Lessons from My Masters: 42 Final Observations – The Sum of Battle

 

“Close combat, man to man, is plainly to be regarded as the real basis of combat.”

• Carl von Clausewitz

In this final installment I’m going to try to summarize and fuse some things together, not word for word mind you but to attempt, to be blunt, to reshape your thinking about how you view your own body. How you move within your body, how you perceive your presence when moving within your body, your presence in the world. As with all of this that I’ve discussed throughout this series, these are my interpretations of these things and mine alone as related to me by my Masters. Some of this is a repeat of what I’ve already discussed but so be it. Also, I’ve already discussed that these are my impression so people already know what they can do with their opinions.

Folks who have been following my Blog are familiar with the quote from Thucydides from his treatises on the war between Sparta and Athens known as “The History of the Peloponnesian War”. In it, he states that,

“All men are basically the same and he who is best is trained in the severest of schools.”

What was true then is still true today…

You’re either trained or you’re not, it’s really that simple and the sage words of Thucydides ring as true today as they did in 5th century BC. In his day as I’ve discussed before being a warrior was the highest level of attainment that an Athenian could achieve for no one was nobler and more admired than the man who could stand in the breach and protect his family, his nation, “Athens”.

In some accounts of Greek Mythology, even the lineage of the warrior was one revered with honor for example,

“A god and a human produced a demigod, a demigod and a human produced a warrior, a warrior, and a human produced a man…”

Even today with the resurgence of the warrior ethos you see a return a “yearning” for this way of thinking because in the way of the warrior are imbued all of the noblest traits that are most admired. Courage, faith, loyalty, selflessness, sacrifice.

This resurgence has led to the explosion of programs like CrossFit, Tough Mudder and Spartan Run and a whole host of warrior-like challenges and exercise programs and Boot Camps. Heck, there’s even an entertainment show that explores this called “Ninja Warrior” and the list goes on. This desire to endure challenges, hardships, to have our metal tested, to stand for something greater than ourselves should not be underestimated.

“Human nature is the one constant through human history. It is always there.”

• Thucydides

But there is something else that people have also deduced for themselves that the traits of the warrior also enable one to perform at a level that seems to exceed what we think we are capable of. That there is a “mindset”, a thought process that transcends what our physical bodies seem to be able to accomplish, that thing that separates two people of relative equal physical ability yet their performance is literally as far apart as Heaven is to Hell.

It is this mindset, this philosophy this “spirit” that I speak to because it is what truly separates out what makes something a “combative art” versus “a sport” and is the underlying philosophy, the etymology of what I’m talking about here.

I recently had a conversation with Professor Robert Weisberg, who runs the Criminal Justice Department at Stanford University at a meeting on criminal justice reform. And we got on the subject of self-defense and the issue of how people if they defend themselves and what their actions should be if and when they have to interact with the police. Anyway, he asked me,

“So in all your years doing this (self-defense instruction) what’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned about teaching people how to defend themselves?”

I said something like,

“You know most people that I teach, true they want to learn how to fight and that’s mainly because they also have a lot of reasons including fear that they are trying to overcome, which makes sense because that’s how many of us got into self-defense in the first place. But the truth is they really don’t want to fight unless they have to. They want to learn enough to be able to protect their family and themselves if they need too. I think the most surprising thing is, what they are really looking for above all, is ‘permission to fight back!’ They want the solace of knowing that it is okay to fight back against the bad guys and that bad guys are not gods nor invincible. That it’s okay to want to crush them if they had to without any mental reservations or hesitation if it comes down to them making a choice between their family or them.”

He said, “You know I never thought of it that way but it makes sense.”

 

There Is No New Thing Under the Sun

“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun.”

• Ecclesiastes 1:9 KJV

As I discussed in previous posts “The Dokkodo” or "The Way of Walking Alone" it was written by Miyamoto Musashi one week before dying, for the occasion or preparing for his death Musashi was giving away his possessions. The Dokkodo was given to Terao Magonojo, his most skilled disciple in the system he would call Niten-Ichi-Ryu. After the Go-Rin-No-Sho, The Dokkodo or just “Dokkodo” is the summary of Musashi's life, his will and his philosophy. Like the Dokkodo, Go Rin No Sho, The Art of War, Hagakure, and on and on. Reinforce the mindset required for war and developing the mind and character of the warrior if one is to prevail in battle.

“Every age has its own kind of war, its own limiting conditions and its own peculiar preconceptions.”

• Carl von Clausewitz

There are perhaps thousands of different systems of martial arts dating back to the earliest man. Granted while in the west mostly due to the aftermath of WWII, the martial arts have taken on the persona as being all things Asian. Any casual reading on the history of the fighting arts and you will discover that techniques that have become synonymous with the Asian martial arts made popular today through movies and sport fighting. Date back and have been recorded on record to the earliest days of the Egyptians and perhaps even earlier than that.

