February 25, 2012
I started at Karate-Kung Fu at a paid club at age of seventeen but after two years realized that Kata and much of what was being taught was not much practical good to me in the context of self-defence, a street fight, or against weapons. I was never interested at all in any of the spiritual aspects of the martial arts, so any hyper-fundamentalist at this point can take a chill pill. As well the club I joined divorced this from its practices.
So, having been provided some basic knowledge, I quit classes after two years and spent years with martial arts bag work and sparred with a few friends over the years to develop my skills. I did significantly improve. I also read on the martial arts and bought videos. I studied off of the internet. I realized that to avoid weapons defence training as an aspect of self-defence was unwise and so I trained with mock knives as part of sparring. In fact a friend was stabbed with a stick in the hand on one occasion... A minor wound. He told me this training may have saved him in a knife incident at work years later. There was evidence that I was improving over the years.
In Greater Manchester (1999-2001) in the beginning of my PhD studies I was burgled twice and I got myself out of a couple of potential fights by standing up to hoodlums, which are quite common in Northern England, sad to state. The first time I was burgled I was back home in BC, Canada for Christmas and all my electronic equipment was stolen. The second time, I wisely stored everything with a friend, accept for a couple things I forgot. At the location I was burgled the second time and where I lived where I was attacked, which I shall describe shortly, a neighbour was actually murdered. Apparently a person or person tied this man to a chair, beat him to death, took nothing and left the door of his flat wide open for all to see.
The rumour was that this man had been having affairs with underage girls which would be easy to believe from all the teen mothers that could be viewed in the area, but the grocers that knew the man stated he was clean and that the murder was for another reason, perhaps random reason.
Anyway, Uncle Chuck and I were in Downtown Manchester, Decemeber 2000 and were attacked by three men that I later realized were part of a pack of approximately thirty men, some were drunk. I ended up fighting three and was winning the fights on points but due to my conservative approach, because I did not want to get stabbed by turning my back on one of them (assuming they could have knives or screwdrivers), did not go in harder to knock one of them out or at that time have the knowledge I do now concerning choking them out, or was as used to throwing someone to the ground as I would be now, and therefore in frustration to save face one of them called me a an 'f' er' and threw a bottle at me from a distance (as I had clocked him with a severe round house kick and punches and he had left) and it hit me in the nose breaking it and two of my front teeth.
This actually made my sleep apnea go from two stage (born with) to three stage. Thankfully this is quite a bit better with treatment and will never be that bad again.
The lessons.
The Karate/Kung Fu class only served me with basics. The bag work only served me with the basics. The best and more advanced martial arts work I have done is to take the basic physics of punching, kicking, choking, holds, and basic take downs, and to apply them to street fighting offence and defence, including weapons. This was done in the context of sparring as well. I would also strongly suggest that persons arm themselves within the rules of the law. I won the fights in Manchester on points, but I should have fought more offensively and attempted to take the three guys out and perhaps I would not have been bottled. But, even then I still could have faced thirty more men.
Sometimes the use of a weapon or weapons, within the rules of the law is the best answer for a reasonable chance of survival.
I realize I have a fair amount of female readers and Blogger has mainly female members, and I would advise females to learn self-defence, and martial arts and to also arm themselves within the limits of the law.
I am not sure if Art Martial has anything to do with this post.
My photo 1: These are the metal clubs I use at home to practice with and I also use these during sparring sessions. I also use a metal baseball bat, wood club and purchased legally a Swiss Army Knife that is used with the blade retracted for sparring purposes.
My photo 2: Uncle Chuck
My photo 3: Zombie with a six pack...
