Martial Art Institute

HOW CAN A BEGINNER DEFEND AGAINST AN ATTACK DURING THE EARLY LEARNING STAGES?

There is no doubt that detailed and slow learning can have good long term effects. But what about if you are attacked whilst learning in your first few months or the first year?

It is a very difficult question to answer, when new beginners asks how long does it take to become self-defence proficient. That's because there are several important factors that makes it hard to answer - firstly, it depends on the type of assailant, your physical ability and your emotional state.

Your ability to defend against one person does not necessary mean you can overcome another (e.g. a nutter or psycho-maniac). So it really comes down to whom you are fighting against and what are the attackers' abilities.

This may not be a comfort to the beginners or the expert, but it is the reality. However, people train so that they could minimise the risk of injury if violent engagement occurs. But how do the beginner cope if attacked?

Surely, it is the training approaches and methods that will shape the person for such conflicts. The approaches and methods vary a great deal from school-to-school, some will advocate slow learning processes such as learning only centreline punch for months before moving onto another technique. While other schools will teach a new technique every session.

The dilemma is that when training is too slow it can stagnate the student, on the other hand, if it is too quick then it affects memory retention and lack of internal feedback. Training in one technique is great if you include several variations and different methods of training. The major problems of learning only one technique for months are probably overuse injuries and mental boredom. Thus, the beginners will not be able to achieve the initial goal of greater self-defence abilities.

Recently, 3 M.A.I. students were involved in 3 separate unrelated incidents in Croydon. They were all considered as beginners with training period of 6-14 months; age 13yrs, 24yrs and 40yrs. All of these were attacked, and successfully resolved the problem with simple effective tactics and skills. However, their responses were all different due to different situations.

Incident 1) The 13yrs old boy was attacked by a youth with a short bladed knife in March 2002. He threw a 1-2 combination punches striking the attacker, which gave him enough time to escape, thus, sustained a slight scratch to the forehead.

Incident 2) The 24 yrs old man and his pregnant girlfriend were victims of a robbery. Both practiced M.A.I. wing chun for approximately 6 months. A gang of 8 snatched the victim's handbag, and the victim's boyfriend requested the return of the bag, thus was set upon by the gang. They defended themselves, knocking several assailants down with the simple turning punch, and the combination 1-2 punches. The boyfriend was restraining one assailant and had his finger bitten off, but both managed to overcome such high threat situation.

Incident 3) The 40 yrs old man was set upon by an enraged attacker outside a shopping mall. The attacker lunged with a punch and the victim blocked it, and then the victim requested the assailant to stop. The attacker was verbally abusive, he launched another attack, and this was intercepted by the victims step punch, which knocked the assailant out.

The testimonials highlights the fact that if a beginner is restricted to learning one technique or one method or one variation for a considerable time, then it would be very hard to adapt to the unpredictable street-fighting situations. The most common defensive tactical approach that stopped the assailants was 'striking'.

It begs the question when instructors insist on the philosophy of 'little and slow training' for months or years for the beginners. How can beginners cope while in their early learning stages? Perhaps the worse kind of answer for some masters would be that, it takes years or even more than 10 years to become really proficient.

I think this is an unacceptable answer; usually the fault lies with the inability to teach effectively. No matter what skills we learn whether it is martial arts or football or tai chi or knitting, it should not take many years to become proficient or to achieve the realistic goals.

There must be a logical understanding that general gross skills can be achieved relatively quickly, and intricate skills require more time. However, gross skills can be learned proficiently very quickly under good guidance. Often, it is the gross skills that see you through a street-fight situation.