And fighting, because it's chaotic, is only a little receptive to the idea of systems, which rational humans would like to impose on that chaos.
Why would I suggest that? Well, armies have a strong motivation to teach effective systems of unarmed combat along with armed combat. And most do have some sort of module on hand-to-hand or close-quarters combat.
And the nature of the training given to soldiers in various countries over the last century or so (which we can study by reviewing manuals and talking to instructors) is different, country to country, decade to decade.
If fighting without weapons was an easy subject to make rational and linear, that would have been done already; we'd just look at the manuals left to us by, say, Alexander or Julius, and we'd know exactly what worked best.
In fact, Gladiators provided an early area of experimentation to see what worked best against what. The Romans were nothing if not practical, and adopted weapons and tactics from all of their military opponents. The "Roman" short sword was actually the Celtiberian short sword, adopted by the Romans after they noticed how effective it was when used against Romans!
But all of the systems currently in use on the face of this globe are the result of decisions and choices made by one person.
Bruce Lee sort of had a system, and there are books about that. It took an interesting approach to the issues of self-defense and fighting. I do get a kick out it that he used Shotokan techniques as a straw man in his arguments, ignoring the fact that what he was critical of were simply training techniques, not techniques for use against opponents. And I have read that his kicking techniques were strongly influenced by Kanazawa, although I can't recall where I read that.
The system that was developed in Okinawa was changed by decisions and choices made by Sensei Funakoshi, and those were further adapted to make them more desirable to a Japanese population by Sensei Nakayama. And in Shotokan Karate, therefore, there was more emphasis on basic technique, kata repetition and beauty and athleticism, and a system of sparring the would be safe enough (that is, ineffective enough in causing damage) that it could be practiced by college students at Japanese Universities without causing those pesky deaths.
College Deans may like tough stuff, but dead students don't pay tuition.
And Shotokan is a system, but the system is not yet fully integrated. It produces students who, at the end of an extended learning curve, can kick and punch with great speed and power, but who often are not trained in absorbing a punch, and who may not have fully grasped the relationship between the kata and self-defense, even though there is a LOT of useful self-defense information encoded in the kata.
But that's a quibble. Shotokan is a wonderful system, and has this advantage: it can be practiced with relative safety by a wide range of people of various ages and conditions, and it provides a fairly safe environment in which to learn useful skills, and those skills are imparted in a system that provides gradual levels of increased difficulty as the student becomes ready for them.
There are other systems, with various degrees of utility in the world, and some are well thought out, and some less well.
I'm fond of the minimalist system that Fairbairn taught commandos and troops during World War II.
It was so effective in causing injuries and death that the British High Command stopped teaching it to most of its soldiers soon after the War was over. Soldiers, being young and high spirited, tend to get into fights with each other over ordinary dominance issues. Those using the Fairbairn techniques on each other produced high levels of, you know, death, with a side-dish of deafness, broken necks, and the ever-popular broken bones that happen during serious hand to hand altercations.
On the other hand, the Fairbairn system wasn't designed to be a system of spiritual development, or for physical culture. It was designed to make farmboys into effective unarmed combatants in a few hours of instruction, and it left out anything not relevant to that goal.
A smart and funny gentleman named Bas Rutten, who distinguished himself in mixed martial arts competitions, has also developed a system.
It strikes me that his system, as taught on his dvd entitled "Lethal Street Fighting", has a good deal to say for itself.
Mind you, his system seems optimized for people who are young, male, weigh 200 pounds and more, and are six feet plus. There is a too much punching in his system for my taste, because in self-defense and street fighting, even professional boxers break hand bones, which makes continued merriment much more difficult. At least, I've heard from my cowboy boxer friends that when they punch and their hand goes "crunch", it slows 'em right down.
But let's be fair.
I've already said that all systems are matters of choices made by the person who builds the system.
Bas Rutten put together a bundle of techniques and ideas that he thought would be helpful to folks who were involved in fights in bars, for instance, and he clearly gave that scenario a lot of thought.
That's partly because of his time as a bouncer.
Now, his decisions about fighting are not identical to mine, because I'm old and relatively fragile. I don't like the idea of using too many punches in a slugfest, because my bone structure isn't as robust as that of a pro boxer or a Bas Ruten.
But Bas does discuss the use of the palm heel as an alternative to the fist when attacking a hard target like a chin, and that's good thing, I think.
In addition, Bas assumes a basic level of competence in his students. He does not provide fundamental instructions in punching or kicking in his dvd. That's probably a good thing, because this is designed to be a stand-alone dvd.
In fact, overall, it appears to me that his dvd has a good number of ideas that non-bouncers might not consider, including the fact that most people in bars are fairly, you know, drunk. So that their attacks are somewhat slower and more imprecise than others, and their center may be a bit wobbly.
His confidence is clear, and that's a good thing. Having confidence in your techniques is absolutely necessary in a physical dust-up, and one way to build such confidence is to learn techniques.
The approaches that Mr. Rutten uses are not very pretty. Let me put it another way. He does not care a rat's patoot about whether somebody else would think his technique optimizes the transfer of power from his hips to his target. He just cares about the effect his technique has on his opponent, almost as though he were a boxer.
That's particularly clear in the choice of kick to the groin that Mr. Rutten teaches on this dvd. It's not very pretty. But it looks as though you would probably rather not experience it zipping up into your huevos rancheros.
There is a good amount of practical advice that rings true on the dvd; he suggests that grappling on the ground in a bar is a good way to get your head used for target practice by your opponent's buddies.
He also suggests that he's not very comfortable in dealing with knife attacks, although he demonstrates some approaches using a bar stool as a weapon.
But most smart people seem to agree on one point: fighting empty handed against an assailant with a knife is not a good way to live to be 125, unless your birthday is going to be occur in six seconds, and you're already 124.
Another practice pointer he suggests, based on his experience as a bouncer, is that when talking to a guy who may open up you, it's good to take a "Jack Benny" type stance, so that your hands are up in a non-threatening way, and you can pick up incoming punches or head butts easily. He also suggests that when in the Jack Benny posture, you drop your chin so that an unexpected head butt injures your opponent instead of breaking your nose, cheeks, and teeth.
All in all, the dvd is as entertaining as it is informative; an experienced martial artist will probably not benefit vastly from the dvd, but it'll keep him laughing anyway, because Mr. Rutten is funny and entertaining in his demonstrations.
A novice marital artist who wants some insight into the various reasons to avoid both cowboy and biker bars could benefit greatly from this dvd.
