The ‘Naked’ truth about unarmed hand to hand fighting.

The ‘Naked’ truth about unarmed hand to hand fighting.

The human being has only become the Apex predator on this planet due to its superior intellect.

When it comes to combat the development of ever improving weapons technology keeps us at the head of the game.

From the first time, pre-historic man discovered fire and fashioned a crude spear or club out of flint or stone, man moved up a step in the food chain.

Currently with a stockpile of nuclear weapons when it comes to combat we sit firmly and smugly at the top of the mountain. We have no equals that we know of unless there are superior beings in outer space?

When man hunted purely for food they encountered all sorts of wildlife that was extremely dangerous and they realised quickly that they would have to develop weapons to combat and kill these creatures.

The development of blunt weapons, edged weapons, projectiles and then firearms insured that man survived.

But strip  away those weapons and we stack up a very poor second to most things in the animal kingdom.

No matter if you were a world champion boxer, wrestler or MMA fighter going up hand to hand against for example a Grizzly bear would basically be suicide.

We as human being were not built to fight.

I would suggest that a vast percentage of the human population cannot fight at all.

Yet incredibly we are the most violent species on the planet.

Let’s back track to birth. As a baby, we are born practically helpless. In biology, altricial species are those in which the young are incapable of moving around on their own soon after hatching or being born.

We as human beings cannot even sit up or roll over. Not exactly built for survival, are we? 

Now let’s look at the blue wildebeest for example. After 6 minutes of being born it can stand up on its own. After 30 minutes, it can walk. It can outrun a hyena in a day!

These animals and others like it are called in biology, precocial or superprecocial species which the young are relatively mature and mobile from the moment of birth or hatching.

Things we can do from birth as humans are yawn, suck, swallow, salivate, hiccup, blink, yawn, sneeze, cough, break wind, stretch, cry and sleep. Apart from the first two which help us eat the other things are not great when it comes to survival or fighting.

A new born baby does have a very strong grip and it can support its own weigh if lifted but after a few months this skill diminishes. (Does this go back to our primate ancestors?)

Even as we grow, we still need care, attention and guidance from our parents right up to when we are 18 years of age. (In many cases, much longer.)

When we become a fully grown, mature adult, stack us up naked against most of nature’s predators in unarmed hand to hand combat we still become a very poor second.

Most creatures have evolved in some way to protect their DNA from the elements and aid them in combat.

Human beings have no fur, feathers, scales, claws, large teeth, armour plate, spikes or horns.

We have no venous poisons or stings.

Our hands, feet, fingernails and teeth provide hopelessly inadequate defences.

Our skin can be cut, ripped or punctured easily.

We cannot run as fast as a lion or a tiger. We cannot out climb a primate.

Put the world’s number one fighter bare handed against a silver back gorilla and there is only going to be one winner.

Research states a gorilla can run up to 25 miles per hour and has between 6 to 15 times more strength than a human.

Even the world’s strongest man would be ripped limb from limb.

A Grizzly bear can weigh between 600-1000 lbs. It has the bite strength to crush a bowling ball. Their paws are twice the size of a human hand and sports 3inch claws.

It could probably exert the strength of 2 to 3 large men without any effort.

Your best right cross or leg kick isn’t going to trouble it. Forget choking it. Firstly, you must get its back and secondly your arm will not fit around its neck in any shape or form.

Basically, against the animal kingdoms top predators we have no chance and there are many more that aren’t even in the top of the food chain that we would have no chance against never mind all the small creatures and creepy crawlies that bite, sting and poison.

Let me ask you a question to survive bare -handed against the top Apex predators would you rather have spent time lifting weights, fighting, learning to run fast or learning to climb?

Tough isn’t it. Against a big cat none of those skills would help you.

Maybe time spent learning how to squeeze into little small spaces would have been better!

As stated our superior intellect gave us the knowledge to develop weapons and safety equipment and strategies to combat large predators but fighting hand to hand isn’t our greatest forte.

In the world of self- protection these rules should also apply. Not every situation will require you to smash the fuck out of another human being, yet this seems to be the sole purpose of many ‘Martial arts’ these days.

If we look at history and the many wars and battles that have been fought from the Romans to Nelson through to the war on Iraq once physical action was decided upon how much of it was done bare -handed. I suspect little or none. We know going into war without weapons is futile and crazy.

Unarmed combat skills were taught as last ditch defences normally if you were caught behind enemy lines and had no weaponry. Rather than surrendering you opted for all those ‘deadly’ Martial arts style moves you learnt in training most highly exaggerated to give the soldier some grain of hope when their weapons were gone.

