The Harsh Reality of Teaching Self Defense – The Martial Art Instructors Duty Continued.

Introduction

Martial arts instructors have a responsibility to show all the different sides of martial arts to their students, including the dark side.

When I say dark side of martial arts I don’t mean an ethereal star wars force, unfortunately. I am referring to the brutal reality of fighting.

A lot of instructors (including myself) have used the term ‘self-defence’ to describe the part of the lesson or martial art that is most prevalent in street fighting, mainly due to the connotations that it suggests. No instructor wants their school to be affiliated with street fighting, as one of the biggest lessons in martial arts is to avoid violence. That being said, the harsh reality is that the instructor has to teach the student how to defend themselves from people that try to attack or fight them, whether it be on the street, in a night club, at school, or in a park.

The Controlled Environment

Training in Martial arts has many positive effects ranging from confidence, fitness, improved co-ordination and discipline, plus many other benefits. With all positives there must be negatives (like having to wash sweaty uniforms after a hard training session).

At its heart, the biggest negative is that the instructor has to teach their students how to hurt people, although in a controlled environment, so if they were to be attacked, they could ‘defend’ themselves. As an instructor I cannot think of an effective and practical way to stop an attack without hurting the attacker, no matter how humane or non-violent it is. If you strike, throw, or lock up an attacker you have to inflict pain or incapacitate them to stop the assault. You may be thinking that if they attack you whoever ‘they’ are, they deserve everything they get, and you may be right, but you have to address the reality that learning martial arts is also learning how to inflict pain on other people. A good martial arts instructor needs to address that fact with all that it entails including the use of restraint (not pilling in) to keep within the law. They must teach practical techniques that have been pressure tested to ensure effectiveness in all situations.

Not on TV

Real fighting is ugly and shocking; there is no etiquette, social graces, or rules. Attackers don’t care about your wellbeing, and some might not even care if you survive. On the street, anything goes: hair pulling, stamping, eye gouging, low blows, and stabbing in extreme cases.

One of the main reasons people turn to martial arts is for self-defence and to feel safe at all times where some of them have already been victims of attacks in the past so they know how ugly and nasty being attacked is. It is the people that have only been exposed to violence in T.V. and movies that get uncomfortable when they get taught things like finger jabs, choke holds, or ground fighting, but how can they defend against these attacks if they don’t get exposed to them. You can’t learn a counter or defence for an attack if you don’t know the attack exists. This is why martial arts instructor needs to show the grim reality of ‘self-defence’, no matter how uncomfortable the student is with real violence, they need to have some basic understanding of it if they ever need to use it in defence.

I’m not saying all students need this instruction, children and some students with learning difficulties, should be taught with restraint and sensitivity. They need to be able to avoid conflict, by being confident to put off possible attackers picking them as a target, but is up to the instructors judgement.

On the other side of the coin, how much knowledge is too much?

Too much Knowledge?

For example, at what point – if at all – should the instructor teach techniques that kill?

How can the instructor truly know if these techniques work in pressure situations if they have never really used them unless having served as a member of a unit that has had to act out of duty.

What if a student gets attacked and tries a technique, that doesn’t work and ends up getting really hurt.

If a student uses such techniques and kills a person in self-defence, how much responsibility lies on the instructor’s shoulders?

Although in order to be able to defend such situations you need to have an understanding of them.

These situations may seem extreme (which they should), but they do represent the darker side of martial arts training that all practitioners must seriously think about, to be a responsible person training in the martial arts (this is especially prevalent to people instructing the arts).

Martial arts practitioners should show respect to where they train, their instructor, other students, and everybody else. Showing respect is engrained in martial arts and East Asian culture. As it should be everywhere, but sadly isn’t the case.

I would like to say the practice of showing respect to everyone was because people just wanted to be nice to each other, but as you know everything comes from necessity in this world.

Back in the day in feudal Asia if you offended the wrong person, they might kill you for it, because as skilled as you might be at fighting ‘they’ might be better.

It is a sad fact that due to the nastier side of human nature, martial arts was created – A means to effectively beat opponents in combat. The point that there was and still is a need to learn ways to hurt each other is a sad reflection on mankind.

That being said, the ability to defend the defenceless, to be confident in yourself, to be able to avoid or safely dissolve confrontations, are great positives that derive from training in martial arts.

By Louis Tandoh Chief Instructor of Family Martial Arts Gravesend

A student said to his master “you teach me fighting but you talk about peace. How do you reconcile the two” the master replied “It is better to be a warrior in a garden, than to be a gardener in a war”

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