Lessons from My Masters 40 Observations The Grandmaster Chronicles Part XII

 

“Deep knowledge is to be aware of disturbance before disturbance, to be aware of danger before danger, to be aware of destruction before destruction, to be aware of calamity before calamity. Strong action is training the body without being burdened by the body, exercising the mind without being used by the mind, working in the world without being affected by the world, carrying out tasks without being obstructed by tasks.”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

You’re going to need some coffee for this…

Like really… this is long.

This is probably the longest post I’ve ever done and at first, I was going to break it up into several posts but I feel that would have broken the flow so I left it intact as is.

Okay, because I got into this a little in my last post when discussing training issues and because there were a number of questions regarding wanting more information on this sort of thing. I thought I’d jump right into some more stuff that I’ve learned and gleaned from my Masters. Also, over the next few posts, I’ll be ending my run on “Lessons from My Masters Series” because I want to move on to other stuff. If I think of more stuff, later on, I’ll add to it. I’ll probably do two or three more posts then close it out. 

More Philosophical Stuff on Training Folks

 “Without training, they lacked knowledge. Without knowledge, they lacked confidence. Without confidence, they lacked victory.”

• Julius Caesar

Anyway...

Once again I’m going to wax philosophically on this because these type of things are always the most asked questions by instructors and students. There’s no logical order or sequence to this stuff and some of it might seem a little repetitive but so be it. These are just streams of consciousness as I write this stuff. The problem is some of these things we don’t say enough.  

Obligatory Disclaimer: Once again what I offer here is just my opinion on these matters.  So if you don’t like it go start your own blog and you can pontificate on whatever you want. But as I’ve said before I've seen a lot of stuff that people do that only serves to “fuck our students up” in their development. So if you take issue with some of this stuff or disagree, it is your right but more than likely, Hell in actually, you’re probably one of the people I’m talking about. Be forewarned, some of my comments are probably going to scorch the earth here. So be it.

So, I’ll offer some more comments to help direct your focus when training based on 30-years of training and teaching Guided Chaos and stuff I’ve learned in the military, but more importantly from the things that I’ve learned from my Masters. This is for some as with my last post going to be more "deep stuff" (by the way there is stuff I can get into that is “really deep stuff”, stuff that has people walking away shaking their heads, blinking their eyes at the rapid rate. “Stuff” that I don’t discuss in these posts that my Masters have taught me. Some of you who train with me privately know exactly what I’m talking about. Oh, hells yeah…).

Anyway, once again, this is the sort of "inside baseball" that if you do not know nor understand you will not be effective at developing these skills as a student or as an instructor. 

Oh, one more point, for those of you who’ve asked me about the quotes I use, the reason why I pepper my blog posts with quotes from history is that none of these things that I describe are necessarily new nor a secret. It’s only new if you haven’t heard them before or understood them in this context. My point is people have been thinking on these matters for “thousands of years” and be it far from I to arrogantly think I’m the first one to ever figure something out.  I see this sort of thing in the martial arts all the time. This is one of the main reason why I don’t’ and never will, denigrate other arts because I don’t have all of the answers nor do I pretend to. Now, I’ll call out a technique that I think is stupid because let’s be honest there’s some stupid shit out there. However, these people who think they have a monopoly on the truth, or think they’re the only ones who ever figured something out, I have bad news for you. The human body is the human body and only moves in certain ways so you don’t, so get over yourself. 

Okay… Game on…

Some of this comes from what I call “The Dokkodo of the Spirit Fist”.

The Dokkodo of the Spirit Fist

1. Sometimes… you just have to kick that ass. –

“On their side, more men are standing, on ours, more will fight!”

• Alexander the Great

No really, “sometimes you just have to put foot to ass”, make them feel the power of your boot and crush them! There should be no ambiguity in your mind about that. There are no perfect situations, no perfect moves, no perfect counters when it comes to self-defense and sometimes you just have to fight and that’s all there is to it. As long as it works it doesn’t matter and to the devil with what some so-called expert offering his opinion on YouTube or Facebook has to say about it. So what I’m going to do is give it to you how it goes down in real life and death combat and the mentality you need to develop if you want to win the battle! I’m speaking here of a mindset, a “combat mindset” but it is one just as applicable to the streets because at the end of the day an “attack is an attack” and “dead is dead” so stay with me. Besides, I think I’ve been on enough combat tours to quantify that.

“If the mind is willing, the flesh could go on and on without many things.”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Real fights are combat and combat is sloppy and chaotic and brutal and smells like Hell, but above all, if you are to prevail. You have got to learn to roll with the punches! It’s not a matter of whether you get hit, it’s what you do about it.

As von Clausewitz stated, “No plan survives initial contact…” You need to be able to reach down grab your balls throw them over your shoulder and drive on so, “Stay in The Fight”! You must push past fear, and stay in the fight; you must push past pain and stay in the fight! Even if the flesh is ripped from your bones, stay in the fight; your knee gives out, stay in the fight; you get cut, stay in the fight; your hand hurts, your arm broken, stay in the fight; even if you can only wield your sword with one arm, stay in the fight; you get your bell rung from an IED or mortar explosion, stay in the fight; you get shot but you can still function, stay in the fight and win!

As long as you draw breath and can cry out to God for strength, you need to be determined to stay in the fight and win! And if it’s your time… it’s your time.

What’s the first rule of a firefight in the event you’ve been wounded?

You need to try and take care of that shit on your own so the others can stay in the fight and win!