If you read any of the hand to hand stuff from World War 1 and 2 a lot of it was grossly exaggerated. Especially the striking of vital points and their expected results. But you couldn’t encourage the soldier to go hand to hand if you said that knife hand strike might knock your enemy out or that palm heel strike to the nose probably won’t drive the enemy’s nasal bones up into their brain and kill them. So, a little artistic license may have been used.

Most Martial arts skills were grossly over sold particularly when they became big business. We all wanted to believe that there were killer techniques out there that just required a mere touch or a flick of the wrist. Shit I got into Martial arts training initially for this reason.

When we watch professional fighters at the top of their game they are truly deadly poetry in motion. Their working days are designed around learning and training how to hurt another human being and they are fucking good at it. But in the big population of the world they are a tiny minority.

If you train and associate around, fighters, Martial artists’ and are in and out of Dojo’s and gyms you would be forgiven to think everybody and their dog knows how to fight.

The reality is most can’t. A lot can have a good fight from the safety of their arm chair but that is it. Many can take a swing when drunk but wouldn’t have a clue when sober and there are many living in a fantasy world convinced that they are a cross between Bruce Lee, the Terminator and a Ninja Turtle.

That all said take that small minority of top drawer fighters and put them naked and unarmed against any of the animal kingdoms Apex predators they will fail miserable.

As great a grappler as you may be,do you fancy grappling a Great White shark,a Nile Crocodile or Anaconda?

Want a kickboxing match against a silverback, a polar bear or a tiger? Probably not.

These creatures won’t worry about your tribal tattoos, your piercings, your red mohawk haircut or the size of your biceps. They don’t give a fuck how much you bench press, how many people you have ‘tapped out’ or how many black belts you have got. That is all fucking window dressing that might keep the ‘wannabe’s away from you.

But this is real shit now whether that ‘Great white comes in shark form or human form!

There is a hierarchy when it comes to hand to hand fighting and we are not at the top by a long way.

The professionals will take their place in there somewhere down the line but the rest of us have no chance.

Give us a knife or a gun, a grenade or a bomb then we quickly jump up the pecking order.

That is why in street fights most people bring a weapon to the showdown and not trust their unarmed skills.

I have personally trained a life time in Martial arts and love them but I also realise their limitations. Training seriously in them with excellent quality instruction will give you a better than average change against ‘Joe Bloggs’ on the street but training in Martial arts doesn’t make you some super powered Jedi knight.

The guys I call ‘real warriors’ know this because somewhere along the way they have laid it on the line and found out what works and what doesn’t. They have a very down to earth opinion on what Martial Arts are and are not. Others I am afraid are living in ‘Cloud cuckoo’ land. You only need to go to Youtube to witness it first-hand.

I have trained religiously in Martial arts since I was a young boy I have had the shit beat out of me in the street, cage, ring and contest mat. I have also beat the shit out of people in all said arenas.

I have learnt Martial Arts don’t make you invincible but learnt properly they can keep you one step ahead of the game.

We as human beings are genetically designed not to fight. We will run, hide or freeze before we fight. With our intellect, we will negotiate and de-escalate before physical action. Hopefully through years of ‘civilised’ evolution this is what we should be doing.

I have found depending on how intellectually competent or comfortable a person is at mediating will normally determine how soon it may go to physical. Many individuals who think they are being outsmarted verbally will become like a cornered dog and will resort to answering you with a punch in the mouth.

 Most though don’t want to resort to violence and I suspect that is the way it has been since time began and will probably carry on that way. Their bark is usual more dangerous than their bite.

We are though the only species that kills for pleasure but normally from a fucking safe distance or when we are mob handed!

It is only when we have a big fuck off machine gun, Glock pistol or machete in our hands or have our finger on a button that we feel brave and that’s  providing that our enemy hasn’t got access to one of these things as well!

Keep safe and keep it real.Kevin.

Bring balance to your life.

Bring balance to your life

Part of my ‘winning minds’ programme

How balanced is your life? This is a big question. For most of us the answer is probably not very. We are all guilty of spending large portions of our time and energy on certain things and little or no time on others.

Some of us recognise this fact and promise ourselves that we will change and address this unbalance but never quite get around to it, whilst others are blissfully ignorant to the fact that their life is unbalanced to start with.

So what do I mean by unbalanced? Well for instant some individuals work becomes all consuming. They convince themselves that they are so busy that they couldn’t possibly have time for anything else in their lives. In fact the job takes them over and this is what they become identified with. People will comment. ‘There goes Dave he is a very successful salesman’.