Depending on your definition of martial arts, wrestling is probably the oldest combat technique in history with the earliest depictions of wrestling dating back to Egypt circa 2000 BC – however, wrestling probably dates back to the early days of humanity as statues older than the Egyptian images show what can only be people engaged in hand-to-hand combat.

We know from the bible that Jacob wrestled with an angel in Genesis 32:22–32; this even is also referenced in Hosea 12:4.

From the paper, “Brief History of Martial Arts” we read that,

“…Martial arts are commonly associated with East Asian cultures but are by no means unique to Asia. Throughout Europe there was an extensive system of combat martial arts, collectively referred to as Historical European martial arts, that existed until modern times and are now being reconstructed by several organizations while Savate is a French kicking style developed by sailors and street fighters. In the Americas, Native Americans have a tradition of open-handed martial arts, that includes wrestling and Hawaiians have historically practiced arts featuring small and large joint manipulation, a mix of origins occur in the athletic movements of Capoeira that was created in Brazil by slaves, based on skills brought with them from Africa.”

The point is the techniques and concepts that surround the fighting arts are not new and are an ever-evolving thing. More importantly no cultural has a monopoly on the truth of what works and why.

You see while there is a plethora of fighting arts dating back to antiquity the one thing that has not changed is the human body. Folks the human body is the human body and has been that way since the dawn of man, and depending on when you lived, what types of weapons you had to face, the technology available at the time, etc. Those are the things that really determined how and why an art either formed or was shaped.

Now, the teachings of my Masters in my view are “timeless” because they represent concepts of human body movement for combat that are perhaps thousands of years old but never quite explained in a logical fashion where they are accessible to the average person. This is important because once again in my view throughout history many a great martial art or technique has probably been lost because ether the information was held by only the elite class, in the minds of only a small sect of practitioners or was never written down in the first place. So there was no way to truly know what some ancient master actually meant when he said something that today seems like gibberish to us. In other words, when people died they took whatever they knew to the grave.

These concepts point to a fundamental truth that as stated previously but really needs to be reiterated, “the human body is the human body” and whether you believe we were “created” or we evolved from the primordial soup one thing is certain. Humans haven’t changed for tens of thousands perhaps millions of years. The art of Guided Chaos as created by Grandmaster Perkins and as taught to me by Grandmaster Perkins and Grandmaster Carron represents in my view an achievement that, sadly is lost on many including practitioners of the very art itself. For it reveals something that Martial Artist have chased for thousands of years and that is a method of training that develops a person in the body “first”, instead a set of techniques or tools that men can use.

I once had a very interesting conversation with a good friend of mine who is an Internal Arts Master and we were discussing this very thing. And I offered him my theory on why and how certain martial arts developed and why you really need to focus on training in combative arts for life and death combat.

My theory goes like this:

“The fighting arts no matter what the time in history develop out of necessity based on the nature of the threat and the weapons people faced. Over time while technology and weapons changed there were those who clung to the old ways of doing things and training for combat. Many traditional martial arts today have their roots in actual combative techniques whose meaning and application was lost through the centuries due to advances in technology and changes in how to use weapons of war. So what doesn’t make sense to us today as to why a person may train with a certain traditional weapon or continues to train using certain techniques at one time in history they made perfect sense.

The other thing is when you look at a person say performing a form or a technique from an old drawing we always have to remember that we are looking at a 2 dimensional representation of 3 dimensional images so, in order to show motion, the images had to be drawn in a way where all of the movements were exaggerated so that we could see there were actual movements taking place. Sort of like how motion is depicted in comic books.

In other words, when you are looking at an image of say someone doing a Karate or Kung Fu form or even boxing, what you are looking at is the beginning and end movement of something taking place. What you can’t see and will never know are the 5,000 other things taking place from point A to point B simply because at the time it was not practical to draw an image of every possible movement of what was taking place. In truth with a lot of this stuff when we interpret a form even if we have the written explanation of a technique we are only at best making an educated guess as to what was really happening. Remember when many of these techniques were developed it was at a time before film and smart phones so we really don’t know, we can only give them the benefit of the doubt.”

This is important to our understanding because it is also at the root of why so many people get caught up in the nonsense of “my Kung Fu is better than your Kung Fu…” and other “dick measuring” contests that have nothing to do with actual fighting. My point is “context” is important and you can’t look at something and automatically assume that just because it has no practical application today that it didn’t at one time in history.

Techniques that as currently taught in a variety of fighting systems dominate their systems and place an over-emphasis on their development in an almost “cultish fashion”, which in my view actually make people “slaves” to the technique, slaves to the system, slaves to outdated at times techniques that no longer are applicable because the very nature off battle has changed, slaves to even stupid techniques that are more show than actual combative techniques.

And, even worse, “punishes” those who dare attempt to unplug from The Matrix.  The lure of chasing the White Rabbit down the hole, as far as the eye can see yet knowing that it is far deeper than they can imagine. Is not enough to convince them there is more than what is before them. Their sense of wonder and curiosity has left them. For many of us in our 50s and older, from the first time, we saw “Sword of Doom”, “Enter the Dragon” or the “Five Deadly Venoms” the idea of having almost supernatural unbeatable skills. Drew us towards the martial arts and led us down this path and of course like virtually all of us having the ability to “kick that ass” was even more important.

