For years I have listened to “experts” in martial arts and self defense tell people that if they are attacked and they apply what they are being taught, it will work. The fact is that many of the “experts” don’t really know if they can apply what they are teaching.  Oh sure, they are high ranking martial artists or maybe they have a great resume, but have they ever had to apply what they teach in a real situation?

I have tried to talk to experts about heart rate and motor skills. When I try to explain to them that certain things they teach, like poking someone in the eyes, won’t work, the common response I get is, “it will if you practice”.  That’s partially true. Poking someone in the eyes is a fine motor skill and that skill deteriorates when you are faced with a situation where you think your physical demise is at risk. Or in other words you think you are going to get hurt or killed.  You see, a part of your nervous system, called the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS), kicks in causing your heart rate to go up and your motor skills to go down. If you haven’t practiced your technique in a situation that causes your SNS to kick in then you don’t know how you will react. Unfortunately, the only way to cause this to happen is to train in situations that if you aren’t successful you get hit. That adds realism to your training. When you train like that then you know the result of failure is pain, and in some situations injury. The pro to that type of training is that it prepares you for real combat as much as any training can. The con is you can get hurt. People will do more to avoid pain than they will to seek pleasure and because of this they won’t train. Not the way they need to train to know how they will perform in a real situation.

The way I see it, if you aren’t willing to accept pain in your training then you are just exercising. No man can attest to his courage unless he has been in battle. Now it wouldn’t be prudent to go and seek battle. Not sure it would be legal either. However, you can help yourself know how you would perform by putting your sheepish nature aside and get hit.