I’ll say it again, win the fight! Because if you and your buddies don’t win ain’t none of you coming home. Stay in the fight and win!

Once you’re in the battle you’re in it!

Stay in the fight and win!

What are you going to do?

Where are you going to go?

Man! Listen… you’ve got to win!

“The first rule of war is the preservation of yourself and the destruction of your enemy.”

• Mao Zedong

This is one of the things about war or combat on any level that many people, not some but many people don’t’ get! In war, people get killed which is kind of the point!

It’s not a perfect world and the situation is never perfect so you need to train for the unexpected and be prepared above all to “fight” no matter what the circumstances and win the battle!

Like I said before, “Let all the blood be on the front of you!”

This is not to say that there isn’t a time to break contact and beat feet, regroup, and “counter-attack” but that should be your last option!

Above all, and drill this into the marrow of your bones, “surrender” is not a fucking option! It never goes well for the conquered.

Stay in the fight and win!

Listen we live in a world where people impose their will on others through force and aggressive means. It’s been that way since the dawn of time and isn’t going to change any time soon. Trust me when I tell you in spite of what some will say violence solves a lot of problems the difference is when and why it is applied. If you think that violence is never the answer or war is never the answer I have bad news for you. Your enemies probably don’t feel that way and guess what? They get a vote!

Unfortunately, too many people even in the self-defense business are “too quick” to tell people to “turn tail and run”, as if they couldn’t have figured that out for themselves. “Gee, thanks for nothing”!  

WTF!?!

If running is the answer to everything then you don’t need me as an instructor you need a “track coach”! What’s that expression?

“Better to be a Warrior in a garden than a gardener caught up in a war, for the Warrior has a choice and the ability to fight the gardener has none and only can accept what fate has in store for him.”

Me personally, I’m having none of it!

So whatever they’re going to do they’re going to have to do it to a corpse. I’m not saying I’m brave or tough, there are just some things I’m not going to accept, this is why I train and how I train others. It’s really that simple. I have a number of clients who from time to time I train their children in the warrior arts. Having raised children and now as a grandfather, I have a simple rule, “their sword must prevail in battle!”.  And, like the “Plutarch” states, they’re either going to “return with their shield or on it!” I take their lives as serious as if they were one of my Marines, and if they fail in battle, it is because “I” have failed them.

As far as I’m concerned, if you’re an instructor of the martial arts, training people to protect themselves and their loved ones. If your mind isn’t in this space, you need to get there! As an instructor, you are the living embodiment of everything that your school stands for or is about. The “honor” and “credibility” of your school, your system, your art or whatever rests on your shoulders.  If you cannot get there if you cannot step up if you cannot “hold the bridge” so that others may live so to speak. You really need to go elsewhere because your students deserve better.

Anyway, look, I don’t go around looking to start trouble but I don’t go around looking to avoid confrontations either, if I have to fight then I have to fight if I don’t then I don’t. It really isn’t any harder to understand than that. I’m just a “Warrior in the garden”. To that end as I’ve alluded to in other posts there is for some a disconnect between what some folks do in a training environment and what they may have to do in a real situation.

“If you fight with all your might, there is a chance of life; whereas death is certain if you cling to your corner.”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

For example, and trust me I do not understand the mindset behind this shit, I mean I do but I don’t, if that makes sense. Because, to me, this mindset I’m going to get into, defeats the purpose of training for self-defense in the first place.  Some folks get “overly fixated” on size, or being able to stop larger opponents. As if bad guys only come in one size. Even though large and especially extremely large people make up the smallest percentage of humans on the fucking planet, and the same ratio is true for violent criminals. For whatever reasons to them it is a true measure of ability or whatever they think it is. This is bullshit…

“Unavailable yet unavoidable, in that order…”

• Grandmaster John C. Perkins

Understand folks I’m merely presenting this so that hopefully you develop a different way of looking at how to deal with a person’s size. Otherwise, if you already have a sense of apprehension or phobia of dealing with it, this mindset will only serve to reinforce your fears and will not teach you to overcome or at least manage them. If your mind isn't in this place you really need to “nuke this way of thinking from orbit” and get over yourself and get on with it.  Okay, here we go…

“And David spake to the men that stood by him, saying; What shall be done to the man that killeth this Philistine, and taketh away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?” 

• 1 Samuel 17:26 KJV

As you can see, the “13-year-old” David and future King of Israel was having none of it. And as we know Goliath of Gath paid for this with is head. Most people don’t know that after David “beaned Goliath on yon noggin”, he took Goliath’s own sword and cut off his head and held it up for all the Philistine centurions including Goliath’s brothers to see. The message was loud and clear, like the scene from the movie Kill Bill where O Ren Ishi, after she cut off the Yakuza Oyabun, Boss Tanaka’s head said,

“Now! If any of you sons of bitches got anything to say now‘s the fucking time!”

in other words, “Do not fuck with us!”

Now me… well, I look at it from the perspective of King David. First, of all, this whole preoccupation with size from my observation only serves to make people either fearful or “reinforces their fears” of dealing with larger people. A lot of fear out there folks, a lot of fear… However, as an instructor of any martial art, this is something you should never do. I’m not saying placate people’s feelings like these jerks who go around saying size doesn’t matter, because that doesn’t help either and is just stupid for it denies reality, but you should be teaching them how to overcome these things not feeding into their fears, (unless of course that’s your goal to sell though fear. Oh yeah I’ve seen this before many times).

“You’re just dealing with motion.”