“Men, in general, are quick to believe that which they wish to be true.”

• Julius Caesar

You see every man is right in his own eyes and wants to believe, no, correction… has to believe that what he does is for real otherwise he feels foolish for both the monetary as well as emotional investment he made in his chosen art. He has convinced himself that his way is “the way” the right path. The path to Heaven, to Valhalla and that he hasn’t burned his money investing in fool’s gold.

 

It’s Just You

 “Self-reliance is the best defense against the pressures of the moment.”

• Carl von Clausewitz

Guided Chaos flips this way of thinking on its head because it develops “the person” whereas all else are but tools, things, to be used and put away or discarded if need be because it is not the technique that dictates what the man does, but what the man chooses to do with the technique. The hammer doesn’t control the hand that wields it, the anvil must obey the blacksmith, and the soul given to the blade that is forged in the process must submit to the lordship of the swordsman for it is just an ornament, a ceremonial fixture, an expensive paperweight until taken up in his hand.

As a student of Guided Chaos or any art for that matter you must never become subservient to technique but use the principles of the art to “transcend” technique. you must “…see the science in the art and the art in science”. Many talk about it but few ever get there. Yes, yes… I know there are folks who are going to read this and say “well of course I’m not wedded to technique”, then they will return to their schools and engage in the very sin that I’m exposing here. Placing form over function, how something looks versus the results.

“Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can fly.”

• Napoleon Bonaparte

You see, our bodies are capable of moving in an almost unlimited number of directions within the natural range of motion of what they can do. Given this the questions I have are,

Why would you train in a fashion that limits what your body is capable of?

Why limit what you can do in your body based on the assertions others?

Why would you hold yourself back from that which is possible?

If you are the master of your motion why would you surrender that in a real fight?

I could go on but you get the point. Grandmaster Perkins has really stumbled onto something and in my view, we are going to be unpacking this for a very long time and probably after most of us have passed into the afterlife. The whole idea that you are the master of your own motion as alluded to in the last blog post, is one of the major keys to unlocking the knowledge of the martial arts that has “eluded” people for centuries and perhaps longer.

 

Developing Your Body for Battle

“God has given to man no sharper spur to victory than contempt of death.”

• Hannibal

The whole “concept” of developing my body to move in a way to get ahead of another person movement in time and space where they can do nothing to affect me (unavailable) I’ve always found to be way cool. Because when I get ahead of them and I’m in the place they needed to prevent me from getting to in the first place. It prevents them from doing anything about what I’m doing (unavoidable) because they don’t have enough time to do anything about it because they’re in the wrong place in time and space.

“In short, absolute, so-called mathematical, factors never find a firm basis in military calculations. From the very start, there is an interplay of possibilities, probabilities, good luck and bad, that weaves its way throughout the length and breadth of the tapestry. In the whole range of human activities, war most closely resembles a game of cards.”

• Carl von Clausewitz

In addition to this as I’ve discussed before there is a dimensional almost “paradoxical” aspect to this art that allows you to move in a way that "alters" a person’s perception of time because our perception of time is just that, a perception. So it allows you to create a disorienting effect on the way they experience your movement. As von Clausewitz states,

“In the whole range of human activities, war most closely resembles a game of cards.”

This is because these same factors are in effect for your enemy as well, and like I always say in a real fight the enemy gets a vote. However, there is something else at play here and this is key, you have to believe it exists first in order to learn how to do it. Folks, I have to tell you, 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. Nonsense! If it exists and people can do it then it can be learned. The real question is, are they capable of teaching others?

 

On Flow

When we discuss the Contact Flow exercise I think the thing that always trips people up in at least in my opinion is the purpose of it and what it is designed to do. In summation it is your ability to control your Balance that allows you to remain Loose which allows for your body to respond and deal with a variety of things based on what you feel and perceive through your Sensitivity which culminates in a type of Body Unity where you can move freely within your Sphere of Influence to deal with another person motion from a multitude of possible positions in relation to your body. This allows you to experience a level of freedom or as we call it, Freedom of Action. That allows for infinite possibilities within the natural range of motion within your body.

At a certain point if done correctly you begin to reach the point of “Creativity” in which it doesn’t really matter what they do because if you can get ahead of their movement. They cannot move fast enough to deal with your motion because “it” already happened. When I listen to people at times describe Contact Flow as either “this” or “that” it blows my mind that after all the things they’ve seen the Grandmasters do over the years that they still don’t get it and that is it is an exercises that allows you to develop your body to deal with the chaos of a real confrontation within the body you have. This is important because there are other things to consider.

 

Learning to Get Outside of Yourself

“You become strong by defying defeat and by turning loss into gain and failure to success.”

• Napoleon Bonaparte

Now… there is another way of thinking, a way to view these things, a way in which how you view them gives you “in my view” the tactical advantage in battle. A way to transcend technique a way to transcend physical ability or our limitations.

