by Bradley J. Steiner
The martial arts and self-defense field in America today offers many variants, styles, methods, and systems of defense that no one can blame a prospective student for being confused and frustrated when trying to decide what to study.
Now, obviously, I make no pretense of being unbiased here. I developed a comprehensive system of all-in combatives and self-defense in 1975 – American Combato (Jen-Do-Tao) – and I believe it to be the best in the world for its purpose. But I am not unaware that there are other excellent systems and other teachers that are highly competent to teach personal defense and attack. Nor am I of a mind to dismiss other quality systems. I welcome polite, honest, and respectful dialog with persons who train in other methods.
For your clarification, and to be sure you get what you want and need for self-defense, what you need to understand is that close combat and self-defense is a specialty. It is not true that sporting forms of fighting, no matter how “rough” or “tough,” or classical/traditional forms of antiquated art, no matter how impressive and spectacular, make a sensible choice if your purpose is self-protection and/or close-in, military-type hand-to-hand combat, per se.
While true that young, strong, competition fighters are almost always able to defend themselves well, and that classical martial artists who have many years of competent instruction and training behind them and are young, tough, and either black-belt experts or the equivalent in whatever form of training they follow can readily adapt their skills to handle actual emergencies, self-defense and close combat is a field unto itself.
Self-defense and close combat is what you want if managing actual, dangerous crises is your single purpose. It provides a precise, efficient, straight-line path to your objective. No irrelevancies, and no prolonged activity that barely relates to what you’re after.
Two absolute truths that will clear matters up for you in deciding what to study, and with whom to train, are:
- All quality systems of practical, actual combat methodology emphasize, in different ways perhaps, very similar skills, and
- The crucial factor once you’ve undertaken the study of a quality, practical, authentic system is YOU; your attitude, your devotion to training, and your gut-level willingness to use that which you have learned with everything in you when the you-know-what hits the proverbial fan.
All worthwhile approaches to self-defense and close combat will emphasize blows of the hands, feet, knees, elbows, and head. They will stress gouging, clawing, biting, and a few select combat throws and choking skills. They will recognize and integrate modern weapons into the training and will also teach the use of weapons-at-hand (i.e. improvised weapons). They will stress mindset and powerfully-inculcated mental conditioning so you are ultimately capable of transitioning into a murderous, wild animal when your life is at stake.
I have found that, so long as quality techniques have been mastered, mental conditioning is 90% of what will enable you to prevail in combat. Pay no attention to anyone who believes that the mental side of this is less than 50%, at least. You will be encouraged to get and remain in excellent condition, and there will be no nonsense taught about “strength isn’t necessary” or “size, youth, and agility don’t matter.”
It will be stressed – correctly – that proper training can enable someone to defeat a stronger, younger, better-conditioned individual… but the fact that strength, age, size, agility, and all-around fitness matters and comprise factors to be considered and respected will never be downplayed by any professional who knows what he’s about.
Despite the popular mythology, the proven combat principle of always staying on your feet, and always avoiding, if at all possible, going to the ground with your adversary will be strongly emphasized. (Naturally, you will be taught what to do to defend from the ground, if necessary; and you will be taught the very simple procedures for handling an exceptional situation wherein you are on the ground with an enemy – and how to get back on your feet!)
The principles and tactics of personal security and protection in your daily activities, and home and family defense will be a part of the program as well.
You can see why, necessarily, self-defense and close combat is an entirely separate study than sport or tradition. Its syllabus is quite complete and packed with its own essentials.
Watch out for the mean-spirited “politicians” (and they are legion) who are constantly attacking other approaches, systems, teachers, and schools. These malcontents – in general, the product of their past unsuccessful training and experiences with a teacher or a system – offer low-quality instruction and seek to inflate their pathetic image by attacking others. You don’t want to expose yourself to this kind of toxic psycho.
Once you have found a good, competent teacher who is teaching a quality approach, the rest is up to you. Just as possessing the finest violin ever made will not automatically make a masterful violinist out of you, being a student in the best system of close combat ever devised will not, without your protracted devotion to study and training, transform you into a confident, formidable proponent of the art of defense.
You must put in the effort. You must train. One of the points I hammer home repeatedly in my DVD course is the need for practice – ideally for at least 30 minutes every day – if confidence and competence are truly desired. The nice thing about close combat and defense training is that, given a quality system, within five to nine or so months, a serious student can be much better prepared to handle a real emergency than someone with years of experience in competition or classical arts training.
Combative skills are indeed simple, but it takes repetitive work and discipline to master them. There is no overnight miracle or weekend success. Train! Practice! You may be able to learn how to do a technique in a matter of ten minutes, but being able to do that technique speedily, correctly, and accurately under stressful combat conditions may take several hours of drill over a week or more of time.
Please keep all of this in mind as you work on material I have covered in previous articles in my Survivalism column in the Trends Journal. Reading the articles is not enough. You must work at mastering their content.
I remember hearing a marvelous piece of advice years ago. The advice is aimed at counseling a person on how to succeed in any critical endeavor.
This is the advice: “Pray for assistance as though it all depended upon God; and work as hard as you can as though it all depends upon you.”
Let me paraphrase that bit of wisdom so it applies very specifically to your mastering the self-defense ability and confidence that you desire:
“Search out and find the very finest system of personal combat and defense you are capable of locating, as though the system you choose will, alone, determine how well you will ultimately be able to defend yourself. Then train in that system with all of your heart, mind, body, and soul, as though your successful use of what you learn in that system depends 100% upon you, alone.”
I have been a student of the combat arts, survival, and cognate disciplines since the 1950s. I promise if you genuinely follow that advice, success is assured.
In Memoriam: our beloved friend, Bradley J. Steiner, passed on December 5, 2020.
In his legacy, we are fighting the “Brad Steiner fight” – the good fight. The fight for each person to be the person they want to be and to protect themselves when their lives are being viciously threatened by enemies of Freedom, Peace, and Justice.