• Grandmaster Tim Carron

You see if I have to deal with someone for real who is much larger than me, much smaller than me, much faster, more muscular, fatter, thinner or whatever. It makes no difference to me. We’re all human and they still can only move within the known laws of physics.  Anyone can kill anyone, so I’m only thinking of cutting them down. “Your head is still your head”. Now, to be clear here, it’s not that I can’t stop bigger guys because I’ve done it many, many times to people much larger and stronger than me. I just find training to send people to the afterlife “more appealing”, and definitely a lot less work.

Think of it like this, the whole reason military tactics developed is because at some point in human history ancient man figured out that if they wanted to have the best chance at winning in combat against the barbarian hordes. It would probably be helpful to actually learn and practice how to use a sword, shield or spear.  Along with the tactics and techniques to destroy their enemies. I’m just sayin…

In certain real situations, I’ve recently had with these “giants” so to speak, I didn’t even have to touch them because they already knew it was going to be a bad deal for them. In other words, they knew by my demeanor that they had better kill me or they’re not coming back from it either. Trust me I have no problem standing in that space if I have to protect someone. Anyway, the real questions for me are,

“Why would I want to try and stop someone much larger than me if I’m training to fight for my life?”

Also,

“Why would I want to do something that is less effective than cleaning their clock?”

“Why would I do something that can unnecessarily put me in a position where they can use their size to their advantage?”

“It takes me just as long to step out of the way as it would for me to attempt to stop someone. My reaction time is my reaction time right? So why would I try to stop them when I can just as easily sidestep them and levitate their body between the earth and the Heaven and crush them?

Makes sense to me.

“Again why would I want to train myself to become vulnerable to their size advantage?”

This is nonsense…

Even if you do have size why would you want to train like this where it can only in my opinion, (but I know I’m right) make you more vulnerable to what they’re bringing to the fight. I once had a conversation with two large students a couple of years ago, who will remain nameless, who are big and strong in ways that make no sense. One guy when he was a bouncer actually knocked out a famous former pro boxer which, yeah… I could see him doing that because he’s that tough. Hey, he’s just that guy... Anyway, we were working on some multiple attacker stuff and they weren’t doing what wanted them to do and I said,

“Let me show you something because you guys aren’t getting it. You’re just trying to push each other and not do the drill.”

So I told them both,

“Okay, I’m going to be the guy who gets attacked and when you want to attack me just go for it. Oh by the way, just so you’ll know, I will fucking hit you.”

Just thought I’d tell them that to get their minds in the right place.

So, they attacked me at the same time.

…and it was over before it got started.

And so they were both like,

“Holy shit! How did you move that fast? …I didn’t think you could move like that! …how did you do that?”

I said it’s simple,

“I’m not fucking around right now if I mean to kill you it’s going to be like that, I’m just going to move and end it for you.”

I continued,

“Let me explain something to you guys, I’m not the biggest guy but I’m hardly a small guy. And I don’t kid myself in thinking that if it goes down that the homeboys aren’t showing up in numbers. You see I’m like a Lion and so are you guys and you need to get it in your fucking heads that the bad guys are like hyenas, and hyenas don’t hunt Lions alone. They come in the middle of the night with about five or six of them, and they don’t just dive in. They swarm until there’s an opening and then it’s on!  You need to be able to utterly crush them all. Notice when John does multiple attackers he never tries to stop people or push them, he’s just not there, and what looks like he pushes people into each other in reality what he’s doing is giving them the path to their destruction.  He doesn’t try to stop anyone. He just helps them get to the wrong place sooner. That’s how I learned how to move like that. Also, John looks at multiple attackers not as a bunch of separate individuals but as ‘one large body’ so he never even thinks of getting in between people and if he does he’s already moving out of there before they can do something about it.  He also moves on people like he’s playing tag on the street around poles or around trees. He uses people like they are poles or trees where he can dart behind them and make others miss, run into each other or hit their friends. The only difference is the “trees” (i.e., people) are moving which as he’s told me makes it easier for him since they do most of the work for him by moving. He also moves in a way that causes them to move the way they do even if they are not aware they’re doing it. John is acutely aware of how his movement affects the movement of the attackers, but there’s something else as well... He also knows that each person’s movement affects the movement of the others and knows that they don’t want to run into each other so once he gets ahead of them it has a compounding effect which buys him time. This is what I’m trying to teach you here so you can swat hyenas off the planet at will. So stop fucking up my drill…”

Trust me once they understood where I was coming from and I got their minds right, they were all about it and woe unto you if you were the bad guy in the drill. They moved with an intensity where you knew even in training if you didn’t stay loose, you could seriously get hurt.

Now sometimes I will admit you may be in a situation where you have to stop someone momentarily such as in a confined space but it shouldn’t as it does for some, dominate your training.  To me, this is the same mistake of trying to control or grapple with people who are trying to take your head off or against as I described above against multiple attackers. To me, this is just a stupid “dick measuring contest” and has no basis in reality because it assumes such things as weapons, deception and a whole host of other things are not going to be brought to bear in the battle. It also assumes there will always be a level of cooperation to what your plan is. Final question on this and then I’ll move on,

“Does the matador try to stop the bull or does he simply step out of the way and end its life?”