There are two things here as I see it. There is our “physical capability” and our “intellect” and where they intersect is this thing we call “Talent”. Depending on how much of each you develop depends on how much you will be able to do with the body you have to a certain point. No matter who you are we all have a physical “genetic” limitation on how far we can take our physical capabilities or more commonly referred to as “physical talent”. I believe the key to being able to push past our perceived or actual limitations is this ability to first accept them and that they exist and then look at ways though the principles of the art of Guided Chaos to overcome them. For example, in the charts below, I attempt to lay this out in an easier manner to understand. Just stay with me here.

 

“Many things which nature makes difficult become easy to the man who uses his brains.”

• Hannibal

 

 

 

 

“Perception is a tool that's pointed on both ends.”

• Hannibal

 

“I will either find a way or make one.”

• Hannibal

 

Anticipation: The Ability to Speed Slowly

“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

I don’t care who you are. If you’re a fan of the old-time martial arts movies there is one quality that the masters or the heroes of these movies all had in common. And that was the ability to almost “supernaturally perceive” the enemies’ intentions and get ahead of their movement in a way where no matter what they did they could easily strike an opponent at will. Along with having incredible striking power it is one of the things that intuitively every martial artist desires.

Think of it like this, if you could discern a person’s intentions before they could get their stuff off what’s that worth to you?

This is what I’m talking about here an ability to get ahead of the movement of others in a way where they are playing catch up to your movement, where you move in a way that influences how they move to a point that they cannot keep up.

Now think of having the ability to do this where it all happens in the blink of an eye?

This is what I’m talking about, this is as I’ve said elsewhere that thing where Grandmaster Perkins talks about how he “fakes” people out.  To possess in the body this ability to do this, without thought but to just be able to move like this at will.

Again, what is that worth to you?

Remember, you’re training to fight for your life so what I’m talking about here is something where while there is a technique to it is something that allows you to transcend technique. You see when you can get there first it really doesn’t matter what you do because they don’t have enough time to do anything about it anyway. This is what it truly means to get to the future on a person.

As I’ve stated in previous blog posts, once you arrive at The Future you are able to “anticipate possibilities and probabilities” of the other person’s actions which, I refer to this as the "6th Dimensional Aspect of Combat".

Since you are able to get ahead of another person’s movement (The Future), because they don’t have enough “Time” (4th Dimension) to react to your movements you are able to anticipate their actions to a high degree of probability (6th Dimension), which creates what I call "multiple opportunities” or “possible futures” for you in which each future option is generally the right answer. In addition, if you can get to the future your ability to predict possibilities and anticipate probabilities increases exponentially because your movement is causing and influencing how they are reacting to your movement.

In other words, it has an inverse effect where it significantly narrows their options while exponentially increasing yours.  Every move they make theoretically has already been countered because as Grandmaster Carron would say, “You’re just dealing with motion”. Or as Grandmaster Perkins would say,

“Your movement becomes my movement, your push my pull… your isolation my isolation… your ghost my ghost…”

And so on…

This level of anticipation or the 6^th Dimensional Aspect of Combat allows you to be fast even when you move slowly because you begin to develop your timing where you move “sooner”, more “efficiently” and always to the right place. Thus negating much of their ability to use their speed or the element of surprise against you. It is because while their body may be faster than yours their body once you are in this state is not faster than your mind can make another “choice”. The sooner you recognize this in the body the sooner you can make these choices. It is this ability that allows more advanced practitioners the ability to get ahead of things on others because through training they are able to make these choices sooner and in rapid succession before the other person is able to adapt. 

This choice, by the way, is not a conscious choice but one that through proper training is outside of conscious awareness because it resides in the body, but you have to first know how it works, then you have to practice it until it reaches the stage of unconscious consciousness. If what I’m saying is not true, because there are folks who will not understand what I just said, then how does a matador defeat a bull in the bullfight?

How does a baseball player hit a ball moving 90 mph where he can’t even see the ball within the last 15’feet as it crosses the plate?

He anticipates it. It is the ultimate ability to play where the puck is going to be and not where it is.

Now think of how much more you can learn to get ahead of movement against a person who you may already have direct contact with?

This is what folks who have tried to apply the OODA loop to self-defense have tried to explain but have failed to adequately explain it because they do not understand that this process is happening in real-time “simultaneously”. Thus why I refer to it as “dimensions” and not levels or steps because they are not sequential.

“Knowledge must become capability.”

• Carl von Clausewitz

The key though is you have to think differently in practice so that you can train your body to do this, to where it resides in the body because it cannot reside in the mind. You also have to accept how the universe works if you are to understand this. In other words, what I am saying here is scientific fact not theory but "fact" a “theorem” of how things work once humans are in motion against one another. To deny the universe is to deny reality.

