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By Bradley J. Steiner, American Combato
One fact about real world self-defense is that it cannot be undertaken risk-free, and frankly it is certain that in a truly dangerous encounter with one or more determined aggressors you will surely be hurt. Many schools of martial art fill students’ heads with notions of invincibility and fail to equip them for the realities of anything goes personal combat.
We prefer to get all our cards out on the table, as it were. Yes . . . we can and do teach the finest and most reliable methods of interpersonal mayhem (“self-defense” if you prefer) and if you become expert in our methods you will absolutely stand an excellent chance—better than 95 percent—of successfully stopping a violent attacker from injuring you badly, or from doing the same to someone you need to protect.
But some injury is inevitable. If an attacker comes at you with a knife, he has the advantage. Do everything right and you stand a good chance of surviving and dropping the attacker; but if you escape without so much as a minor cut or a stab wound somewhere on your body—requiring at least some out-patient care, and a dose of antibiotics—then you can chalk the outcome up to LUCK. Excellent as our training is, we make no claims for its being miraculous!
The wise student of self-defense and close combat expects to get hurt.
Illusions of being a superhero or “unstoppable warrior” must never be allowed to cloud a student’s mind. No matter how expert you are, no matter how strong you are, no matter what excellent level of agility and fitness you may enjoy . . . serious individual combat will certainly result in injury to yourself, should you ever be so unfortunate as to find yourself immersed in it.
So here is the big question: “Are you mentally conditioned for the reality of being hurt, when and if you undertake to defend yourself?” More: “Are you working at conditioning yourself so that your immediate reaction to being hurt in an encounter is one that actually enhances your chance of survival and victory?”
There are two things that such conditioning requires:
- The acceptance of the fact—at gut level—that engaging in close combat is risky, regardless of what you know, how competent you are in your skills, and how long you have been training. Therefore, the idea that you will be hurt during an encounter, while not a welcome thought, is nonetheless an accepted idea. You are reconciled to it. You simply do not expect things to be any different, and you are undeterred by this knowledge in any dangerous predicament. With this settled and finalized in your psyche, you will be uninhibited about carrying out the most essential thing for your success, survival, and victory: i.e., Taking the war to the enemy and destroying him.
- Being conditioned so that your immediate reaction and response to experiencing injury and its attendant pain is a KILLING RAGE. Like a lion or tiger or cape buffalo or other jungle creature whom Nature has programmed to become more dangerous when injured than it was prior to being hurt, your injury kicks you into a fanatical, aggressive, frenzy!
You might not think so at first, but you can achieve this mindset. In fact, you already have—but not regarding human combat. Ever stub your toe, bang your shin on a piece of furniture or hit your hand accidentally with a hammer? If so, you more than likely became enraged. Pretty silly, but nevertheless true. Injured by insentient matter and you cursed, and even kicked, smashed, or broke something.
Humans who hurt you have caused you mixed feelings. Possibly fear, confusion, wondering what to do; hesitating to do anything for fear of legal repercussions, and control of your rising desire to strike back, etc. This is what has got to GO.
Your injury must become the instant tripwire that sets you into a killing frenzy reminiscent of that of a Great White! You can do this if you work on it and at it in training! A quality teacher who knows what he is about will help you greatly . . . But failing to have the good fortune of finding a qualified teacher, make up your mind to do this for yourself.
While jungle beasts and other dangerous animals are programmed by Nature to be this way (for their survival) you will need to program yourself this way. And it is for your survival. Violent offenders are extremely dangerous. The shock, fear, or momentary disbelief that your being hurt can cause, will be the only opening your adversary needs to do whatever he wishes to you—and it will not be pleasant.
On the other hand, if your reaction to being hurt is explosive rage and the ferocity and ruthless disregard for your enemy that this easily makes possible, then—short of administering a knockout blow or lethal injury— your assailant will certainly be triggering his own destruction when he hurts you. And that is the way it should be.
You want to react to your injury and pain in any dangerous encounter by:
- Exploding with maniacal rage. In fact, you turn into a murderous, wild animal.
- Hatred—cultivated by studying violent crimes and violent criminals and coming to resent their existence. Repeating and repeating and repeating to yourself as you study these monsters that they are in fact subhuman s––t and that they do not deserve to exist.
- Indignation. This comes from appreciating your own worth as a decent human being and resenting the idea that anyone might attempt to harm you or yours and violate you in any way. You are not a violent offender, so how dare this scum intrude upon your normal life with their evil!
- A desire to destroy. You want to damage and drop your adversary. He is no damn good, he is a monster, he does not deserve any consideration as a human being, and you will not give him any. This filthy and substandard excuse for a “human being” must be stopped by whatever means you have at your disposal ––– right now! To hell with the f––ing bastard! Your life and well-being are more important by far than his!
- An attitude of ruthless disregard for your enemy. No one who attacks another person without justification (i.e., acting in self-defense) deserves any consideration whatever. So, give him none. Unleash full fury and keep on attacking and attacking and attacking and attacking until your foe is harmless and you are safe.
Your attitude and mind-setting resembles, in this regard, that of not only a wild animal, but also of one of man’s most intelligent and highly trained best friends: the guard or protection dog. There have been cases where these marvelous protectors have absorbed five and six bullets and kept right on coming until the enemy was destroyed! An intelligent, well-trained dog who is normally friendly and loving possesses the ability to shift into an attitude of terrifying, totally focused, unrestrained aggression . . . and to savage whomever he must defend himself, his master, and home and hearth! We can all learn a lot from these great animals.
And that is our message: Be a realist.
There are no supermen or unbeatable warriors. We are all human and we are all subject to injury. We must be conditioned to become as great, as severe, as instantaneous, and as dangerous a threat to any extralegal vermin who undertakes to prey upon us, as a jungle cat. And we must expect to get hurt and be conditioned ahead of time to react to being hurt exactly as the most dangerous wild animals on the planet react.
One day you may owe your life to having absorbed this lesson.