A Change of Strategy (diary entry)

10.05.15 This double session was completely orientated towards Western Boxing for martial arts cross-training. My client was especially interested in using the striking nature of Boxing to improve his aggression in fighting arts. Recently at a Judo tournament, my client remarked that he had been too passive and defensive and hadn’t taken enough advantages of situations. Having a history in Boxing, as well as other marital arts, my client believed that Boxing always brought the proactive sense of attacking out in his combat personality. The subject of personality in combat is about as complex as the subject of personality in society. The Boxing coach, Tommy Thompson of TVP Boxing Concepts, believed that a person’s style in the ring was most efficient if was a natural extension of their true character. It’s an interesting discussion. Often how a person fights is quite different to the way they act outside of the arena in public. However, as we have seen many times, a person’s character in public might be quite different to how they are at home. The pressure of combat, whatever form it takes, tends to boil everything down to basic honest components. A person’s personality might not always reflect the tactics they use. The physical world gives us certain harsh limitations and a successful person tends to learn how to negotiate, meld and work around these limitations. My client usually faces taller opponents. However, he has been trained to make distance and has adopted a defensive style. The former might be an example of the way many martial arts teachers do not take into consideration individual strengths and weaknesses, and generally try to fit everyone into a single style. To be straight about this matter, everyone should be taught how to make and maintain distance, but it has a context. Civilian self-defence, for example, is normally geared towards survival and therefore making enough distance to facilitate an escape. As I have said on many occasions, the counter-assault situation has a different dynamic to a “match” fight. Within a “match” fight even the most effective aggressive fighters will need to create some amount of distance, even when they are in the flow of a successful assault. This latter point was highlighted in my second lesson of the day. However, a shorter fighter has a lot of work to do and risks a lot if he decides defensive fighting/counter-punching is going to be his overall strategy. He will have to draw his longer armed opponent in very close whilst battering away his attacks with lightning speed. An opponent with a reach advantage is better placed in such a situation to pick off his shots and maintain distance. My client had recognized his defensive, distancing play had not served him well in recent times and therefore, we worked on getting him on the front foot. Training was broken up into the following areas:

• Agility drills, focusing on cutting across an opponent.

• Heavy bag drills, focusing timing.

• Partner drills (head guard and belly pad on the coach) with a specific emphasis on engaging an opponent using the movement drills from the previous two exercises

• Developing the peek-a-boo guard in order to build confidence and get closer to a long range fighter.

• Fighting from a corner. This area got to the underlying psychology of my client’s problems. The corner forces a fighter to engage and advance at close range.

• Three rounds of proactive focus mitt work: attack, defence and attack/defence.

  Photography by Charlotte Von Bulow Quirk. Tony Hughes, chief instructor of K.S.C.K.M, as featured in my book "Mordred's Victory and Other Martial Mutterings".