$hit Happens. All the time. To everyone.

We watch the news and see a story about someone getting mugged, assaulted, sucker punched, raped, murdered.

But that stuff happens to other people. I lock my doors at night, and I have insurance. Besides, I don’t live in that part of town and I don’t associate with those sorts of people.

And then what do you say?

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One of the things I discuss often is the separation between combat sports, martial arts and self-defence (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, read this).

Self-defence practitioners often exclaim that combat sports and martial arts are NOT the same as self-defence, and indeed there is plenty of evidence to support this claim.

On the other hand, combat sports and martial arts practitioners will always claim their stuff is effective for self-defence.

Me? I tend to sit right in the middle on this one. Do they overlap? Yes. Are there transferable skills? Absolutely! Are they identical? Absolutely not.

But can they be?

Violence ain’t pretty.

We’ve all seen violence at some point or another, though surely to different extents. If you haven’t then you are either very, very sheltered or very, very lucky (or both). 

With YouTube and social media is now easier than ever to get access to millions of examples of what real, ugly violence looks like. I invite you think of the first time you saw someone get knocked out violently or stabbed, whether in real life or the net.

What was your response?

Chances experienced a bit of adrenalin and some anxiety or stress. Perhaps you simply couldn’t watch the whole thing. It probably left you feeling out of sorts for a little while after it finished.

Now imagine this happening to you in real life.

Would you have the tools to deal with the trauma of real-world violence?

You walk into the dojo and tentatively go up to your instructor when you see he has a spare minute. In a hushed tone, almost apologetic, you ask the following question:

“I tried what we learned in class on my [boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife/mum/dad/friend] and it didn’t work. What was I doing wrong?”

This is a question I have seen and heard many times, and have also asked a couple of times when I first started training.
The people asking it can approach it in a variety of different ways. Some are almost apologetic, because they believe they didn’t do it right. Others are angry or upset, claiming that ‘it’ doesn’t work.

If you’ve ever tried something you learned in a martial arts or self defence class on a friend and it didn’t work, or if you’re an instructor who has heard this question, and you want to know what you did wrong, read on.

In my last article I talked about how different people learn, and also about how both instructors and students should be aware of this to further improve their performance.

Often, the style we prefer to learn is determined by the preferred learning style we have. Nice tongue twister. But what does it mean?

The infamous phrase ‘reality-based training’ once again returns to feature in an article…

Martial Arts can be an incredible force in the life of a young person. It can provide focus, structure, culture, problem solving capabilities and solid strategies to deal with bullying and other various challenges that life will throw at them. But it's not for everyone, and for some kids it's important to consider the type of training they may need before throwing them into a martial arts programme.

Will Martial Arts help my child's behaviour problem?

In the last article I discussed the ‘Dojo Syndrome’.
I had received some very positive feedback about it, with many instructors saying ‘this is exactly what often happens!’ and had a few requests to post some more tips. Thanks for the support, and I hope you enjoy this!