He’s just dealing with motion… that’s all. I’m sorry folks but if you want to spend all of your time focused on this type of shit that’s your business. As for me? I’m for taking bad guys out. Period. Choose well in how you train…

2. You have to ask yourself the right questions, but you need to learn how to ask them first -  

“When you move I move when you change even in the slightest I change…”

• Grandmaster John C. Perkins

Too many people want to know “how a thing is done”? but the question they should also be asking is “why” someone did “what” they did the “way” they did it “when” they did it? Instead, they chase the shiny object as I like to say and ask the wrong questions so they get the wrong answers. When you move with another human being there is information being passed back and forth. Depending on the skill level of the person you are dealing with determines their response to what they perceive. Whether I move first on you or your move first on me doesn’t really matter for the purpose of what I’m talking about here.

When you move one way or another I’m going to react on some level even if you cannot discern my movement or depending on the attitude of your body I’m going to move a certain way to influence how you move. In either case, why I moved the way I did or why or how you moved the way you did was for a very specific reason even if you or I are not aware of it.  It doesn’t happen any other way. We are always playing off of each other and that can never be changed. This is that 5^th Dimensional Chess that I keep refereeing too. By focusing on the principles, and observing movement through the proper context, you will discover them and learn to ask better questions. However, if you keep chasing shiny objects you will never learn to ask the right questions and will always find yourself in “checkmate”.

3. When you train you always need to look at the situation as if the glass is always half full. –

“The worst calamities that befall an army arise from hesitation”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

All too often in training people are too quick to put a thing in the too hard to do category, they defeat themselves before they even get started with such negative thinking. The truth is many people who have this pessimistic view in truth can never see themselves victorious, standing in the winner’s circle. You can’t win on the defense it’s that simple and if you’re an instructor and your mind is in this place you need to get out of that corner and step into the light.

4. Why do I do a martial art? -

If you can’t answer this question in 30 seconds or less you're barking up the wrong tree and need to rethink your life’s-plan, for me the answer is simple. To learn how to fight for my life and that of my loved ones any other answer is BS!

5. Why train? –

“How you train is how you fight.”

• Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings

To perfect “if possible” the skills necessary to have your edge in a real fight for your life and achieve victory. You know I’m all about the self-actualization aspects of the martial arts and no doubt there are incalculable benefits but above all, it is to “kick that ass” and the best way to assure victory is to train, train and train some more.

6. How do I improve? –

“If you do not succeed at first, try doing what your instructor told you to do the first time.”

Training in the proper methods, with the proper mindset with the proper attitude focusing on quality works outs versus the frequency of workouts or just moving for the sake of moving. But that also means you need to know what the Hell it is you’re doing at the time to appreciate and learn what it is you are developing either before doing it, while doing it or after so you know what it is.

The key here as I’ve pointed out over and over, you just don’t want to “overthink” a thing because it stands in your way of achieving the ability to flow with the movement without judgment. You’re trying to build this into your body on the unconscious competence level until it disappears and just becomes a part of who you are. You want to focus on being in the moment, “Mushin”, “Zazen” “The Zone” or whatever, as I’ve outlined in numerous blog posts (see Lessons from My Masters 14: Observations – Unity)

This is very hard for many people because they think if they just do Contact Flow “long enough” that through the “ether of the universe”, the heavens will open up, Mars and Jupiter will align with the Earth and things with just “click” for them. Well… not if you’re practicing it wrong with the wrong mindset and wrong understanding.  Garbage in garbage out. Folks, I see this all-of-the-time people confusing work for results and then they wonder why they do not progress.

“Foreknowledge cannot be gotten from ghosts and spirits...”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Also, too many folks “frame” the Contact Flow exercise as if it’s “magic”, you see this sort of thing in other arts as well, where they think “mystical powers” will show up just in time for the fight. This is what I mean by expecting knowledge from the “ether of the universe”. That they can gain such foreknowledge from “ghosts and spirits” or that “The Force” will somehow appear and, because they possess more “midi-chlorions” than other people (because they’re special don’t you know) that “The Force” will teach them all they need to know without any other guidance… :- (

Get-the- “fuck”-out-of-here!

Listen, when you learned to drive a car, swim, ride a bike or use a chain saw. At some point, someone had to tell you something even if it was just to read the directions on the box. Imagine if when you first learned how to drive you were just handed the car keys and told, “good luck and have at it.” Hell, they might as well have handed you a bottle of whiskey while they were at it because the results would probably be the same.

If you wouldn’t just hand the car keys to someone until you’ve at least taught them how to drive, learned the rules of the road, etc., then why would you not teach someone who comes to you to learn how to fight for their lives the things they need to know?

That’s why they’re there.

Why would you leave it up to fate, the gods or whatever?

“To send an untrained people to war is to throw them away.”

• Sun Tzu, The Art of War

As in the quote above, while they don’t say it if they do this in self-defense training they might as well because the implications are all the same.

Why would you throw people away especially when you have it in your power as an instructor to better the odds in their favor?

I have an idea, why not train the right way, the way my Masters have outlined how to do it in all of its facets and stop trying to lean on the divine province of the gods to steer you in the right direction. Your gains will be greater in less time than you think and your workouts more progressive, meaningful and fun. Yes, fun! Just sayin…

7. How should I train?  -

“Courage is knowing what not to fear.”

― Plato

As I alluded to before, you need to train focusing on killing bad guys with all of the fiber of your being first. This will also help you develop the moral certainty and skill and proficiency to develop the ability to stand in that space, as that lone warrior to hold the bridge so to speak. This will also drive and focus your training in the proper direction as opposed the “dick-measuring contests” or the “Fight Club” mentality so prevent in many martial arts schools (Guided Chaos is not immune to this affliction by the way). Nothing wrong with a little healthy completion but remember the only battle that counts is the one you’re in for your life. Self-defense, as I like to say, is “life defense”, in other words, go measure your dick somewhere else…

8. Focusing on developing your body in the principles of the art of Balance, Looseness, Sensitivity, Body Unity and Adaptivity with the prescribed exercises. –

“Without Knowledge, Skill cannot be focused. Without Skill, Strength cannot be brought to bear and without Strength, Knowledge may not be applied.”

