Friday, February 1, 2008

Christian Martialism on a Budget, 6

Training in Fighting Techniques, continued
Learning self defense skills is a lot like learning to talk. First you learn individual, isolated words -- mama, dada, ball. Then you start to put words together to communicate simple ideas -- "Mama! Ball!" (She gives you the ball, and you're happy.)

Finally, you learn to use grammar to link words in coherent sentences: "Mother, do you think supralapsarianism is a Biblical concept or one imposed on selected texts through a presuppositional bias?" (I'm impressed. You must be home-schooled.)

In learning close combat skills, individual techniques are like isolated words: necessary to know, but not always useful by themselves (hit or miss, so to speak). Once you are competent in a few techniques, you need to practice putting them into the context of a violent encounter. You need tactical application -- the grammar of personal combat.

Keith Pascal is a master at designing self defense drills that will not only train your basic skills, but get you to thinking & reacting tactically. If you have not subscribed to his weekly newsletter, Martial Arts Mastery, you need to do this. It's free and it should become a staple source of training drills & ideas.

In order to encourage you to subscribe to MA Mastery, I'm going to take a little break from this series and publish [legally and ethically] one of Keith's articles in my next post.

Click link to go to "Christian Martialism on a Budget, 7"

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