do a lot of shouting. Instructions are not quietly spoken to the subject; they are bellowed at top volume. This is because loud continuous noise can overwhelm the senses and make it hard to think calmly and rationally about a plan. My house has an internal burglar alarm that works on the same principle, ringing so loudly inside the house, that it creates a state of panic in the would-be burglar.

	Extreme anger is intimidating to face no matter what grade you are

Professional aggressors may use many such psychological tricks. Most people are used to being spoken to in nice language, at a normal volume. I know people that if you just raise your voice a tiny bit, they find it really disturbing, and almost everyone objects to being sworn at. People generally have restraints upon what they will say, and how they will say it. Now imagine this - a large aggressive man, his face purple with rage, is standing nose to nose with you, shouting threats and insults at top volume into your face, spit flying from his mouth as he screams at you. Does that sound unpleasant? Does that sound intimidating? How would you feel at that moment?

Now imagine that the aggressor has actually decided to hurt you. Do you think that he will follow a set of rules?

• Will he avoid hitting you in the face if you are wearing glasses?
• Will he only attack you from the front where you can defend yourself?
• Will he give you fair warning that he is going to attack?
• Will he carefully avoid hitting parts of your body that could maim or even kill you?
• Will he only fight one on one, and then only against people who are physically matched?

The answer to all of these questions is almost certainly no.

So if you are facing an attacker who far from obeying any rules of combat, may actually deliberately transgress them to intimidate you further, producing indecision and paralysis brought about by the extremity of his behaviour, how do you think you should behave?

Should you:

1. Fight with restraint and humanity, limiting yourself only to reasonable targets, feeling guilty each time you make heavy contact, and stopping frequently to bow and assess whether it’s time to stop now
   
   or
   
   
2. Fight like a demented bobcat, scratching, kicking, biting, gouging, punching, kicking, kneeing and elbowing every vulnerable area until the attacker lays incapacitated at your feet, or at least, staggers away with no further fight in them?

Now I must just clarify at this point, I’m not talking about a bit of a scrap behind the bike sheds, where your odds may be more or less even, or a bit of a ruck with your drunken 2^nd cousin at a wedding reception. I’m not talking about a situation where some goof has decided to prove his manhood, or salvage his ego by beating you in a fight. I’m talking about a situation where someone’s primary intention is to injure or incapacitate you.

Of course, the danger is always that a fair fight may turn nasty whether you win or lose, and it can be hard to tell in advance, just how far the aggressor is prepared to take their attack.

I’m sorry to admit, but I was a bully as a young teen. I was bullied a lot, and I bullied weaker kids to regain my self-esteem. I’m not proud of it, but one thing that made me act more spitefully, was capitulation. I hated it if kids gave up too easy, perhaps because it mirrored my own cowardice towards those that bullied me. The point I’m making, is that even if you start to lose a fair fight, it doesn’t guarantee that the attacker’s need to prove himself will be sated.

Does this guy want to give you a black eye to prove himself, or won't he be happy until you're brain-damaged and maimed? Who can be sure in advance?

There’s a knife defence saying: “Showers aren’t stabbers, and stabbers aren’t showers.” The principle is that people who want to stab you, don’t let you see the knife first, and those who show you the knife, are more interested in intimidation. The only trouble with that stupid phrase, is that it’s a dangerous, pointless and misleading generalisation. If anyone shows you a knife, you have to behave as though they intend to kill you with it, because you never know when that might be their intention.

Likewise, if someone assaults you, you have to assume the very worst, because you never know when that might be where the fight will lead to. And even if you trust that they don’t intend to maim you, do you trust their control and accuracy enough to be certain that they won’t accidently break your jaw, or catch you in the temple and kill you?

My philosophy of self-defence is to avoid violence at almost all costs, but if you must fight, go in hard, go in first (if you can read that violence is inevitable), and don’t fight at all fair. You can argue the moral and legal ramifications later.

If you are a sensei, or an adult who trains at home, if you allow your partners to simulate groin strikes, you may be surprised at how vulnerable you are in that area because we don’t allow strikes below the waist. In the dojo, ask your sensei sometimes, if you can spar without having to stop to acknowledge every tiny tap. Buy yourself a punch bag and strike it often to condition your fists and wrists, and train your distancing. And best of all, go watch some videos of real fights. It’s disturbing and  eye-opening.