I really don’t think people appreciate the significance of this because in my view this is the essence of what you’re trying to develop in the body when you practice the exercises, especially when doing Contact Flow. I do not say this lightly but I say this because I know this based on the type of things that people tell people when showing them Contact Flow or when pointing things out to them during “Flow”. They show them techniques but give little consideration to the mechanisms and even more importantly the “context” in which the information is presented so they cannot practice in the right context how to do these things.

They show them these “one-off” techniques as if they are representative of the entire art and want to call it good but in truth because of the way in which they present the information they have actually in effect closed their minds off to the possibility of what could be. Understand that everything that you are capable in your body, no matter what your physical condition or ability, already exists. No more no less.

You know before we went to the Moon it was just a dream, an idea… and then we did it.

Before the sound barrier was broken it was just an idea, a theory and then we did it.

It was believed at one time that no human could run a mile faster than 4:00 minutes. People even theorized that a person’s heart would give out running at that pace for that distance. Nowadays the 4:00 min mile at the world-class level is common amongst the top runners. 

The idea of splitting atoms while viewed as theoretically possible was just that, a “theory” until we did it. Did you know that one of and I believe it was the first atomic test ever done we didn’t even use explosives? We just dropped weight on the device and slammed two pieces of Uranium together and as we know the rest is history.

I could go on and on with examples but you get the point, and the same is true for developing your body for fighting.

Those possibilities already exist whatever they are. The key is learning how to develop your body to be able to access these possibilities without thought. Not impossible but you cannot do it if you’ve already closed off your mind that they even exist in the first place. They do not anticipate the unexpected so they do not find it.

Personally, I find it ironic that in an art that emphasizes freedom of action and creativity through the principles of the art, that in an art where we are constantly talking about what is “the art of the possible”, where we hold “truth” and “reality” in fighting in the highest regard. That some of the most closed-minded people around are the very practitioners of the art itself.  

People telling people to focus on one or two things or concepts to the exclusion of all else creates a box around people. One of my favorite pet peeves is people telling people to “always stay with the hands”. Then when the person starts pushing their hands they tell them they are pushing too much. The same is true with telling people to always stay behind the guard, and then when people create this what I call “fear bubble”, this artificial space where they will not let people get past they wonder why these students push all of the time. It’s not that these things are wrong it is the way they are presented in which they do not close the loop on the training so the person gets caught up in the “doom loop” where they vacillate back and forth between what they were told and the reality that is before them.

Gee… so when do you get around to hitting people? I thought that was the point?

I had a person recently ask me about something I did in training and he asked,

“Well, how does that work if we’re moving for real like a real fight?”

So… I showed him. Oh yeah… he got the point it would be fucking “over”, but I said,

“You see what I did? You know why I can do that? Because I ain’t fucking around. Get it in your head, if I have to go there it’s going to be like that. What’s more important though is can I train you to do it in your body. Never mind if I can do it, can I help you get there because as an Instructor if I can’t then or don’t at least try then I’m not helping you and I really need to find something else to do. Understand that speed is speed and full speed whatever that is for you be you, good guy or bad guy, is full speed and even if you’re under adrenalin full speed is still full speed. More importantly, if you can move fast under adrenalin then. If you can absorb tremendous punishment under adrenalin, then so can I because we are both human. You’re either trained or you’re not. What it comes down to is who has the fucking will to go there.

If this were not true, then how is it when we go to combat against people who allegedly have more combat experience than us they get crushed? It’s because they are not as well trained. Moreover, just because you have experience doesn’t mean it was the right kind of experience. Also, it does you no good to have and experience good or bad if you didn’t learn a fucking thing from it! This is one of the problems with this way of thinking people assume because they have had the experience that they somehow have an advantage, but if you learned nothing from it then the experience was at best overrated.”

There’s other shit I could talk about along these lines but I’m not going to go there.

Now, don’t get me wrong once again there is nothing wrong with these “techniques” as long as they are framed in the proper context when taught and not taught in a manner as if they are “absolutes”. But that’s what they do…

“All bad precedents begin as justifiable measures.”

• Julius Caesar

They may not mean it that way but that’s the way present it so the effect of closing off people’s minds is all the same. This is a terrible thing to do because what we are teaching people are not a bunch of cool tricks but skills that could save their very lives. Imagine going to a gun range to learn how to shoot a gun for self-protection, but the things you are taught are presented in a contradictory and confusing manner? This is in my view criminally negligent. Same difference here…

When you develop your powers of anticipation to perceive the subtle “adumbration” to gain that “foreshadowing of movement”. To know where to play where the puck is going to be before they even know where they are going because you are leading them to that place by virtue of being ahead of their movement. Remember, once you reach the stage of “Creativity” (the 7^Th Dimensional Aspect of Combat) it becomes almost impossible for them to follow you because you don’t even know where you are going to go next. And if you don’t know where you are going to go next they damn sure as hell cannot know nor follow you. “This” is the essence of pure Flow! To know in the body without having to be consciously aware of what you have to do because the ability already resides in your body. to know without knowing and always being right.

What is that worth to you? This is what I’m talking about!

Why would you not want to have this ability? That’s all I’m saying. 