• Alexander the Great

Too many folks put the cart before the horse and want to focus on “things” and not the mechanism that makes it all work. They chase the “shiny object” searching for the “Holy Grail” like in the movie “Excalibur” when in reality their actions are more like “Monty Python”. They “be-clown” themselves chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow when in fact the answer, as usual, was always in front of them. They can’t see it with their minds so they can’t see it with their eyes. Like Marcellus Wallace said to Butch in Pulp Fiction, when he was telling him to take a dive for a “fight”,

“…The thing is Butch, right now, you got ability… But painful as it may be ability don’t last. And your days are just about over. Now that’s a hard Motherfuckin fact of life. But that’s a fact of life your ass is going to have to get realistic about. You see this profession is filled to the brim with unrealistic Motherfuckers. Motherfuckers who thought their ass would age like fine wine, if you mean it turns to vinegar it does, if you think it gets better with age… it don’t. Butch, how many fights you think you got in you anyway? Hmm? Two? Boxers don’t have an old-timers’ day. You came close, but you never made it. and if you were going to make it, you would have made it before now.”

Folks, this speech could apply to so many things and I hate to tell you but like Butch in Pulp Fiction, too many practitioners of the martial arts are chasing something that isn’t going to happen as long as they think they can push against nature or think they’re going to find the Holy Grail, drink from the challis and be healed of all sorts of martial sins and naughtiness. Ain’t happening! But you know what, if you focus on the principles of the art and your own development in the body you can continue to make gains throughout your life. Just ask some of our 70 years of age plus students. None of us are getting younger and to be honest I find getting older a good problem to have because those who have stopped have passed on into eternity. So the question is who doesn’t want to be able to move like they were in their 20’s and still be able to kick that ass? I am so down with that plan. Which brings me to my next point.

9. Focus on your own development first -

In order to master these principles, the only ‘person you’re in competition with is yourself. In addition to this, train to fight for your life. Once again this is where your focus should be and not on winning in class. Even when having fun still move and train as if your life depends on it at all times. You also want to focus on developing yourself above all things to take your skills to the highest levels possible.

10. Real skill or “Subtle skill” looks like “foolishness” to the unskilled. –

“Most people, in fact, will not take the trouble in finding out the truth…”

• Thucydides

It has been my observation, my “experience” that it is those who are unskilled at a thing who are the first to say a thing rooted in sound principles of physics and human physiology cannot be done. On the contrary, it is because they are not skilled enough to do them is why they say it cannot be done. It is because “they” cannot do it. I have no idea what universe they live in and I’m not trying to go there. I don’t need to really comment more on this except don’t be a “Doubting Thomas”, look before you leap and know what you’re talking about before you open your mouth.

11. Remember in a real situation we are all pretty much on our own. –

“One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.”

• Leonardo da Vinci

The amount of time we have to develop ourselves no matter what, it is finite so don’t waste it on vain imaginings. Also, you cannot afford to dwell on what others are doing. The more time you spend on that sort of thing the less time you have to devote to developing yourself.

12. Help others when you can –

“A rising tide lifts all boats.”

• President John F. Kennedy

In contrast, as I sound now like I’m talking out of the other side of my mouth when possible help others. Help them attain the levels that they can get too. Be generous with your knowledge but sincere about it, and yes help others. First of all, you aren’t taking it with you so what are you holding back for? Second, if you really want to get better then help others get better. It’s simple if you can’t see it first in your mind, feel it first in the body, you can’t help them get there. So in order to develop this skill, help others.

13. Understand there are “concepts” that guide how we use the principles –

“It's not enough that you believe what you see. You must also understand what you see.”

• Leonardo da Vinci

Okay here is where I really start to piss folks off. There’s no doubt you have to train in the principles but I’m going to tell you if you can’t understand “what” you do “when” you do it and “why” you do it “in context” it is all for naught. Without proper context, you’re just moving for the sake of moving and moving without reason.

Sure you’re moving but do you understand why?

Do you know where you are going?

What to do what you get there?

Also when training focus on the principles, sub-principles in the proper context. Think of principles and sub-principles within the art like the base stones of a pyramid where each stone stacks on top of another reinforcing each other as you build your way up. The smaller more refined stones stacked on the larger ones also represents the tools and techniques as your skill grows. The largest ones being sort of the cornerstones of a given concept. Now think of the sub-principles and attributes like the mortar and anchor points that binds all of the tools and techniques together. They permeate every facet of the art, every tool, every technique from the smallest stones to the larger ones at the base, each interdependent on the other to support the entire structure. No one concept is greater than the other so to speak. Each principle, concept, attribute plays its role and each is as important for the structure to be strong as the other. This is how you must think of the principles as well as the subprinciples and attributes of the art for they are one.

14. The way you think of something influences how you move which reinforces how you think of it and so on. –

Pretty self-explanatory but I’m going to comment anyway. How you perceive things, see things in your mind in context influences how you move, why you move, why you did what you did when you did it, etc. How you move reinforces why you moved and how you think about moving. Many people do not appreciate this symbiotic relationship between the body and how we think of moving so they can’t learn to develop good habits when they move.

