Hard Skills
As a lifelong martial artist, I’ve seen many techniques and combinations which look fantastic in the dojo but are impractical in a real fight. But how would you know what works and what doesn’t if you’ve never had a real fight? It’s a hard choice to make when looking to put your trust in an instructor who can teach you how to defend yourself. Many self-defence instructors have a background in martial arts and teach self-defence as an extension of their chosen MA. But violence comes in all shapes and sizes and it’s difficult to find the answer to every situation in one style of MA.
Most SD instructors all agree on one principle – keep it simple, especially to start with. So, those flashy, high, spinning kicks you saw in the Cobra Kai series probably won’t work in a real fight whereas fast, low kicks are proven to work.
I believe that good footwork and upper body movement is essential if you are to evade an attacker’s strikes. Learning some basic jujitsu and aikido techniques to break free of grabs and holds will also help if your footwork lets you down.
It’s also important to know where to strike to cause the maximum amount of pain and discomfort to your attacker. Our bodies have areas which are more delicate than others. An example of this is punches to the head.
The old bare-knuckle boxers avoided punching to the top of their opponent’s head (the skull is a hard bone) as this could result in a broken hand. But just a few inches below there are soft tissue areas with extremely delicate areas like the eyes, nose and mouth.
Our Level 1 Introduction to Self-Defence workshop teaches some simple, basic hand strikes, elbows, knees and low kicks using focus mitts and kick shields. To be effective, these need to be drilled regularly.
Our Level 2 Advanced Fighting workshop teaches how to use basic and advanced strikes on a person (with control). We also cover the importance of having a good level of fitness for self-defence. Fights sometimes go to the floor so we teach groundwork skills to help you escape from this scenario.