When dealing with another person’s motion this by the way is what I’ve dubbed in the past as 5^th Dimensional Chess (5D Chess), since unlike 2D and 3D Chess in 5D Chess all of the pieces are moving at the same time. This is why Time becomes a crucial factor. This is why once you get ahead of them for the most part they cannot catch up, they have to move with their body in a way to stop everything. There are just too many monkey wrenches being thrown at them at the same time to deal with them all.

In my view, this is how you want to be able to move but understand it is just as much a mental process as it is a physical thing, probably 90% mental and 10% physical.

When you train you want to keep these concepts in mind to help focus the body’s movements on your intent. This is only for training purposes to focus your mind to direct your body to move in the proper manner. Again as in my previous charts, the body follows the mind and the body reinforces what the mind perceives which reinforces the movements in the body and so on. You cannot, I repeat, cannot separate the two. 

So, how you employ your skills through the principles is relative to how your body on a functional level moves and how you employ the principles of the art are based on a functional level how your body moves. Conversely, how they interact with your body is relative to how your body moves in relation to how they are moving their body and so on.

In this state of flux because you are both always playing off of each other’s body and movement like the “mongoose” fighting the “Cobra”. When you interact with another person, you cannot “not” feel what their body is doing and they cannot, not feel what your body is doing. This is that communication that the Grandmaster was talking about. Back and forth over and over, yin/yang, unavailable/unavoidable.

This is why when training students that people really want to focus on developing their body as best as they can. As an instructor one of the most important things you can do is teach people to the best of your ability to do on a fundamental level. So for example, when I train people in whatever the skill is they want to learn I always try to show them, to the best of my ability, what I’m actually doing. Now, the truth is there are a million things my body is doing that I really don’t know what I’m doing when I’m doing it because there is no way to know it. in other words, there are things that in truth I really don’t know how I do them. I call it, “just shit I can do”.

“The mongoose I want under the stairs when the snakes slither by.”

• Hannibal

This concept of getting ahead of movement or as Tim used to say, “Don’t let it happen in the first place”, is actually alien in the martial arts which is why as I’ve stated in previous blog posts you really want to stay away from cookie-cutter solutions when trying to teach people how to deal with something that is chaotic at best where there is generally no time for "fight by the numbers" when it’s for real. Like Hannibal states above this way of looking at things places you in a state of preparedness, not paranoia but preparedness in case, “…the snakes slither by.”

I've seen over the years in the martial arts where on the one hand people discuss how a real fight is then, on the other hand, they train people in a manner where they keep pushing them back into a box.

How are they to ever really going to learn how to ride a bike and see what they can do on a bike if you won’t ever let them take off the training wheels?

Why would you want to deny someone all of the possible freedom of action and movement the human body has to offer when their very lives may depend on it?

How are they to know and find the unexpected, if you don't allow them the freedom to explore the possibility how do they know they can even do it?

But I digress.

“There, where I have passed, the grass will never grow gain.”

• Attila the Hun

This is why it is "essential" that as you train you want to develop the Warrior Mindset, the Ruthless Intent, the Moral Certainty, the Mushin Mind, "the Will" to go there. The ability where in your mind, "No matter if the enemy has thousands of men, there is fulfillment in simply standing them off and being determined to cut them all down..."

You want to develop the will to take as many of them if necessary to the afterlife as humanly possible. In all you do in your training it must always be in the back, front, side, middle or wherever you store shit in your head. This mindset needs to be there. It should be overflowing and seeping into every part of your body until it reaches a stage of unconscious competence where everything you do when you go into action falls to your will. 

 

Freedom to Create

“Where does the swordsman strike? Nowhere…”

• Takuan So Ho, The Unfettered Mind: Writings of the Zen Master to the Master Swordsman

Freedom of Action is not just freedom of movement but “freedom of thought or mind” and at the pinnacle is “Creativity”. It starts with an understanding of what you can do within your body and how you learn through your development how to apply the principles of Guided Chaos.

Understand…

Freedom of Thought = Freedom of Movement = Freedom of Action = “Creativity”.

  

 

 

“Two qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that, even in the darkest hour, retains some glimmerings of the inner light which leads to truth; and second, the courage to follow this faint light wherever it may lead.”

• Carl von Clausewitz

Along these lines when it comes to developing the mind for battle it is crucial to develop our Creativity. I briefly mentioned it before but now I want to delve into it a little more.  While we discuss the principle of Freedom of Action, I believe that the ability to move freely, to act without conscious thought (Unconscious Competence) in what we are doing is actually a byproduct of “Creativity”.  Creativity in my view is a “thought process” every bit as much as mimicking or modeling what already works. It is a way of thinking based on what is known, (sometimes unknown where we make educated guesses) and how things work but it also resides in the body.

“Talent and genius operate outside the rules, and theory conflicts with practice.”