15. The sooner you recognize a thing, whether it’s an opening or you need to move out of the way, the sooner you can make another choice. -  

“If quick, I survive… If not quick, I am lost. This is "death.”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

This is a hard one for folks because it requires a shift in mindset that frankly, I’m not sure it’s one many people can get too. When discussing being quick in this context I’m talking about being able to feel and recognized in the body when to move sooner. The subtle adumbration that allows me to “play where the puck is going to be”, to fight in the future. Too many people are so focused on what they are doing that they forget that the enemy gets a vote. They try to force square pegs into round holes and then when they realize it’s the wrong peg they double down and add more force. The result? They get crushed. When you do the wrong thing and double down on it or do it faster, all you do is get to the wrong place or wrong conclusion sooner. If you add more force you only add to the problem and compound your error.

Questions:

If you perceive what you are doing as an error why do you proceed with it and reinforce failure?

How many times do you have to hit yourself on the thumb with a hammer before you realize you’re probably doing something wrong?

As Wesley Snipes as Blade would say, “Some motherfuckers are always trying to skate uphill backwards.” Here’s the deal it will take you just as long to do the right thing as the wrong thing, it will take you just as long to try to force a move as it will to abandon something that won’t work, regroup and try to win a different way. Find another way to win! The sooner you recognize when you’ve lost in that moment in time, the sooner you get to make a different choice, a better choice. One less painful than the one you were making. Some folks will understand this and use it others will continue to try and skate uphill backwards. Their choice.

16. Don't take yourself too serious –

Like really folks life is short, have fun and enjoy life. You train in a martial art not to live in fear and apprehension but to live free with the knowledge you can take care of your business if you have to. As Thomas Jefferson would call this, it’s about living a “Dangerous Freedom!” I’m all about living a Dangerous Freedom.

17. It's all mental, especially after the 1st Degree Level –

I was having a conversation the other day where a friend of mine was talking about how a baby scorpions sting is more venomous than an adult. Well as a guy who went to school in Oklahoma where there are poisonous snakes and scorpions as well I told him something along the lines,

“It’s not that the little ones are more poisonous it’s that they lack the control to only use enough venom to immobilize their prey so when they hit you they hit with everything they’ve got”.

The same is true in Guided Chaos where at the 1^st Degree Level the thing that makes people dangerous is that they have all of the skills to kill someone but not the level of control not too. As far as I’m concerned this is a good problem to have. Also, even the physical at a certain point is all mental.

18. Don't hold on to shit – Get over yourself…

19. Don't create rules that don't exist. - 

“When I have won a victory I do not repeat my tactics but respond to circumstances in an infinite variety of ways.”

• Sun Tzu, The Art of War

It never ceases to amaze me that in an art that revels in creativity and freedom of action how many people make shit up in their heads or buy into things that can only serve to close off their access to the well of knowledge. Within the universe of possibilities, you are capable of responding relatively speaking, in an infinite variety of ways, meaning there are an almost infinite number of choices and possibilities in that finite moment between “this” and “that”. Now, there’s the way the universe works and then there’s your opinion, your feelings, your likes, and dislikes. So there is the way the universe works and then there is what we have in our heads. “Most” of what we have in our heads is all self-limiting bullshit. As one of my student’s likes to say, “I help people get over their bullshit so they can get on with their lives and be their best self.” Or words to that effect. Know the difference and develop the wisdom to distinguish between your opinion, feelings, and the truth. The truth is always a much more reliable guide than what we think and a better teacher.

20. Overcome fear and learn to use it –

“It is better to suffer once than to be in perpetual apprehension.”

• Julius Caesar

We all have fear and none us are so brave as Julius Caesar would say, to not be startled by the unexpected. So, don't be ruled by fear, control it or be controlled by it!

21. It's only movement, It’s just motion, remember that. –

“Be where your enemy is not.”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

I know I covered this before but I want to reemphasize it here. Learn to master motion, master it, own it, control it, manipulate it, neutralize it. Get the Shadow Impression of their body, move with people as if they are always applying force and take over their movement and crush them. Be the wind, and it’s shadow… become “nothing”, and prevail!

22. Learn to see beyond your eyes. -

Learn to listen to other people's bodies and see it in your mind. I’ve discussed this before but I want to add to this. “if” you can’t see it with your mind you can’t see it with your eyes, but also if you can’t envision it or know it in the body, experience it in the body, where it resides already in the body. Then you cannot, I repeat “cannot see it” in your mind. And if you cannot see it in your mind you cannot see it with your eyes because for you… it doesn’t exist.

23. Learn to always get to the future and cut people off. –

“Those skilled at making the enemy move do so by creating a situation to which he must conform; they entice him with something he is certain to take, and with lures of ostensible profit they await him in strength.”

• Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Over 2,400 years ago, Sun Tzu understood this yet when I discuss this and teach on this there are still people who roll their eyes and refuse to believe it. Yet a few minutes later they’re the same ones who ask me,

“How did you do that?”

I’m like, “Really? You’re shitting me right?”

Maybe, just maybe, if they paid attention to what I was trying to help them understand they would know, even more importantly maybe they’d be able to do it themselves.

Now, let us come to reason here. “The Future” is real it is a “real place” but you can only see it with your mind and feel it with your body.  If it were not true no one would be able to catch a baseball, a football, intercept a pass in basketball, let alone throw a ball to the right place. Combat is no different. Most people cannot understand what I just said because they have not allowed themselves the opportunity to sufficiently train it in the body to experience it. You want to learn to move in a way to get ahead of the movement of the other person. Without getting too Einsteinian, I will explain this. In order to appreciate this concept, you have to be willing to accept that there is a dimensional aspect of human movement that cannot be ignored. As the Grandmaster has stated to me before,

“It’s not so much that I get out of phase with people as it’s like I’m in another dimension. It’s kind of hard to explain because it’s not an exact thing and I’m really not thinking about it. I just go.”

