I know I have been neglecting the self-defense aspect of this blog lately. I'll try to keep it more balanced. Today, I helped one of my fellow students test for his black belt. I received mine about 2 and half years ago. Unlike other dojos where testing is a formality where you perform a kata in front of a panel of judges, our test are hard. Really hard. 3 Days Long Hard.
Unfortunately, I can't tell you more about it. Our tests are closed door. Nobody except the people testing and black belts are allowed into the test. No parents, no spouses, no spectators. Today I was an uke, which translates roughly as "human punching bag". I attacked while my partner - who was the one testing for his black belt - performed the technique.
There were 3 other people testing and they all worked hard and they all did really well. One point, we were free sparring 3 vs 1 on the testees. Afterwards one of the other people testing came up to me and asked if I was a black belt from this school. I told him that I was. He asked if I had trained anywhere else and I said no and asked why he asked.
He told me it was because I didn't fight like anyone else he's fought against in our school. Most people come in on you quickly, take a couple shots and then get out quickly. Very common when you train sport karate or point fighting. You get in, score your point and get out. It's very controlled. He said I came in like a truck.. there was no stopping, no jumping back out. I came in hard and just kept coming, blocking when I needed to and striking every chance I could.
I laughed and explained to him that was because of my instuctor. Within my school, my class has a certain reputation of being the people who like to fight. The ones who don't mind getting banged up. We train as if it were a real confrontation. You don't want to punch an attacker a couple of times and stop.. you want to finish that fight at any cost, and that's the mindset we train with.
Though I study Kempo and there is limited grappling involved, in my class a lot of fights end up on the ground. Why? Because that's how a real fight goes. There's nobody there to say, "Stop!" when someone trips or someone grabs you around the legs and takes you down. We try to fight each other the way we would fight in the street because we all want to have faith that if we really did have to use this stuff that it would work.
Don't get me wrong, we're not trying to hurt each other. The punches are still pulled a little and there's good sportsmanship all around. But the strategy and the intensity is more like a real fight than a classroom.
They (and I'm using sweeping generalizations here, there are plenty of individuals who train the same way we do) don't have that mindset in a lot of the other classes. My class is probably the smallest in the school because it takes a certain masochism to actually want to get hit. In helping out this morning, I got two minor bloody noses and peeled a decent chunk of skin off of pinky toe via rug burn while getting thrown. It happens.. you need to fight through it. I'm used to it from being a little more rough and tumble and I know that if I get in a fight and someone gets a lucky shot that I can take it.
I find that many people who study in another class will come to ours because their instructor has told them to go to my instructor to "learn how to really fight". And they'll come in with gorgeous form and perfect technique.. and get mauled by most of the people in our class. That mindset is all they're missing.. but it doesn't take long to beat them into it.
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