So this is how ‘Dave’ is viewed. That will be ‘Dave’s epitaph.’ Here lies Dave a very successful businessman but a crap husband, father and son, but fuck me did he sold 1000’s of mobile phones’.

So how do people view you? Maybe more importantly how do you view you?

To seek true balance in our lives we have to view what Susanne Jeffers (author of the excellent, Feel the fear and do it anyway) calls a ’Whole life model’.

We might try all our lives to achieve this but if we don’t try we will have no chance of improving.

Firstly we have to do a bit of soul searching and admit to ourselves that some aspects of our life could be better and that it is probably down to you that they aren’t.

 A bitter pill to swallow but one that some stage in our life we will have to come to terms with rather than looking for excuses to why this part of our life is lacking. We can always blame other people or circumstances but when we cut through the crap it is usually down to us. Readdressing balance firstly calls for you to ‘give a shit’ and secondly to really want to do something about it. Read that sentence again and fully understand it.

Most of us are good at making the big statement, the promises, the New Year resolutions and then back down at the first hurdle. Why is this?

Because we really don’t have the desire or commitment to do whatever it is we said we were going to do. Or we look to address something easy to tackle in our lives rather than the real ‘bastard thing’ that we should be dealing with. We will attack our Ben Nevis but not our Everest!

Here is an example of a ‘Whole life’ model

Boxes are allocated for different areas of our lives. In this model the boxes are divided equally for clarity. How would your whole life model look addressing all of these areas? Draw it down now. Be brutally honest and see what you come up with.

Contribution	Hobby	Leisure
Family	Alone time	Personal growth
Work	Relationship	Friends

For most of us we might have a massive box for work and tiny one for family. Maybe alternatively you have a big box for friends and a little one for family.

In the above model some of the boxes may be nonexistent for you all together.

It can be a wake up call to many just how unbalanced their lives really are.

The usual answer when people are confronted by this is the defensive comment of I just don’t have time. Well make time. Life isn’t just about you, you, you. There are others to consider whether you like it or not and there are other issues to address apart from the ones you favour doing. Organisation is the key. To be organised you have to be disciplined.

The reality is you have to work at life. It just doesn’t happen. Every day we have to work at it. If you want to be a better you then it starts with you, stop making fucking excuses and blaming everybody and everything for your short comings in certain aspects of your live. Grow ups take responsibility. We reap what we sow.  How can we be so rich in one area of our lives and so poor in another? If you are successful in business but shit in relationships, what are you going to do about it? If you are popular with your friends but have no relationship with your children, what are you going to do about it? Blame somebody else? Harp on about how tough things are? No. You are going to blame yourself and then do something about it right now!

Here is ‘Mandy’s real life model. She is married to Steve. She loves him dearly and they do everything together. She has a small part time cleaning job and she likes to watch soap operas on TV in her ‘Me time’. Other than that she loves being with Steve.

RELATIONSHIP

WORK

ME TIME

A year ago Steve was diagnosed with cancer. Last month he sadly passed away. Here is ‘Mandy’s’ real life model now. Do you think it’s balanced? Did you think it was balanced before Steve’s death?

WORK

ME TIME

Can you see that both models of ‘Mandy’s life were unbalanced? There will certainly be aspects of your life that will take up a bigger share of your time but they shouldn’t become all consuming neither should they become the be all and end all.

Look at the celebrities, TV stars, film stars and music stars that seemed to have the ideal lifestyle. Money, riches and fame but were deeply unbalanced in other areas of their life’s. Think of George Best, Gazza, Mike Tyson, George Michael, Amy Winehouse, and Robin Williams as a few examples. They were rich in one part of their live, poor in another. All incredibly talented but their private lives  were a mess. Their whole life models were well out of balance.

I am not preaching here I work every day to achieve balance. Most of the time I do ok but I have had to work hard for this and do a lot of soul searching into my weaknesses. Also I had to learn to be unselfish and give time to others that needed it even when I wanted to be doing something for myself.

So it doesn’t matter if you are the fittest person on the planet, the most beautiful, the most talented, the richest, and the cleverest, if other areas of your live are crap. If you put as much energy or even a fraction of the energy into the crap areas as you put in to what you like doing you will notice the difference.

Not got the time? Then let me ask you this. How much time to you spend trolling through face book, twitter etc. How much time to you spend watching soap operas and reality TV? How much time do you spend procrastinating and talking crap? It’s amazing how people can be busy doing nothing.

If you wish to explore this more about this topic, then contact me about my ‘Winning minds’ programme.

Conflict  is inevitable...combat is optional

How we view the world will certainly affect the way we might approach our Martial Arts training.

