Seize the initiative in battle and you will win
The advantage of the combat system is not the elements of movement themselves, but the methods of their combination, which are practically forgotten in sports today. A person is not experienced enough, or an athlete who studies the art as a set of separate techniques, as a rule, can perform about a dozen or a half out of several hundred known to him in battle. A supporter of the system approach, based on a dozen basic schemes in battle, creates a completely unique motor improvisation, and, without even noticing it, can paradoxically combine in it the secrets of different schools, about which he has no idea.
Such differences appear at the very beginning: it is enough to concentrate on the correctness of practicing and mutual execution of complex elements of basic trajectory schemes.
The structure of the action provides the variety necessary for the unpredictability of actions - it appears due to the shift of accents, variation of body positions, and sometimes due to the deliberate violation of the motor stereotype, if the opponent has managed to adapt to it. The technical basis of the action remains the same, but its appearance becomes so unrecognizable that it forces you to create a new counterprogram.
A very important feature of the system is the maximum compatibility of its elements. If the fight is built on learned combinations, then it is quite easy for the opponent to calculate their development and "put a spoke in your wheels". But if after any element you can perform any other without any particular difficulties, then it is much more difficult to predict the development of your attack.
Despite this external uncertainty, the fight of a good master is always distinguished by rationality and beauty. Correct action cannot but be beautiful – because beauty is nothing but complex correctness, completeness, when the systemic properties of the whole are many times superior to the properties of individual parts.
Remember: no system will work if its parts are not mutually adjusted and repeatedly tested. Its combat suitability depends on the degree of mastery of the technique. And here the methodology encounters the fact that the selection of mandatory schemes to be studied as their complexity increases does not always ensure the full execution of the techniques. For example, there is no point in learning a kick in a jump after it has already been learned in a stance - now the fighter simply will not perform jump strikes in battle, because the main strike he has learned from a stance is easier and faster for him. Moreover, the fighter is now learning to strike in motion with great force - he strikes only from a standstill. So the basic simplified version blocks the path to further improvement. Similarly, one should not study hard work before soft work; a person, already enslaved by his incompetence, will be additionally enslaved by the hardness of the technique. His movement will acquire discontinuity, convulsions, which will break not only combinations, but even composite blows into separate fragments. In other words, the elements will lose the ability to deform and adjust to each other, and only they are able to transform their confusion into a single stroke of the technique. The fighter himself will remain able to feel the nature of the movement and its internal possibilities. For example, many do not see that a reverse direct blow with a fist and a front kick is essentially the same movement.
So, a personal combat system has a very branched structure. At first, it is necessary not to overload yourself with knowledge, but to diligently work out the basics. Then in the future you will easily perceive the neglected, more minor features of the technique or even discover them on your own, which will be the most valuable experience for your practice.
Principles of seizing the initiative - "three gates"
Even knowing how to perform a certain blow, and even having trained in the gym on dummies, groups and a stationary partner in conditions that more or less fit the definition of "real fight", we are faced with the fact that we are unable to perform a seemingly reliable reception due to the fact that the opponent is standing a little differently than we would like. Naturally, he will always try to stand like this, since he is completely uninterested in your benefit. The most favorable moment for performing a reception (strike) occurs when the opponent is forced to change position. It is in this short moment between two reliable "trenchments" that your actions will be most effective. Of course, if we do not control the opponent, the movement of his center of gravity, do not create a permanent breach in his defense, do not catch him by surprise, then it will be very difficult to use these vulnerable moments - after all, everyone strives to make the necessary transition as quickly as possible, to minimize the danger.
How to catch this moment? All martial artists struggle with this task, and their place in the "rankings table" depends on how successfully they solve it. The very first task is to limit the opponent's mobility. As a rule, an attack on the enemy's leg is used to solve it. The attack should be fleeting, serve both to firmly fix the opponent and to support him (like a monkey jumping on branches), and stop immediately after you complete your attack. If you delay the attack longer than necessary, it will play into the opponent's hands, especially if he surpasses you in size. Remember one of the most important rules of combat: "The main thing is not who runs around whom and who throws whom, but who in the process of mutual movement is in the most advantageous position for carrying out the next attack, the most dangerous for the opponent and the least dangerous for him." By maintaining control over the situation, you can always find a suitable way out. You can reveal your opponent and penetrate his defense in three ways, which are usually called the "three gates".
