Learning Techniques Is Not The Same Thing As Developing Them

© COPYRIGHT 2010 BY BRADLEY J. STEINER - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Sword and Pen – November 2010 Issue

[Reprinted With Permission]

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www.seattlecombatives.com

IF you had a mind to do so, you could purchase a manual that would teach you the information you needed to know in order to fly a plane. Or you could buy an instructional medical text that would explain the procedure necessary for performing open heart surgery. Or — you could probably “learn how” (theoretically) to fly a plane or do open heart surgery within a day or so of personal classroom lecture by an expert. The problem is not learning how to do such things; the problem is becoming able to do them.

It’s very similar with close combat and self-defense.

It is probable that we could explain and describe with sufficient clarity to convey a full intellectual understanding of the contents and particulars of our System to any intelligent adult in less than 50 hours. However, it would be a very prodigious individual, indeed, who could pass from white belt to green belt — our first two promotional levels — in only 50 hours of combined class and individual practice time.

It’s not that the techniques or tactical and strategic concepts are complicated or difficult to learn. Quite to the contrary; they are easy to learn. That’s why they are so practical and effective. However, they must be acquired through practice. Only repetitious drill imparts physical ability. Combat techniques are motor skills, not mathematical formulae which, once read and remembered, remain forever available in your mind. You have to spend time in physically practicing and drilling in order to make the techniques of personal combat, with and without
weapons, “yours”.

Although we cannot speak for other systems, styles, schools, or instructors, we will offer our opinion that most if not all would be in agreement with us. Assuming that the acquisition of any form of physical skill is in question, then it stands to reason that practicing it sufficiently to achieve the capability to do it would be axiomatic.

And more. The art of close combat and self-defense is a CRITICAL skill; it is not a “recreational” or a merely mundane, utilitarian skill. If and when you ever need to employ unarmed hand-to-hand combat techniques, a stick in personal defense, or a knife or a pistol, etc. in military or other desperate close combat, it will be a grave matter of life or death, and you will need your skill very, very badly, indeed!

If you really want to be able to use the techniques of close combat then reconcile yourself to the need for practice, practice, and still more practice.

One of the reasons we wish to emphasize this point is precisely because quality techniques are easy to learn (if they weren’t, they’d be useless for emergencies) and this can be misleading for the novice. Upon seeing how readily he can understand and begin to perform the skills that he is taught he mustn’t get the idea that that is that, and now he’s ready to go to war! He is far from ready to do anything after he is taught a new technique, except begin hard and regular training on that technique.

Though few will actually do this, we recommend the following in order to
experience and really feel what we are talking about in regard to mastering a technique and becoming able to DO it, as well as “knowing” it:

Take your favorite unarmed combat blow. It could be a hand strike, an elbow
blow, a kick, or whatever you wish. Now set aside fifteen minutes every day, seven days a week, for the next two months and religiously work to your absolute limit on that single technique. Focus mentally and physically. Go all out. Visualize. Go for as hard and intensive a fifteen minute workout on that single technique as your mind and body will permit you to perform. After two months of doing this DAILY (no days off, seven days a week for two months straight) see for yourself the results. That technique will be YOURS. And you will know it and feel it. The impulse to do the technique instantly and automatically will spring forth in a crisis, because you have subconsciously internalized and motormemorized it. Now . . . you can DO it.

You can follow this same procedure with a counterattack that you are especially keen to learn, or with an attack combination, etc. You can (and should) follow it as well with all weapon training.

The unbelievable “Jelly” Bryce (check him out on the internet) was a combat
point shooter whose abilities would never be believed if they were attributed to a fictional character in an action/adventure novel. Yet he was REAL. His “training”? He repeated endless — hour after hour — drill with his draw and point action, in front of a mirror. Result? This man actually DREW ON, AND THEN SHOT AND KILLED, TWO CRIMINAL GUNMEN WHO HAD THEIR WEAPONS IN THEIR HANDS AND POINTED AT HIM! Talk about phenomenal ability.

Bryce was an anomaly. Without the hereditary factors that made Bryce what he was no one could duplicate the man’s capabilities. However, without the hard, relentless practice and drill that this hereditary anomaly willingly and devotedly put in daily, Bryce would never have risen to the heights of incredible combative handgun proficiency that he did in fact rise to.

There is always a price to be paid for anything worthwhile. In the case of close combat and self-defense ability and confidence, the price consists of first coming to appreciate what you need to learn and master, and second, settling down and into the hard, disciplined course of serious training.