Effective Self-Defence
For self-defence to be effective, the movements must come naturally to a person; yet they also must be appropriate to the situation. Human movement and self-defence transcends style and technique. A movement must be fluid and intuitive to be powerful or effective, and what constitutes ‘correct movement’ will vary wildly from person to person, and from situation to situation.
So how do you train for that? How do you practice responding intuitively, appropriately, knowing that the world is chaotic and you may not be able to rely on preconceived notions of self-defence?
All the time in competition or other circumstances, you see people relying on ineffective, rigid movement patterns, trying to force a coordination or technique that really isn’t appropriate to the situation. But of course we rely on what we know.
How do you develop a skill set without relying on fixed movement patterns? How do you learn to respond appropriately and overcome adversity? How do you develop a physical understanding of the application of leverage and power without becoming inhibited by preconception or rigid technicality? And what can you simply muscle your way through, and what requires subtlety?
Because if we’re to indulge the stereotype – if you need to defend yourself, it’s likely you’ll be up against an assailant who is stronger or larger than you. So you might be forced to rely on something other than strength. Potential assailants – people who are looking for targets – they will not often choose someone who they think is stronger than themselves. They possess the advantage sometimes of premeditation, and they are not burdened by self-doubt, so they act naturally, one could say their qi, their energy is not disrupted. It is good if you can give them the generous opportunity to experience self-doubt. Give them the opportunity to reassess their choice. Give them the opportunity to give up. This is a much-overlooked benefit of self-defence training - even before physical skills are applied, a trained individual may not appear to be worth the effort.
But in a technical context, it’s tricky. If you are to develop your own intuitive, natural movement patterns that play to your strengths, or enable you to exploit a stronger opponent’s weaknesses, it requires investigation. It requires that you explore different avenues and techniques, and that you try to understand what it means to appreciate your own strengths while working on resolving your weak points. And are these methods going to translate into something effective – something that serves you well when you need it?
Because there’s a lot that people don’t speak about. The stereotype – a dark alley and a stranger – is one thing, but what about your drunk friend who’s a bit too handsy at the pub? It’s not strangers who are the everyday threat, it’s often actually people you know. Many of us will already know this. What about when you’re pressured to participate, what about when you don’t want to make a scene? What about the fear of escalation, of overreaction? How do you learn to take control of a situation without relying on excessive force?
All things are skills and can be learned; the ability to diffuse a situation cleanly is a skill you can develop over time. Self-defence is about learning to trust in your ability and right to say no, and learning to ensure that your decision is respected; it is about boundaries and clarity of intent, and adaptability.
And all things come down to practice. Practice what you want to be good at, and one day you will be. You can practice being rigid or fluid, as need dictates. You can practice respecting your own boundaries, and you will become better at protecting them. And the mental and physical mirror each other. When you train and understand your physical boundaries, and you learn about and develop your capacity, it helps you to become protective and understanding of your psychological boundaries. All this leads to an increased capacity to recognise genuine, if sometimes subtle threats, and defend yourself against them appropriately.
In our attempt to foster intuitive and true movements in an individual, we teach a small range of different but complimentary styles of martial arts. These styles of Wushu introduce the student to a range of movement patterns, techniques and attitudes. Over time, the student develops a feeling for how the same basic movement might be expressed differently in the context of other styles or lineages. Some are more overtly powerful than others, and some are more subtle. Becoming aware of the differences and similarities serves to enrich the practitioner’s understanding of technique and leverage, and also leads to an appreciation of those techniques or movement patterns that might be more strongly emphasised in one style and possibly absent in another. As the practitioner gains experience and self-knowledge, he or she might find they are more naturally suited to one particular style, and then they are free to investigate from a position of understanding, as opposed to taking a stab in the dark and hoping they learn something useful.
This approach helps to move the student away from the ‘right way of moving’ versus ‘wrong way of moving’ mentality and towards an understanding that a movement is merely effective or not, useful or not, depending on the circumstances and the relative strengths or weaknesses of an individual.
A person starts to discover what movements are harmonious, where they can apply power, where they need to be fluid, and where they need to be sharp or quick. Rigidity and softness become useful states, not hindrances, that a practitioner can move in and out of where appropriate.
In this way, a practitioner develops their own character, and their own unique and genuine way of practicing martial arts, without being burdened by the concept of rigid routines or correct or incorrect ways of executing a technique. When you can understand, in your body, the nature of leverage, the notion of technique becomes somewhat redundant.
There is a saying in Tai Chi that even when you are practicing perfectly, you’ll look different to your master, who looks different to theirs. Even though the principles may remain the same, this is quite simply because we are all different, and what comes naturally to me will not be the same as what comes naturally to you even after years of specific and dedicated training.
But having said all that – how effective are these processes I’m describing? I’m talking about development and discovery here. It makes for a long path, and has been something I’ve found to be greatly rewarding over time. If, however, you needed to learn combat skills really quickly, there are ways to do that too. Wing Chun, western boxing, Muay Thai, Karate, Jujutsu – many styles can teach you how to punch, kick and wrestle quite effectively, and in a short time frame, if you dedicate yourself to your training.
