If you are going to learn self defence learn off someone who has had to do it for real!
Martial arts instructors can be the worst self-protection instructors, they confuse martial arts training with self-protection. Trust me I have been a martial arts instructor for over 20 years and martial arts and self-protection are two different things.
One of the main things martial arts instructors forget to teach is situational awareness and conflict management, these two things are more likely to save your life in a dangerous environment than anything else.
Look at it this way would you get a plumber round to fix your leaky taps or washing machine, and then say while you are here can you do all my electrics? Hopefully, the answer to that is no. It is the same with martial arts just because you have reached a high standard in martial arts, does not mean you know about self-protection.
To be honest you really cannot teach self-protection or facts about real violence unless you have been in lots of situations where it has been necessary to practice it for real. Working on the doors gave me a very rude awakening to how effective martial arts were in a real nasty situation.
Sure, there are elements of martial arts training in self-protection, but martial arts training overall is designed to achieve perfection. Real self-protection is ugly, unfair and a phycological nightmare with no rules. Do not think I am knocking traditional martial arts training because I love it. But I am just being truthful, and all martial arts instructors should teach with integrity and truth.
Martial arts are like a big box of skills with many benefits in it. Self-protection is just one of them. If you study martial arts just to get fit and learn punching and kicking techniques, then great. I remember sitting in the cinema watching Bruce Lee films this amazing man inspired me on my martial arts journey, just remember Lee was one of the first martial artists to teach the truth when it came to competitive competition fighting and self-protection.
If you are a martial arts instructor and teaching the physical elements of self-defence / protection without ever having experienced having to do it for real, then you are doing your students a disservice. Unless you have experienced the adrenaline drop for real and had to fight hard and fast on a good number of occasions, you are no more than a surgeon who has learnt to do open heart surgery from a book.
The above text is copyright and is taken from my book. Hard Target.
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