• Carl von Clausewitz

For true creativity, you have to leap beyond what is before your eyes and other senses and see what is there but cannot be seen. In other words, in order to get to that place where you can make the logical inferences to get ahead of the other guy you need to develop some wisdom on these matters. However, in order to develop this wisdom, I believe that you do you have to also develop your powers of observation on these things. You also want to be scientific, logical, curious and honest, about learning and developing yourself to the highest levels in order to not go off the deep end and get lost in your own BS. But remain grounded in reality.

A part of Creativity I believe is the ability to perceive that which has not happened yet, to get a glimpse of the future, to see it in your mind, to know it in your body, and play where the puck is going to be. Creativity is hard because it feels like it comes out of the “ether” out of the "nothing". It seems to us as if it just shows up and then “poof” it’s gone. Thus is the nature of such things. One thing I want to point out though, as in my last blog post where I spoke about how things are not as “random” as people think. In fact, dare I say that Creativity is anything but random it only seems random to our senses at times and definitely it seems random to other people as they look through the kaleidoscope you have created for them to look through. Also, there is an assumption that creativity does not require any thought I don’t agree.  I think there is thought to it but it is at a level that we are not consciously aware of but once again based on a set of facts or a body of knowledge that is already known where a person is capable of making logical deductions to create a solution to a problem etc.

I can remember when I was in Afghanistan in a city called “Now Zad” and in the center of the city was an area called “T-72 Alley”. This was because there was an old Russian tank left behind by the Soviets sitting in the middle of the city. When I went down to the center of the city I was taken back by what I saw. They had taken the tread off of the tank and created a belted chain that fit over the gear that turned the tread. That chain went to another gear that turned a “stator” which generated electricity that went to what looked like an old “pole transformer”. (For those that don’t know what that looks like these are those cylindrical containers you see on the top of telephone poles that step the power down so that the electricity to your house is reduced to a usable level).

From there were what seemed like a hundred wires going in all directions to the local shops in the market. Sort of like how people in the Bronx use to jury rig power from city light poles and steal electricity from the city. Attached to the tank were a number of 55 gallon drums with hoses going into the fuel tank. What would happen is every morning a guy would walk out, check the equipment and start-up the tank and when the gear was engaged it turned the stator, and all of the lights in the market came to life.

Pure genius.

“Do not underestimate the power of an enemy, no matter how great or small, to rise against you another day.”

• Attila the Hun

This is what I mean by creativity but understand that without an understanding of electrical power and some understanding of how mechanical devices work there is no way you could even begin to contemplate how to do something this creative. When I was in the Marine Corps no matter where I went in the world one thing I learned is that whatever looks stupid to you and I or makes no sense to us. In their culture “makes perfect sense” and until you understand the culture you really don’t know what the hell you are talking about. I’ve seen guys who were so creative they could make bombs out of cake mix, two rubber bands, and a fucking paperclip. In one of my last jobs in the military, I was the Director of the Improvised Explosive Device Working Group for the Marine Corps. If it existed as a bomb we probably already knew about it and how it worked.

I will not get into any methods of how homemade explosives are made but trust me when I tell you that there are methods of making explosives with household items that you have never heard of that would blow your mind! There are people in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria etc. who when it comes to fieldcraft and process methods could give almost any Ph.D. chemist a run for his money. Their understanding of chemistry in some cases far exceeded anything we thought they were capable of. Their ability to use electronics and make remote devices or use passive infrared sensors to detonate IED’s was off the chart ingenious.

My point is this level of creativity no matter how impressive is still built on a foundation of knowledge that mostly resides at the unconscious competence level of thought. Which leads me to believe that Creativity is a thought process, a way of thinking that I believe and I could be wrong about this (but I don’t think so), can be learned if a person is willing to develop their knowledge and powers of observation to the point where they start playing where the puck is going to be. This is what I mean by being able to take the leap of faith at times and just going for it.

I was working with a student recently and after I did something that surprised him I asked him,

“How do you think I did what I just did?”

He replied, “Well you felt what I was doing and you were able to cut me off.”

I said, “Well that’s partly true… but the truth is the reason I was able to cut you off was because I put you there.”

At this point he’s looking at me like I had three heads but I explained along the lines of,

“How I did that was I moved in a way where it caused you to react in a manner where, once you moved it narrowed down the choices where you could go so it made you movement more predictable. In other words, I put you there. Remember, if I can lead you in training to the right place I can also lead you to the ‘wrong place’. This is what John talks about all of the time when he says he fakes people out. In other words, I deceive you with my movement. You see in a real fight I’m not going to give you a chance to even get your stuff of. Not if I can help it.”

I continued,

“Here’s the deal ... because I know how it works and how the universe works if I get ahead of your movement it’s over.  Like the catcher in the baseball game as John has said if I know where the ball has to go all I have to do is anticipate it an ‘catch’ the ball. If I know where you have to go or where to be to harm me I just don’t let you get there. Don’t even play yourself. Also, because I know what I can do for the most part and definitely what I can’t with my body I don’t worry about trying to do things I can’t do and focus on what I can. Because I can’t do anything about what I can’t do anyway, so I don’t dwell on it. This is what I mean when I talk about people trying to pound square pegs into round holes. I look for ways based on what I know, to find ways to work around my limitations. And I try to separate out what is a physical advantage versus what is an aspect of the art that allows me to make things work.