I. Gate - control
Balance, or rather, control over the movement of your own body is the most important condition for performing any technical action in any fighting style. Therefore, when entering into a clash with an opponent, you must constantly maintain control over your movements. This is achieved by practicing "shadow fighting" and slow-motion sparring with a partner. Movements should be easy, natural, but at any point in their trajectory you must be ready to perform a lightning-fast energy release, instantly increasing your speed and strength dozens of times. It is obvious that if you reject or stop the course of any technique, the release will not reach the goal, that is, the effectiveness of the action will decrease to zero. The same result can be obtained by forcing the opponent to perform his actions from an uncomfortable position. That is, it is necessary to adhere to the basic rule: the winner is not the one who moves better, but the one who hinders his opponent more effectively. Therefore, in a fight, it is more profitable to constantly approach the opponent, not giving him the opportunity to swing or maneuver, to tie his hands, step on his feet, trying to penetrate the "dead zones", first of all - to go behind the back, where the opponent is not able to fully hit you.
Improving his skill, the fighter gets the opportunity to perform more free actions. He no longer has to maintain constant contact with the opponent in order to control his movement. It is enough to make a precisely calculated jerk or push at a convenient moment to give the opponent's body a movement that is disadvantageous for him, to make him lose balance. Without a solid support, only some masters are able to perform effective combat actions, and even then they are forced to add the necessary force to the movement, to adjust its direction, because what is beneficial to you is not beneficial to the opponent. A person who has lost his balance and has not found a new point of support - static or dynamic - is helpless and weak, like a child. Of course, much is determined by the degree of his skill, but, one way or another, you can always attack him faster than he can defend himself or respond. Thus, it is enough to give the opponent's body an uncontrolled movement with a push, a jerk, a blow to find himself in a position convenient for a counter-counterattack, which he will not be able to repel. The opponent's body at this moment is most often "floating" in the air, and the slightest impulse is enough to force him to change the direction of movement. That is, you can "support" him with blows for as long as you like. As a result, a person loses orientation and the ability to coordinate their actions. Obviously, everyone will try to regain control over their body movements as soon as possible. An experienced master in this situation is able to relax, "lie down" on the flow of energy, waiting for a convenient moment - but the vast majority of people, trying to restore balance, "go into themselves", are distracted by external phenomena. A person in this state looks, but does not see, feels, but does not realize, his body becomes numb, movements slow down. That is why it is advantageous to strike "flying in", it does not matter towards or after - in any case, the effect will be stunning. The opponent's will will be broken, psychological balance is disturbed - in such cases, many faint precisely from this, and not from the force of the blow.
By establishing control over the opponent's movements through the first gate, we, without even bypassing him, get the opportunity to double our blow, "training" the opponent on it or simply leaving him the opportunity to extinguish the force of the blow with slopes.
It is worth noting that, entering the first gate, we use different blows. The main task is to "maintain" the opponent in a "suspended" state for as long as possible, which allows us to inflict new blows on him without obstacles. You should not count on the fact that you will be able to cope with one blow - as a rule, it turns out to be not enough.
II. Gate - pain
Any technique that does not cause significant damage to the opponent will sooner or later lead to defeat - yes, the opponent, getting hit again and again, can only get even more furious and, seizing the moment, carry out his attack. In a fight with a group of "toothless" tactics will lead to the death of the fighter - then it is better to just stand and not resist - they may regret it and not hit hard. As a rule, this is exactly what people who surrender to opponents without a fight think and do - they are simply not sure that their counterattack can be effective. If a person has devoted enough time to setting himself at least one reliable blow and tested it on a person, striking at various vulnerable points, then having found psychological readiness, he has the right to count on success - even if all his practice is limited to hitting the bag.
A person is designed in such a way that, experiencing severe pain, he loses the ability to adjust and control his actions. Naturally, after a few seconds he adapts to the pain and to some extent restores his fighting ability - depending on how serious the injury is. But in these few seconds he is almost unable to defend himself - use this moment for your attacks.
I would especially like to note that first of all it is worth hitting not vital organs (heart, liver, throat), but vulnerable areas (joints, nerve nodes) of the arms and legs. Hitting the body right away is the same as trying to rob a bank without taking the guard away - it is almost useless. It is also useless to use blocks in sports karate: if the arm is not "killed", it will attack again and again. By "killing" the opponent's leg, we deprive him not only of the opportunity to fight, but also of standing and walking. Having "killed" the arm, we open up a free zone of defeat for ourselves, freely showering blows on the unprotected side, and twisting the affected limb as it hits, we can easily control even a much more massive opponent.