Folks this is way cool…

You see if what we say about Guided Chaos as being based on the laws of physics and human physiology is true because that’s what we say! Then the understanding of how humans move within Time and Space (Space and Time same difference) is crucial to your understanding and development.

Everything takes time, anticipation takes time, striking takes time, being unavailable takes time, drooping takes time, yielding takes time, turning takes time, stepping takes time, pre-movement well… takes time. Everything takes time! The ability to move sooner, more efficiently, “better” within time and space in relation to your attacker is a huge advantage and a great equalizer when dealing with bigger, stronger and faster opponents. More importantly, the ability and understanding how to for lack of a better word, “manipulate” time and space in relation to an opponent is a huge advantage due to the relative nature of time and how it is perceived. As John has said to me thousands of times over the years,

“It’s all about the principles, ten percent more balance, ten percent more looseness or sensitivity is one-hundred percent advantage!”

For a more in-depth understanding of this please refer to, “Lessons from My Masters 11: Anticipation”.

Just understand that when you get to the future position “it already happened”. Meaning that whatever you were going to do because you are ahead of their movement you have pretty much cut off all of their options. Therefore, providing you’re willing to strike them it already happened because they don’t have enough time to respond.

24. Learn to move within your own body –

Holy cow, folks, you need to understand that there are a million things you can do and a million you can’t and that’s just the way it is. You must work to discover what you can and can’t physically do so that you know your limits and thus allow yourself time to develop what to do within the body you have and not try to be something in the body you’ll never be.

25. There are different states of looseness that range from vapor to liquid to ice –

“Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing.”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

There are a number of different ranges of Looseness or as I like to describe it as “physical states” that your body if you train it can operate in. The key is to develop your body in such a way where you can be all three, vapor, liquid, ice all at once and/or not at all. I know that’s as clear as mud but it is none the less true. I’ve covered this before in other blog posts so I won’t rehash it all here (see Lessons from My Masters 13: Looseness).

26. Don't drink your own bathwater –

“If we wish to wrest an advantage from the enemy, we must not fix our minds on that alone, but allow for the possibility of the enemy also doing some harm to us, and let this enter as a factor into our calculations.”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

This goes back to my comments about not creating rules that don’t exist. In other words, don’t get so caught up in your own BS that you no longer see what is real or right in front of you. You’re only deluding yourself when you do. Your enemy gets a vote and you should never forget that. Remember, when you’re in the bowl with all of the other nuts you don’t think you’re “a nut”. A lot of times you just don’t see it because you’re in it. Learn to step back or outside of the “nut bowl” and see what is there. In Greek mythology, Narcissus was said to have walked by a pool of water and decided to drink. Upon seeing his own reflection, he became entranced by it and eventually killed himself because he could not have the object of his desire. Other accounts have it that he died of neglect and starvation because he couldn’t steal himself away from the effulgence of his own gaze. Well… whatever the Hell the story the bottom line is it resulted in the same thing, “Dead!”  Remember, in real life what you don’t know can kill you. Don’t be “that guy”, don’t get caught up in your own BS, your “specialness” to the point where you can’t steal away from your own gaze.

27. When training learn to reach outside of yourself, take the leap of faith and discard fear –

“With the right attitude, self-imposed limitations vanish.”

• Alexander the Great

Too many folks can’t get to the promised land because they’ve placed a stumbling block before themselves before they even get started. Full of doubt about their abilities, full of doubt that others create in them and all sorts of naught-naughty, but it is all in their heads and bodies. 

“If you don’t believe you can do it then you can’t, you’ve got to trust your abilities.”

• Grandmaster Tim Carron

I was asked recently about being a Master in the art and I said something like,

“You know it’s not just about knowing things or being able to do things, those are all important and I’m not discounting them. The main thing is at the end of the day you’ve got to know for yourself and trust your abilities. They can’t get there because they don’t have the right attitude, they don’t believe in their own skill, they don’t trust their abilities. So they stand in their own way, or they chase after secret treasure not realizing that the Grandmaster reveals its location to them all of the time in his demonstrations.  You know, it’s not just a matter of training or experience or this or that, at the end of the day… it’s really a leap of faith.”

28. Don't let it happen in the first place –

“The worst calamities that befall an army arise from hesitation”

• Sun Tzu, The Art of War

99% of incidents, “99%” can be cut off from the inception of a movement but people wait until the situation has reached the point of no return before they act. Also, assume others know what you know it will keep you on your toes and from getting comfortable and cocky. So the question is,

If you already know you’re in the fight and that the other guy probably has the same idea as you what the hell are you waiting for?

Get there first and end it! Enough said on that.

29. Assume nothing –

“As for me… all I know is I know nothing.”

• Socrates

I once asked Grandmaster Carron,

“So Tim, do you think you’ve figured it all out?”

He replied, “No, but when you do… let me know.”

Brilliant answer…

Assume you know nothing, learn everything, take nothing for granted, anticipating the unexpected prepares you for the unexpected, expect the unexpected and win. Along these lines…

30. Train to win the fight. -

Train to kill, focus on making them have to kill you. Here, here!

31. Question everything. -  

“Learning is not child's play; we cannot learn without pain.”

