Combative Movement: The Way of Warrior Flow
Nov 06, 2019
Now for some of you who follow my Blog Posts and I greatly appreciate all the feedback. I still from time to time get asked questions as to why I continue to write about all of this philosophical stuff. A big part of it is I’ve been laying a foundation for some of the things I’m going to begin covering and that is the importance of focusing on “Combative Movement” which is a broad heading for a larger contextual understanding with the operative word being “context” and the way in which you train or how to “frame” things once again, in the “right context” versus tools or techniques.
Now for some of you, because you’ve asked,
“So when are you going to start teaching some stuff?”
I’ll answer it like this, if you’ve ever read the short “Footprints in the Sand” (which is not in the Bible by the way…) then you know at the end of the story where there are only one set of prints. God answers that the time where there was only one set of prints was where HE was carrying you.
What’s my point?
As I’ve been spouting off at the mouth with all of this philosophical stuff, understand that I’ve been teaching the stuff you need to know to get to where you want to be "all along". This is not to insult anyone’s intelligence but it merely highlights something that I’ve come to understand over the years in my own personal martial journey. People are quick to want to know how a thing is done but don’t want the wisdom to "understand" it so their ability to apply their skills, training, knowledge or whatever is limited. Until they cross this hurdle they will never become the warrior they desire to be because they're standing in their own way. Their movements are in vain because their training is in vain because they do train without feeling what it is they should be feeling, without context.
Even as I write this while it’s tempting to just tell you things if I don’t lay the foundation now there are things that I’m going to discuss in future posts that will make no sense because there will be no context from which to understand them. Context is everything and way more important than technique.
Will I get into covering skill development and things you can do to improve your skills?
Sure but it does no good if you can’t distinguish good from evil so to speak.
Dreams of Shaolin
You know there was a time in my life when I would look at the photos above and this was the kind of stuff that would make my eyes water. Let’s face it, I’m 55 years old now and I can still remember when “Enter the Dragon” came out and the impact it had. Probably no other martial arts movie caused as much of a wave of popularity of the martial arts as that movie.
How many of us probably struck one of Bruce Lee’s iconic poses perhaps hundreds of times as we “played” like we had real Kung Fu skills? Heck, every neighborhood in the projects had at least one guy who walked around all the time with the Kung Fu uniform wearing the rope bottom slippers, spouting off at the mouth with his own version of Taoist wisdom looking like as we called them, “Bruce Leroy”.
Yeah… that guy… If you saw the movie “The Last Dragon” calling someone by that name is actually an old joke.
Now as I look at this stuff my attitude is like, “Hmm… that’s nice”. Now some could say this is just a part of maturity and having a different perspective on things, and I’m sure of that but I think it’s something deeper than that. You see, at the end of the day no matter what I’ve learned from both my experiences and my Masters that it’s just movement you’re dealing with.
Our Historical Memory of Combat
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
- Plato
In Greek mythology, we read,
“Zeus was angry at Prometheus for three things: being tricked on sacrifices, stealing fire for man, and for refusing to tell Zeus which of Zeus's children would dethrone him. Zeus had his servants, Force and Violence, seize Prometheus, take him to the Caucasus Mountains, and chain him to a rock with unbreakable adamanite chains. Here he was tormented day and night by a giant eagle tearing at his liver....”
Eventual Zeus would set the conditions for his release but that’s for another story.
Now, in the Apocryphal Book of Enoch, Enoch tells a similar story of the Fallen Angel “Azazel”. Chapter 8 of the book reads,
"1. And Azâzêl taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates…”
So according to the Book of Enoch, we see that Azazel in connection with the Biblical story of the fall of the angels, located on Mount Hermon, a gathering-place of demons of old. He was one of the leaders of the rebellious Watchers in the time preceding the Flood; where he taught men the art of warfare, of making swords, knives, shields, and coats of mail. Like Prometheus, Azazel was also chained to a rock only he was buried alive until the end time.
Whatever the story the art of war is as old as mankind and it isn’t going to change anytime soon.
Weapons and tactics may change but one thing that has not changed is the human body and how we as humans move. In my last job in the Marine Corps working at the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab. We evaluated and investigate all sorts of weapons systems, LASERS, “SASERS” (acoustic weapons), “Active Denial”, Optics with lenses made out of polished metals. Way cool stuff… and of course, stuff that will just punch a hole in your body from afar.
No matter what one thing that hasn’t changed is how humans move and interact with such systems. I know these days there’s a lot of talk over developing exoskeleton suits or “Ironman” like suits and autonomous machines that help us on the battlefield but trust me if you don’t take into consideration the human factor and how we move and interact with these machines it will not end well.
Now I’m not talking about the machines turning on us like the HAL 9000, but anyone who has ever worked construction will tell you that moving metal machines that can swing and articulate don’t play well with flesh and blood creatures.
Believe, it or not it is one of the main reasons such technologies have taken so long to make it on the battlefield. No sense in fielding a combat robot if they’re going to kill your own people. That sucks.
Well, you know what else hasn’t changed? How humans move and how we interact with each other as well and nowhere is that truth more self-evident than when engaged in battle. Remember as I said in a previous post, the martial arts developed out of the military arts or tactics and were greatly influenced by the weapons and circumstances of the time.