First of all, for a successful entry into the second gate, it is necessary to completely throw out the word "defense" from our minds. No, you are not defending yourself - you are attacking - the only difference is that the target for the attack is "given" to you by the opponent himself. Use the counter movement - this is the easiest option. Invest in it completely - double the force of his attack, it will easily crush the biceps of any athlete. The result will be as if his arm had been cut off, many are not even able to stay on their feet. This is much more humane than hitting, for example, in the liver or heart. The person will remain healthy, and the limb will heal quite quickly. Having damaged a serious organ, we risk leaving it sick for life. A blow to the limb, in addition, can be delivered from a much greater distance than that required for an attack on the head or body, thus, you can start the fight half a meter earlier than your opponent, who, due to the formed habit, wants to hit the body or head.
There is another advantageous opportunity - with a blow to the leg, "take away the strength" from the attacking hands. The fact is that, distracting the opponent's attention from his blow, we thereby deprive the blow of the necessary energy. Pain is a clot of uncontrollable energy that clogs the channel. Natural circulation is disrupted, all forces are thrown at identifying damage and urgent repair. Other "battle posts" at this time are sitting on a hungry "emergency" energy ration. Moreover, the limb below the painful node receives practically nothing at all - after all, the channel is blocked. Coping with pain, the body includes all reserves. The sore spot is shaken, rubbed, stroked, squeezed in the hands, conducting a kind of "massage" of an artificial wave of energy, "washing" the channel and "dissolving" the pain. When a painful blow to the body, a person convulsively bends or arches, jumps or rolls on the ground. This is an involuntary reaction. The body always reacts the same way - and an experienced fighter, delivering precisely calculated blows, easily "turns" and "bends" the opponent as he pleases. At the moment of pain, a person looks again, but does not see, feels, but does not realize. He is all occupied with his pain. You have a free fraction of a second - give him another blow - and you will continue this time until he surrenders, or you deliver a decisive blow to him. An attack on the limb that performs the blow will also create fear, an unwillingness to strike again with the hand that has been "burned". In addition, an experienced fighter, while simultaneously executing a blocking blow or a parry, immediately counterattacks in the body or face, taking advantage of the fact that the opponent's hand on this side has lost its protective potential, having "gone" to his attack. That is, a counterattack on the oncoming movement strikes at the moment when he makes a throw in his blow. The shocking effect of such an encounter is very great - the collapse of the body occurs instantly. Keeping a person on the painful threshold, it is very easy to throw him off balance, thereby opening the very first gate. In fact, it is rare to find an entrance through any one gate: having opened one, we immediately try to enter through the others - as happens during a real siege of a fortress, when the stormers try to attack the besieged from all sides.
III. Gate - unpredictability and hiddenness
If the opponent is able to guess your actions, he will easily use any of your moves against you. Depriving him of this opportunity, we force him to go on the defensive, to reduce his actions to a minimum, that is, to actually give up aggression.
Here it will not be superfluous to remind that entering these three gates is not a "magic tool" that ensures unconditional victory - it is a reliable means to seize the initiative, but nothing more. Keeping the initiative is your problem. In the third gate, the most important factors are the obscurity, the uncertainty of the basic technique and the originality of its use. That is, the techniques practiced in advance should not be recognized until the very moment of execution, only then the form takes its canonical form, forming the necessary for the manifestation of a rigid structure, while the trajectory of the delivery of the blow to the target is not of great importance. Therefore, the classic external corkscrew punch, which looked like a combat punch in the delivery phase, is carried out along the center line, and the push, which looked exactly like an arc punch inside, turns out to be a pendulum punch from the inside. But such a form as a feint turns out to be quite a risky game in a real fight: while you are pretending to make a fake attack, you can run into a real counterattack. Raising one hand while striking with the other is another matter. The blow should not be determined in advance. If the fighter himself does not know what kind of influence he will now perform, how can the opponent find out? Therefore, in each movement, a large number of options for its development are initially laid out in order to bypass the defense and hit the target without reducing the speed of movement. These possibilities are provided by working on the principle of the "floating hand", when the main movements are carried out by the body and the hand, keeping the elbow in a semi-bent position, ready for instant flexion-extension. Due to this reserve, the necessary correction of the impact trajectory takes place.