But at Song Mountain Wushu, we’re more about training and discovery than combat. We hope you’ll learn some cool stuff, but I’m always skeptical of people who promise too much in self-defence courses. We don’t spar as such, and there is extremely limited physical contact between beginner students, which we structure in the safest way we can. You can build and develop sensitivity and physical-response exercises over time, just as you develop your techniques, fitness and discipline over time, without needing to be thrown straight into competitive fights. Because if the shock is too great all at once, you don’t grow and develop, you panic, and constantly overwhelming a person is actually not the most efficient way to get them to grow or develop useful, practical skills.
And we want you to be able to develop over time, we don’t want you to just have to rely on knee-jerk responses forever. It’s more of a gentle, gradated approach, rather than a sink-or-swim approach, because martial arts is about education and development. You wouldn’t put four hundred pounds on a barbell and expect a beginner to be able to bench it just because you put it on their chest. Instead, you start with a challenging yet manageable weight, and you build that up over time. As you become stronger, not only are you physically stronger, but you also have accumulated practice at something else - you are now more practiced at challenging yourself, at meeting challenges, and at being unafraid of progress.
After a few years you have practiced, many times, the physical action of taking on something you have not quite encountered before, but your previous training experiences have made you familiar with this process, and this is also a hidden benefit of training: it’s not just the strength or the skills, the techniques, it’s the fact that you are more practiced at meeting new challenges, and you have a physical experience of progressing from relative weakness to relative strength. The more you see a thing, the more familiar it becomes, and so when you experience a new challenge, the specific thing itself is new, but the concept of experiencing new challenges is not. That has become somewhat known. And that undercuts nervousness. Because a thing may be new, but the process is well-practiced, and although the thing itself may be intimidating, the concept of undertaking a challenge is well-practiced.
But all that being said, we have the luxury of not needing to train soldiers up for combat in a month or two. But military combat training necessitates quite a different approach to civilian systems for self-defence – for a huge number of reasons – and that’s a complex topic for another time. So we don’t foster an aggressive, combative atmosphere, and many of us who feel easily intimidated and who don’t want to be punched a lot – we don’t thrive in aggressive training environments, even if maybe, one day in the future we might find that environment useful and not as intimidating as it once was. Because that is what it means to develop skills of self-defence over time. It means developing your confidence, awareness and proficiency, and one day realising the things that used to intimidate you have lost their edge. You may never be 100% confident, but you’re not 100% scared either. You can handle things you once could not, even if you’re not yet sure what they’re going to be.
So how do you train for that? How do you practice responding intuitively, appropriately, knowing that the world is chaotic and you may not be able to rely on preconceived notions of self-defence?
All the time in competition or other circumstances, you see people relying on ineffective, rigid movement patterns, trying to force a coordination or technique that really isn’t appropriate to the situation. But of course we rely on what we know.
How do you develop a skill set without relying on fixed movement patterns? How do you learn to respond appropriately and overcome adversity? How do you develop a physical understanding of the application of leverage and power without becoming inhibited by preconception or rigid technicality? And what can you simply muscle your way through, and what requires subtlety?
Because if we’re to indulge the stereotype – if you need to defend yourself, it’s likely you’ll be up against an assailant who is stronger or larger than you. So you might be forced to rely on something other than strength. Potential assailants – people who are looking for targets – they will not often choose someone who they think is stronger than themselves. They possess the advantage sometimes of premeditation, and they are not burdened by self-doubt, so they act naturally, one could say their qi, their energy is not disrupted. It is good if you can give them the generous opportunity to experience self-doubt. Give them the opportunity to reassess their choice. Give them the opportunity to give up. This is a much-overlooked benefit of self-defence training - even before physical skills are applied, a trained individual may not appear to be worth the effort.
But in a technical context, it’s tricky. If you are to develop your own intuitive, natural movement patterns that play to your strengths, or enable you to exploit a stronger opponent’s weaknesses, it requires investigation. It requires that you explore different avenues and techniques, and that you try to understand what it means to appreciate your own strengths while working on resolving your weak points. And are these methods going to translate into something effective – something that serves you well when you need it?
Because there’s a lot that people don’t speak about. The stereotype – a dark alley and a stranger – is one thing, but what about your drunk friend who’s a bit too handsy at the pub? It’s not strangers who are the everyday threat, it’s often actually people you know. Many of us will already know this. What about when you’re pressured to participate, what about when you don’t want to make a scene? What about the fear of escalation, of overreaction? How do you learn to take control of a situation without relying on excessive force?
All things are skills and can be learned; the ability to diffuse a situation cleanly is a skill you can develop over time. Self-defence is about learning to trust in your ability and right to say no, and learning to ensure that your decision is respected; it is about boundaries and clarity of intent, and adaptability.
