Martial Arts are not binary.

There are different types of people in every art and style and they are practiced in a myriad of different ways.

Every self defence situation is pretty unique and a good martial artist has a toolbox of mental, emotional and physical strategies that they are able to use in a spontaneous way according to the situation to resolve it.

I have used and seen used strategies and techniques that would be laughed at by the ‘one handed typist’ trolls and finger wagging reel makers that permeate our social media feeds. If only life was as binary as those using their mum’s computers in their bedroom plastered with Bruce Lee and gaming posters would have us believe. God save us from these suburban samurai!

The problem is that the avalanche of these commentators, and reel makers makes those with something serious to say not bother. There have been many times that I have thought of not bothering with social media and the advent of AI posters is now making it even worse as people are setting up martial art pages and using AI to scrape the internet to create posts using information from all this crap media to get clicks and earning money ‘never having to leave their chair’ or train themselves.

In martial arts and self defence, the leaves on the tree are the techniques, the branches are the strategies, the trunk is the principles and ideas and the roots is the philosophy, education and alchemy of the individual. If the practitioner hasn’t developed that alchemised internal locus of power, when the chips are down, nothing they do will work.

If they are able control their mind, emotions and energy and react in an unexpected, powerful, spontaneous and skilful way to whatever the opponent does then they stand a reasonable chance.

It’s not the art or style but the depth and development of the individual that counts and don’t believe what you see on the internet, effective self defence is not necessarily YouTube friendly.