― Aristotle

As one of my old college instructors, Prof. Besson use to say,

“Thinking is painful, and because we shy away from pain we shy away from having to think. Thinking is painful never forget it.”

Be curious, but be scientific. Endure the pain, search for an answer even if the answer is "I don't know” because sometimes the answer is "there is no answer" it just "is". Take the pain and do not be afraid to think.

32. Do not be afraid to make mistakes - 

“90% of genius is knowing what doesn’t work.”

• Thomas Alva Edison

This is a big one because people don’t like to fail, hey I’m in there with you on this one but understand. The faster you fail trying something, in the beginning, the sooner you learn how to correct it. This is especially true when training, it’s okay to make mistakes in training better to make them in the dojo then on the street in the fight for your life. Trust me combat is not the place to learn how to do things you could have already trained to and prepared for ahead of time. After all, isn’t that the point of training? You have to build it in upfront and it needs to be resident in your body beforehand otherwise it will not just “show up” when you need in under conflict.

33. Try not to "bend the spoon" for that is impossible, but instead learn to "bend you" and thus, bend their “perspective” –

“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Learn to develop attributes that throw the other guy off. Learn to “deceive” the enemy, “trick” the enemy, make him look like a “fool”, do “stupid” things. Provide him with the path to his own “destruction”, let him “lose. As Napoleon once said,

“When your enemy is making a mistake… don’t interrupt him.”

Be the “Road Runner” in your actions and let him become “Wyle E. Coyote” in his plans. There’s no such thing as a fair fight and fair fights are for suckers and the dead. Cheat, and win!

34. There is a dimensional aspect to this art –

Having personally experienced this I can tell you that this dimensional aspect allows you to move in a way that "alters" a person’s perception of time and space, but you have to believe it exists “first” in order to learn how to do it.  Most people don’t believe it so they can’t do it. Their loss…

35. More students have disabled themselves in their training because they've either said a thing can't be done, doesn't exist, or “have been convinced” it is not learnable –

“It is spiritless to think that you cannot attain to that which you have seen and heard the masters attain. The masters are men. You are also a man. If you think that you will be inferior in doing something, you will be on that road very soon.”

― Tsunetomo Yamamoto, Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

If it exists and people can do it then it can be learned. The real question is,

Are they capable of teaching others?

Are others on some level able to learn it?

Are they willing to learn?

If it is a principle or attribute, then it can be learned if it is a gift or a natural talent that someone has, then probably not. But you never find those answers if you are not even willing to seek them out. If you already defeat yourself with self-limiting talk even before the enemy takes up his sword against you, you are already defeated in battle. There are a million things you can do and million you cannot, and so it is true for your enemy. Focus on those you can do and understand there are limitations but don’t dwell on them and learn.

36. The right thing is always, always simple, that's why it's the right thing –

Pretty self-explanatory, truth is simple lies are complex.

37. Weapons are merely an extension of you and not the other way around. –

“The most well-made tools are worthless in the hands of those unskilled in their use.”

• Alexander the Great

I see this all the time, someone goes out and buys the “best gun”, the “best knife” to have or whatever. But they never try to become the best version of themselves to wield those weapons expertly. Interesting…

Listen, folks, I’m all about guns and knives and according to my wife, I probably own too many knives (just trying to match her shoe collection). But we have a saying in the Marine Corps,

“It’s not the dope on the rifle but the ‘dope’ behind the dope.”

It reminds me of what Mr. Marcassoni, my old violin teacher used to say to me “as fire flew from my fingertips as I rosined up my bow” (okay, I stole that last part from Charlie Daniels). “It’s a poor musician that blames his instrument”. This sort of reminds of the story behind how Jimi Hendrix remade “All Along the Watch Tower” and how he created the unique sound to the lead solo.

Now while I don’t consider myself a guitar virtuoso, I’ve been “known to pick a song or two”. Anyway, this being one of my all-time favorite songs I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how he was playing the part of his solo that sounds like he’s playing it on a slide guitar. I spent a fortune on slides and damn near broke my tremolo bar trying to figure it out.  Then one day a few years back there was an article in one of the guitar magazines that talked about that very thing and they said something along the lines of,

 “Hendrix was looking for a sort of Hawaiian sound for the lead but couldn’t quite get the sound he wanted with the slides. So he just started to pick up objects in the studio and would play with them until he found the right one… a cigarette lighter”. 

I’m like, “Oh yeah, right… of course a cigarette lighter what was I thinking”.

WTF?

What a genius this guy was!

I tell this story because, a) I like telling it and; b) because it points to the out that it isn’t about “the thing”, that at the end of the day “it’s just you” and that the “thing” whatever it is, is but an extension of you! You should seek weapons that function for you and not for flash or price. Musashi once slew a man in battle with a bokken fashioned out of a boat oar and many a man has met his doom at the business end of a prison shank made out of a “pork chop bone” or a piece of “Plexiglas”. The best rifle in the world kills no more effective than a cheaper one of the same caliber if you know what you’re doing. This you need to meditate on.

Well, that's it for this installment, I know this was way, way long but what the Hell this is the kind of stuff people keep asking me about so why not, it’s not like I’m taking any of it with me to the afterlife. I could discuss this type of stuff regarding training and proper instruction, “for days” and could easily write a whole book (approximately 308 pages long) alone on training and how to teach things. I'll probably cover more on training in my next installment. We’ll see.

As always, thanks. 

LtCol Al Ridenhour

Senior Master Instructor

GUIDED CHAOS

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