Reality Always Wins!

When we ritualize our training we tend to take the fangs and claws out of the equation.

We have all known or heard the stories of some martial artists with black belts getting their butts handed to them by some street thug who knew the game all too well.

And yet time and time again in dojos and gyms across the country this type of training predominate the martial arts community.

Now I realize that many take up the martial arts to better themselves and to achieve the goal of receiving a black belt.

But somewhere in between the white belt to black belt journey, what is tradition, what is myth and what is reality gets blurred or lost.

All too often what ends up happening is that they are not ready to face reality when it hits them square in the jaw.

It's like somebody training in flag football for years and then trying out for full contact professional football, what do you think is going to happen?

Instant reality check!

It just doesn't make much sense to train this way, your setting yourself up to be victimized due to your own ignorance and training.

Understand the way you train in the gym may not translate well on the streets.

Case in point, I once had a kickboxing student come up and say that while he had kickboxing experience he had never been in a streetfight in his life.

I asked him if he would like to experience a streetfight scenario and he said YES.

So I hit him upside the head twice as I pushed him across the gym floor into the wall, there I tripped him and he hit the floor hard.

Panic was etched across his face as I pinned him to the wall and the floor with my knee in his chest.

I instantly started punching him in the head with one fist as my other hand held me up on the wall.

After 5-6 punches I lifted my knee off of him and started to stomp on his chest and stomach.

As I started to walk away I looked back at him and said "Congratulations you just had your first streetfight and you survived! Now learn from it".

As he sat there on the floor he just shook his head and said "that wasn't fair, I wasn't ready, you didn't tell me you were going to hit me right then and there, and you kinda hit me hard and didn't give me a chance to fight back and you fought dirty".

Exactly! You learned a lot from your ass wiping I told him.

This was one of the many examples that I've had the pleasure, I mean the opportunity to teach a student.

By the way I've taught this lesson to grapplers, boxers, kick-boxers and so called weapons experts and they have all come away with practical information that will one day save their lives.

And now it's your turn are you training as truthfully as you should be or are you hiding behind the skirt of your martial art traditions.

Pressure test what you know as often as you can and find out what works and what doesn't work for you.

And don't just discard what doesn't work but find out why it didn't work and see if you can modify it to work, and if it still doesn't work then discard it.

This will help ensure that your training will be there when you need it most and will not fail you.

And always remember "Reality Always Wins!"


Daniel Sambrano
“Keep It Simple and Savage”

www.SuperHeroSystems.com