Of great importance for entering the third gate is the free, mutually independent work of the limbs, which rests on a single impulse of the body that initiates the attack. An ordinary person is not able to move his limbs independently of each other (this ability is achieved by exercises with hoops) and therefore is unable to react effectively if an attack is made simultaneously with even two, let alone an attack with three or more impact zones (sometimes highly qualified athletes managed to engage up to 7 zones at the same time). And if the repeated strike method is also used, at least one of them is guaranteed to hit the target. It is at the moment of impact that it must acquire hardness - this is why exercises for the development of hypersensitivity are practiced. The hand itself must decide whether to "invest" in the blow or not, but it's never enough to use the mind for reference. Having brought the opponent to the fast mode, we leave him the opportunity to adjust the course of the battle consciously. The battle will be fought on an unconscious level. Here, the preliminary meditative working out of movements and ways of their mutual transformations, designed to endow the limbs with their own sensitivity, one can even say - with their own consciousness, acquires great importance. The voluminous universal structure of movements also increases variability, while the movement capabilities of most people trained in "external" schools fall to the "lizard" level. In this state, the "external" fighter is completely at the mercy of tried-and-tested combinations and completely loses the possibility of improvisations and feints. His movements, despite the speed, are easily recognized, and the ability to perceive is sharply reduced. It is enough to turn from the path paved by them and you will see how formidable blows cut the air where you are no longer there. But to work at high speed requires a lot of practical experience. Jumps, slopes, changing combat levels are another aspect of the third gate. As a rule, the majority of fighters are currently training according to several fairly close systems. Facing an experienced fighter on the street, people get lost, unable to quickly adjust their motor program - and lose the initiative, that is, they open the third gate. Thus, the blow reaches the target almost unnoticed and therefore has a strong effect that shocks.
The "trap" option is also effective, when the opponent is "tempted" by a specially created gap in the defense in order to attack his striking limb with the full force of his counterattack or to slip into the goal under its cover. A variation of the trap can be considered an exchange, when the opponent is allowed to strike, counterattacking him in a vital organ. This tactic is used against an experienced and cautious opponent in a situation where it is more profitable to sacrifice a pawn than to get a checkmate. By connecting and combining influences in all three gates, we are able to dominate the combat space without obstacles, even if the opponent slightly surpasses us in strength, height, speed and skill. Your task is to prevent him from taking advantage of these advantages.
If you want to be invincible, never put yourself on the same terms with your opponent. Let him always be uncomfortable fighting you. Mastery is not about outdoing your opponent - a true master tries to lure him into a position in which he feels most confident. For example, masters of the Brazilian family style Gracie Jiu-Jitsu say that 95% of street fights end in a fight on the ground. In addition, many representatives of striking styles, being excellent fighters, do not even know how to fall correctly. They simply end the fight much earlier. Taekwondo and Tan-Sudo, famous for their large number of kicks, prefer to fight at a long distance. Chinese Wing Chun seeks to impose close combat. As the saying goes: "every sandpiper praises his swamp". From this we must conclude: "to be invincible, you need your own swamp, where you know every bump, and the opponent will immediately drown, making the slightest wrong step." Let's look around, if we don't have a living example of this tactic before our eyes. So here he (the spider), in a corner, is wrapping up another fly. No, he is not fighting, he is having dinner. He is not chasing prey, he is waiting for it in his corner. Here is your first lesson - it is always necessary to know your place in this world and in this life.
If a person competed with a horse in running speed, and with an elephant in lifting weights, he would always lose. The reason why a person manages to subdue both a horse and an elephant is that a person never arranges such competitions. For him, the speed of a horse and the strength of an elephant are not a challenge, and do not force him to grow hooves or a trunk. A person simply uses the speed of a horse and the strength of elephants, harnessing them to his carts and forcing them to carry loads. That is, in order to use their strength, a person deprives them of their will, binds them. Look at the spider. Deftly dodging the formidable sting, it leisurely binds the bee with its sticky thread. Deprive the opponent of the opportunity to use his strength and speed, and he will be in your hands.
There is another way to break through the opponent's defense, which is used by more experienced fighters, which is that they break through with their counterattack and into the dead zone located near the opponent's chest, "wedge" into it. The fighter counts on the fact that a powerful series of his blows will affect the most vulnerable places located on the opponent's midline (solar plexus...). Such an attack can be launched only by a person who is confident in the striking power and speed of his blows. Here the fighter gains the advantage that by "entering" the opponent, he is more or less protected from attacks.