WEAPONS TRAINING

Old samurai weapons can be used to develop strength, endurance and speed in your arms, but they are not much use because we are not allowed to use them for defence (or even carry them) by law.

Weapons are simply an extension of technique, many see them as a harder object to use for striking. I find weapons in this modern culture can be a pencil, fence post, branch, umbrella, CD Case or even a mobile phone. Striking with one of these is just one aspect, they can be used defensively as leavers to assist in pain compliance of locks and pressure points.

In a real life situation you may take advantage of a weapon of opportunity such as a screwdriver or bottle etc. The real danger of weapons comes when confronted with any edged weapons, block and counter simply is not effective, every time you fail to grab the hand holding the weapon you have given the attacker another chance to kill you. In the undertaking to defend yourself from an edged weapon expect to get injured, it will not matter about the slash injuries on your arms , the real worries are from the thrusts and piercing to the bodies torso.

COMPETITION TRAINING

If you are training to compete understand the rules and what type of competition. The rules may vary from different organisations and the formats of combat will effect your training.

Full Contact : Fitness and body conditioning is paramount. The ring craft of being able to get off the ropes if an opponent has launched an offensive to keep you against them. You will probably use only 6 or 7 main techniques. Setting up, provoking a reaction then powering through a technique to knock them out.

Light Continuous :- Very similar to full contact with out hard techniques powering through. The objective is to convince the judges you have superior techniques and ability to use them accurately and effectively.

Semi Contact Stop Start:- You have to be the first one to respond with a clear attack, this is simply the 1st to score.

If you take a team to compete watch the bouts prior to letting your students fight. If your happy let them compete, if when they fight you think the judging was biased you are probably biased. If on the odd occasion you have a bad decision against your competitor it is just one of those things, bad decisions happen at even the best competitions. If the promoter was to over turn a decision the judges and refs will be put out and may walk out leaving the competition is a predicament. The promoter places his refs and judges because he trusts them, if you think you have a bonafide complaint talk to him sincerely and list the grounds of your complaint in a polite manner.

SELF PROTECTION TRAINING

In this type of scenario we need to face the fears of the reality and as a first response try to avoid conflict. If we can not avoid conflict we must try to evoke the “Flight Response”. If this fails we must use a “pre Emptive Strike”. When we train we should really try to imagine its for real, we still keep control to avoid hurting tour opponent. The important thing is to try and expose ourselves to the stresses of the situation so we learn to cope. The more used to the situation we become the better our control will be. If on the other hand we get struck with out warning we will know pain, but the bodies cortisol and adrenalin will trigger the endorphins so the pain will go leaving a shocked response. While we revert to the instinctive responses that we all have for our best chance of survival we will then have to plan a response under maximum pressure.

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Last modified: October 03, 2001