Col David Willis, USMC (ret)
The first time I saw Col Willis, when I was a 2nd Lieutenant going through training he was the Commanding Officer of Weapons Training Battalion, Quantico, VA, he reminded all of us of COL. Kurtz in “Apocalypse Now”. In a former life, he had been a Marine Sniper in Vietnam and in between telling stories about taking out North Vietnamese officers, and how he even gave one guy the courtesy of finishing answering natures call before he shot him. He was also quick to remind all of the single officers that he has a 22-year old daughter, and then went back to telling stories about “ungluing” people’s heads.
As an aside one of our classmates actually dated his daughter for a while. We even had a “death pool” going to see how long it would be before he met with some unfortunate calamity. We all agreed I would be death by strangulation, stabbing, or blunt force trauma. The idea of the guy being taken out by a high grain match round would be too obvious and probably not personal enough for the Col’s likings. Just sayin…
But the indelible mark that Col Willis left on us all was the idea that in his words,
“We’re going to teach you how to shoot well, and frankly I can teach anybody to shoot the M40 Sniper Rifle. But teaching you how to move, how to stalk, how to close on the enemy, and having the will to kill? That’s what you need to be thinking about when you fire your rifle.”
There it was right in our faces and it would be decades before I would fully appreciate his sage wisdom. He was dead on and looking back at what he had to say, I’ve sort of come 180 degrees in my thinking about the martial arts. Like a lot of folks because let’s be honest everybody thinks their art is “the shit”! I don’t care who you are when you first learn to do a technique well, it’s one of the coolest feelings and there’s an elation a natural high you get from the sense of accomplishment. So I can see why people are apt to defend their arts to the ends of the earth. The problem with all this my kung fu is better than your kung fu bullshit is at the end of the day it’s just “human movement”.
It's Just You
At the end of the day, it's just you. No matter what you study, what you train it's just you and you alone and what you can do. No magic, no gimmicks, just you. And this is where I part company with the mindset of many martial arts systems and martial artists because of their philosophy and the mindset of some of them. like I've said in previous posts at the end of the day we are all human and the difference between one man or another when it comes to life and death combat is training.
The truth is it doesn't matter what you know if the person you are dealing with moves better than you and has the will to "go there". You have a serious problem on your hands. If you're not trained!
True size speed and strength matter but isn't that a part of learning how to crush the bad guys?
So it's a given, the real question is what are you going to do about it?
If your moment of truth arrives what are you going to do?
Because that's not the time to figure it out!
Warrior Flow is all about training people to move better because we understand that we can teach anyone how to strike or use a weapon. But if I can train you to move better in the body you have it's a completely different ball game.
What is that worth to you?
If what I'm saying isn't true then how is it that you can have people of relatively the same size, physical skill, temperament, etc., (because that matters) and yet the difference in their abilities can be as far apart as the Grand Canyon. What's the difference? while it could be many things I'm willing to bet it's simply one person moves better in the body, more efficient than the other person. and so just as size speed and strength matter in a real fight then so does being able to move better than another person within your own body.
In Warrior Flow, we focus on developing people through what we refer to as "Combative Movement" with an emphasis on moving as natural within their bodies as possible.
It's sort of like when I was stationed at Point Loma Naval Base (good duty). Where I was working out of the CJSOTF (Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force) Cell. So one day and I've told this story before me and some of the team went to MCRD San Diego to see Marien Corps Boot Camp in action and I'll never forget what one of my Ranger buddies said,
"You see, the Marines you guys do it right. You don't train people to things or just skills, you make Marines!"
I actually felt a swell of pride when he said that because this guy was one of those guys who'd been there and done that, and needed no one's external approval or acknowledgment to know he was a warrior. It is in this spirit that we view how we train people within Warrior Flow. We do not train you just in "things" or this technique or that technique to deal with this situation or that situation those things are a given. We train you to be a warrior!
We don't care who you are if you have the will to train with us we will get you on some level to that place because we focus on you and not on some set of techniques especially ones that may not work for you. We're not about forcing square pegs into round holes. And we're going to get you to where you want to be in the shortest time possible. It's not in so much what we do per se or our training methodologies, that's just a part of the equation, but also the mindset, in how we approach training and how to train people's bodies.
If you ever felt you are not nor can be a warrior we will dispel that notion "real fast" and if you bring your grandmother in and she's not a warrior, Hell we'll make her one too. For being a warrior is a matter of mind and spirit and if the spirit is willing we can get you there. Does that mean you're ready to storm the beaches of Tarawa? No, but you'll have the confidence, real confidence not a false sense of security, that you can stand in that space and handle your business if need be.
I will continue to build on this in future posts and I will delve a little into this way of thinking on how we train people to provide you with some tools to hopefully get you to rethink how your "approach" your own training.
Some of the ways that I will discuss some of them you may already know but you just didn't know how profound they were towards your martial development, and some of them may "surprise" you. Trust me when I tell you when I start talking more about this sort of stuff there are going to be many, many people (many people) who are going to call bullshit on the things that I will reveal.
No matter, not my job to convince people of the truth only to tell it. What they do with it is up to them.
Until next time...
Thank you.
Al Ridenhour
CEO, Creator Warrior Flow™