In the last few posts we have been discussing the supreme importance of “balance” and “stability” as it relates to self defense. Balance is so critical to all human athletic performance that it is often and paradoxically glossed over or taken for granted. In other words, many “pseudo-experts” and well-meaning instructors alike cannot see the most important tree because of the forest. There are so many conflicting theories and approaches to self-defense that it is easy to get side tracked by the physical techniques and methods (not to mention our o’l unfounded opinions and baseless assertions) and miss what they all have in common. In other words, we can’t ignore the universal principles that govern all human performance which includes interpersonal physical conflict.
No physical self defense technique can function if your body is not functioning and your body can not function if it is being destabilized. Therefore, it is not always a case of this or that technique being “no good” or “doesn’t work”, you simply may not get the opportunity to use them or apply them properly if you are being moved around and severely destabilized.
Hence, this is why “balance” is our first principle of Jiu-jitsu and something we must be completely conscious off and jealously guarding it, in any training or fighting situation. It is absolutely, positively not something you can take for granted and just assume it is going to be there because you don’t notice its loss until another force other than gravity is unexpectedly exerted on you. Being able to deal with these disrupting forces, whether they come in the form of slippery streets, punches, grabs, holds or tackles is the essence of the kind of human performance we call self-defense.
This is perhaps the biggest single flaw in the thinking of most “pseudo-experts’” approaches to self defense. To just assume that you, as a victim of violence or the defender, are always going to be in a state of balance is simply moronic. Yet, it is laughably common to see even high profile instructors talking in ways and demonstrating “defenses” that either ignores the problem and pretends it does not exist or, worse yet, are truly oblivious to it. This is what I meant by, “The Art of Maximum Deficiency”, which was a tongue in cheek title of my dissertation long post on what I call the “rough and tough” style self-defense.
Many “pseudo-experts’’ and the well-meaning alike talk about “simplifying” self-defense and I agree, we should make self-defense as simple to learn as possible. However, “simplifying” something and making it “deficient” are two very different things. Ignoring the most important factors in basic human athletic performance that affect the outcome of a self-defense encounter is not making self-defense “simple” it is making it “deficient”…and I guess that means the people advocating these methods are…mentally deficient.
I kid you not; this kind of obtuseness is rampant and should be a major red-flag signaling a true “pseudo-expert” for what he is. I have seen one “master” recently on YouTube, grossly obsess as usual, mouthing off about “the myths” of self defense. One of these “myths” he asserted, was that you need to learn Jiu-jitsu style wrist hold escapes. “No you don’t” he yammered as his bloated belly giggled, “that stuff is just stupid, it’s just a myth”. Instead, his defense was to move his lard coated arm in the air, in the direction of the stand-in “attacker”. I guess he was doing the usual pantomime of pretending to strike the attacker who is accommodatingly standing there doing nothing but waiting and letting him move his arm in the air…I mean “strike” him.
As I have described before, his “non-myth” based defense is to pretend to hit someone pretending to be an attacker, who then let’s go of your wrist because of the pretend pain he is pretending to feel from the pretend strike. Man, I for one was certainly relieved that he finely dispelled that “myth” for me…I hope he posts a defense for alien abduction next…I still have a hard time with that one.
Another equally delusional but at least fitter “expert” that I came across, was using the same scenario of a wrist hold and actually said something like: “what is he going to do with your wrist, squeeze you to death with it?” I was stunned; I have heard a lot of stupid stuff come out of the usually slack jaws of corpulent pseudo-experts but this kind of absurdity verges on professional malpractice.
Has no ten year old child ever pointed out to these masterminds of jaw-jitsu that anytime someone larger gets a hold of you, by the wrist, the shirt, the hair, whatever-it is extremely dangerous because they can pull, push, drag, swing, haul, tug, yank, jerk, shake or otherwise unbalance and move you where you don’t want to go. In other words, they now have a “handle” on you and can control or “destabilize” you with it.
Furthermore, They don’t have to have a lick of training to use this control to smash you into a wall, fling you to the ground, pull you into a car (or in front of a car!) push you over backwards or a hundred other unpleasant scenarios that you probably won’t be able to stop because you are being destabilized which takes all your strength and coordination away! In other words, you become the proverbial “rag doll”, rag dolls don’t hit very hard.
How come every bully in junior high school intuitively knows this but a “world-class” self defense expert does not? Are they so dreadfully inept as to not understand the difference between classroom or “on camera” conditions where techniques are demonstrated in a polite static, posed way so everyone can see and understand, and the real world of colliding and contrary multiple forces? Is anyone that stupid? When it comes to the “pseudo-profession” of self defense the answer appears to be a big yes. I am shocked by this kind of deficiency and negligence – you should be too.
Someone needs to point out to this brain trust that an assailant attacks you for a reason, he has intent, and his intent is never to stand there, like a statue, posing or modeling a hold (i.e. exerting no pressures or forces against you) and waiting for you to hit him (or in their “self-defense” class, pretending to hit him). Along with his violent intent will come violent but simple pressures and forces that can overwhelm and destabilize you if you are unprepared for them. Therefore, you have to be able to deal with being unbalanced and destabilized before you are going to be able to do anything else. This is the “secret sauce” left out of the recipe by people who don’t know how to cook and who should stay out of the kitchen…a lot of the time with these types of guys, that means literally.
That being said, most people and even many Brazilian Jiu-jitsu instructors have only a general and often nebules idea of what “balance” and “stability” really are. Furthermore, different sciences such as physics tend to use the terms differently from other disciplines concerned with human performance. Moreover, many kinesiologists or sports scientists also may use the terms in non-standard ways and this only contributes to confusion.
As I have pointed out many times before, disciplines that need more scientific rigor (like an “evidence based” approach to self-defense) have to have specific and technical terminology that helps to clarify and not cloud topics. In other words, how can we determine if a person is in a “stable position” if we cannot agree what the term means? Talking about it is one thing but being able to physically do it is another.
Thus, Let us look at the technical differences between “balance” and “stability” by laying out some working definitions. These definitions and explanations need to be simple but also exact enough that they can give us some observable and measurable criteria. I am a big fan of being able to quantify or measure something objectively because that is the basis of “science” and allows us to repeat and hopefully improve what we are measuring.
In the case of “balance” vs. “stability” it is actually pretty simple but gives us a very valuable “yardstick” to be able to understand precisely what we can do to make ourselves more stable and conversely how to better destabilize our opponent. Thus, in my next post I will simply but scientifically define “stability” and give you some easy tools to measure and test it directly for use in real world self defense…or you can go eat a few bags of Twinkies, they are the best because you can hold them in one hand while you practice moving your other arm in the air… whatever you think is easier…I mean simpler.