If we are prepared to believe that there may be a threat on every street corner then our Martial Arts techniques will probably be different to a person who might view the world through rose-tinted glasses. The bottom line is that violence is ugly and unpalatable. There is nothing redeeming about it at all. Violence doesn’t solve anything but the reality is that on some occasions, violence is the only option left to us. Self defence is warfare in miniature. The rules are very much the same.

If a country decides to go to war then usually they have exhausted all other options before they resort to bloodshed. They know if they take this final option that no matter what happens, there will be consequences and repercussions to their actions.

When it comes to personal defence, it is no different. If you train in a combat system and become proficient in it then you carry a great responsibility in how and when you might use it.

In this day and age, we can encounter conflict almost anywhere.

If you for instance socialise in the city centre pubs and clubs, conflict and violence may be higher on the menu than if you drink in a quiet country pub.

But we cannot be so naive to think that we are a 100% safe wherever we go.

Danger and violence can suddenly explode from the most unexpected sources and when it does, we have to be prepared to deal with it.

Firstly, cerebral self defence is better than physical. If you practise Martial Arts for self defence purposes and you are only training the physical aspects, then you have a problem. If your first line of self defence is punching somebody in the mouth, then you better start searching for other options quickly.

I am amazed that a lot of good Martial Artists cannot use sound tactical verbal dialogue to diffuse a potentially violent situation. Because they are confident in their physical skills, they will wade into a situation in an aggressive or confrontational manner as if looking for the excuse to unload their favourite technique.

Now if you are really good at the right cross, elbow strike, kick or choke, unless it is justified, you will be putting your Martial Arts skills to daily practice in the shower of one of her HMS prisons.

When we look at our forces, police and security world they all have very good physical training but their first options are to always diffuse and negotiate. They will do everything to try and reach a peaceful conclusion. If this is not to be, they will then judge their response on the threat level they are facing. In the case of the police, do they move from negotiation to assertion to restraint to cuffing or do they deem the use of CS gas or the ASP baton? Circumstances will dictate their actions. They are trained to make the right decisions. We as Martial Artists should also be trained and skilled to make the right decisions.

It is not always easy but if you are serious about your training, you must do this.

Remember, physical response is always the last option. I know as a young man in my twenties training in some pretty hardcore stuff, I was walking around like a ticking time bomb daring for somebody to kick off so I could use my new found and hard earned skills. That was a dangerous thing to do.

As I got older and had a wife and children to think about, suddenly I was more wary of losing my liberty to some meaningless fight.

Although I would ferociously defend my family to the death, I wasn’t going out of my way to court conflict. Instead, I started to avoid it.

The more I practised Martial Arts and the better I got at it, the more reluctant I was to use it outside of the controlled arena.

In fact, I got to the stage when after testing myself thousands of times in the controlled arena; I got to even dislike hurting somebody in training.

I realise a lot of these things come with age. We all learn by our mistakes.

Now in my mid- fifties, I still train and teach but outside of this violence doesn’t interest me. It no longer excites me. I don’t watch many DVDs now on fighting or MMA etc because I have done them to the death. Martial Arts/Self protection is my job and has been a massive part of my life.

If I get a person come to me for training, I will try and teach the principles the right way, building layers of self protection skills, tactics and strategies before we get too the physical.

I will impress upon the individual this really is the last straw. It is like pulling a firearm out and cocking the trigger preparing to fire. There is no going back.

In this instance, if you need to know the most vicious and potentially lethal response to a life threatening situation, I will show you them because now you will have justification on your side.

Over my 40 + years in Martial Arts, I have unashamedly, hunted down and trained the most destructive methods of how to inflict pain on another human being with and without weapons. I have made a life time crusade out of it. I got very good and very knowledgeable at it.

Violence doesn’t frighten me anymore but I don’t like it and will go the extra mile to avoid it because nobody wins a fight.

As an instructor or serious student of Martial Arts, I feel this should be your first priority. It is the right approach and the professional approach. Being prepared to fight is different than wanting to fight. Don’t ever mistake kindness for weakness. Some of the kindest people I know can be absolute monsters if pushed to the ‘dark side.’

We don’t have to walk around dragging our knuckles, snarling and wearing the fight T shirt to be true warriors.

When it comes to using violence we will be guided by the legal law of the land but also our ethics, morals, beliefs and codes. These will differ with each individual in what they believe is right or wrong or acceptable. Be aware and respectful of this.

As president Roosevelt once said, “Walk softly and carry a big stick.”

Remember, sometimes conflict may be inevitable but combat isn’t.

Peace.

Kevin O’ Hagan