And all things come down to practice. Practice what you want to be good at, and one day you will be. You can practice being rigid or fluid, as need dictates. You can practice respecting your own boundaries, and you will become better at protecting them. And the mental and physical mirror each other. When you train and understand your physical boundaries, and you learn about and develop your capacity, it helps you to become protective and understanding of your psychological boundaries. All this leads to an increased capacity to recognise genuine, if sometimes subtle threats, and defend yourself against them appropriately.
In our attempt to foster intuitive and true movements in an individual, we teach a small range of different but complimentary styles of martial arts. These styles of Wushu introduce the student to a range of movement patterns, techniques and attitudes. Over time, the student develops a feeling for how the same basic movement might be expressed differently in the context of other styles or lineages. Some are more overtly powerful than others, and some are more subtle. Becoming aware of the differences and similarities serves to enrich the practitioner’s understanding of technique and leverage, and also leads to an appreciation of those techniques or movement patterns that might be more strongly emphasised in one style and possibly absent in another. As the practitioner gains experience and self-knowledge, he or she might find they are more naturally suited to one particular style, and then they are free to investigate from a position of understanding, as opposed to taking a stab in the dark and hoping they learn something useful.
This approach helps to move the student away from the ‘right way of moving’ versus ‘wrong way of moving’ mentality and towards an understanding that a movement is merely effective or not, useful or not, depending on the circumstances and the relative strengths or weaknesses of an individual.
A person starts to discover what movements are harmonious, where they can apply power, where they need to be fluid, and where they need to be sharp or quick. Rigidity and softness become useful states, not hindrances, that a practitioner can move in and out of where appropriate.
In this way, a practitioner develops their own character, and their own unique and genuine way of practicing martial arts, without being burdened by the concept of rigid routines or correct or incorrect ways of executing a technique. When you can understand, in your body, the nature of leverage, the notion of technique becomes somewhat redundant.
There is a saying in Tai Chi that even when you are practicing perfectly, you’ll look different to your master, who looks different to theirs. Even though the principles may remain the same, this is quite simply because we are all different, and what comes naturally to me will not be the same as what comes naturally to you even after years of specific and dedicated training.
But having said all that – how effective are these processes I’m describing? I’m talking about development and discovery here. It makes for a long path, and has been something I’ve found to be greatly rewarding over time. If, however, you needed to learn combat skills really quickly, there are ways to do that too. Wing Chun, western boxing, Muay Thai, Karate, Jujutsu – many styles can teach you how to punch, kick and wrestle quite effectively, and in a short time frame, if you dedicate yourself to your training.
But at Song Mountain Wushu, we’re more about training and discovery than combat. We hope you’ll learn some cool stuff, but I’m always skeptical of people who promise too much in self-defence courses. We don’t spar as such, and there is extremely limited physical contact between beginner students, which we structure in the safest way we can. You can build and develop sensitivity and physical-response exercises over time, just as you develop your techniques, fitness and discipline over time, without needing to be thrown straight into competitive fights. Because if the shock is too great all at once, you don’t grow and develop, you panic, and constantly overwhelming a person is actually not the most efficient way to get them to grow or develop useful, practical skills.
And we want you to be able to develop over time, we don’t want you to just have to rely on knee-jerk responses forever. It’s more of a gentle, gradated approach, rather than a sink-or-swim approach, because martial arts is about education and development. You wouldn’t put four hundred pounds on a barbell and expect a beginner to be able to bench it just because you put it on their chest. Instead, you start with a challenging yet manageable weight, and you build that up over time. As you become stronger, not only are you physically stronger, but you also have accumulated practice at something else - you are now more practiced at challenging yourself, at meeting challenges, and at being unafraid of progress.
After a few years you have practiced, many times, the physical action of taking on something you have not quite encountered before, but your previous training experiences have made you familiar with this process, and this is also a hidden benefit of training: it’s not just the strength or the skills, the techniques, it’s the fact that you are more practiced at meeting new challenges, and you have a physical experience of progressing from relative weakness to relative strength. The more you see a thing, the more familiar it becomes, and so when you experience a new challenge, the specific thing itself is new, but the concept of experiencing new challenges is not. That has become somewhat known. And that undercuts nervousness. Because a thing may be new, but the process is well-practiced, and although the thing itself may be intimidating, the concept of undertaking a challenge is well-practiced.
But all that being said, we have the luxury of not needing to train soldiers up for combat in a month or two. But military combat training necessitates quite a different approach to civilian systems for self-defence – for a huge number of reasons – and that’s a complex topic for another time. So we don’t foster an aggressive, combative atmosphere, and many of us who feel easily intimidated and who don’t want to be punched a lot – we don’t thrive in aggressive training environments, even if maybe, one day in the future we might find that environment useful and not as intimidating as it once was. Because that is what it means to develop skills of self-defence over time. It means developing your confidence, awareness and proficiency, and one day realising the things that used to intimidate you have lost their edge. You may never be 100% confident, but you’re not 100% scared either. You can handle things you once could not, even if you’re not yet sure what they’re going to be.