If it’s just something that I can do either because of some sort of natural talent or physical advantage, then I try to not overly rely on it because it’s always there. But also it can become a psychological crutch if I rely on it too much. (This is one of the conundrums when you have a physical advantage over people. Overly relying on it versus developing skill). Also, I try not to teach people to do things that they probably can’t do given their body type. This is because we all have physical limitations as to what we can do and its’ all relative depending on who you are dealing with.

The key is to develop yourself where if possible it really doesn’t matter because as John says you want to be unavailable yet unavoidable. Tim had it right where he always assumed that people were stronger and faster than he was. It allowed him to neutralize their advantages because he never made himself vulnerable to their strength by resisting against it. And he neutralized their speed by anticipating their movement and always moving first to where he knew he needed to be ahead of them to cut them off (i.e., don’t let it happen in the first place).

This is the essence of the analogy of the matador in the bullfight. He’s not stronger, faster or more agile than the bull but he defeats the bull because he’s got a bigger brain which allows his mind to get ahead of the bull but this is based on a level of knowledge, experience and a lot of fucking nerve. But the matador understands what makes him vulnerable is what appears to make him safe (i.e., running from the bull) and what seems to make him vulnerable is what actually is what protects him and that is allowing the bull to get close to him while remaining unavailable to the bull. From a purely physical standpoint if you can do it with a bull you can do it with a person.”  

I went on (hey, I was on a roll),

“Remember, the reason, the whole reason, the only fucking reason, for training in a martial art is to be able to protect your life and that of your loved ones. In other words, you train to kick that ass. You’re not here I should hope to measure your dick or some other nonsense but to learn how to fight for your life. There should be nothing else. The only battle that truly matters is the one where your sword prevails in battle and the other guy goes to the afterlife.

All these folks caught up in the ‘Fight Club’ mentality are kidding themselves and are not developing the things they need to develop to win in combat because that’s what we’re talking about. Think about my Kaishuku here (I pointed to a fellow instructor who’s promised me an honorable death) he’s the smallest person here and has to use everything he’s learned to end the fight as quickly as possible. There is no room for him to play games with people he has to kill people or be killed, he ain’t got a lot of options. Yet notice, he never, ever waits for someone to move on him. With all due respect, let’s face it, he has the least physical ability of anyone here yet we all intuitively know if you have to deal with him you have to kill him because if he gets the drop on you it’s over.  You know why? Because he isn’t fucking around!

That’s where your mind needs to be, that’s what you want to be thinking about when training. When you move and train to fight as if your life depends on it it’s a different thing, a different movement, a different level of intention one that people can feel. You also begin to see things that you never had before because when your mind is in the right place those answers are available to you. This is where you begin to get glimpses of the future. This is where you begin to see where the puck is, where you need to be.  To see it in your mind but also feel it in the body before it happens. This is where you start becoming creative. As Heraclitus once said,

‘If you do not seek the unexpected you never find it’.” 

Creativity is all about seeking the unexpected, anticipating what can “be” based on what you know, looking outside of yourself for the answer. Taking the leap of faith in your abilities.

In a fight for your life, how creative would you want to be?

Why would you give up that level of creativity?

The Freedom of action?

Why would you give up that especially if it could literally mean life and death?

But in order to do this Creativity takes courage, the ability to act in the of face of fear. The ability to take the leap of faith and go against the grain. The ability to make the hard choices for yourself, to look in the mirror and do some introspection and take stock of yourself.  This in my view is the essence of what Guided Chaos is all about.

“Superficial goals lead to superficial results.”

• Attila the Hun

 

More, Pithy “Dokkodo-Like” Comments to Guide You in Your Development

Okay, I’m going to close out in the fashion of the Dokkodo where I’m just going to offer a number of comments in no particular order for people to meditate on and ponder. Most of this is stuff that you have heard but as with a lot of things in life, it’s not so much that we’ve heard it before. It’s that we don’t here certain things enough.

• Combat is about life and death, there should be no ambiguity in your mind about it
• All men are basically the same… never forget that
• If people can do it if it can be done… then it can be done…
• If you train the body right and you can do it slow then you can do it fast, provided that you at some point “practice to do it fast”
• Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you cannot do things at high speed with fine motor coordination. If you train to do it, you can do it. It is those who do not train in this fashion who believe it can’t be done
• The human body is the human body and we are all bound by the laws of nature no man is above them
• As long as it’s within the laws of physics and human physiology don’t ever let anyone tell you what you cannot do
• Adrenalin works as a natural anesthesia making people virtually impervious to pain, your attacker is human. If it works for your attacker, then it works for you. So, if your attacker can move at supernatural speed with supernatural strength under adrenalin then so can you. If this were not true, then the whole supposition of adrenalin being a force multiplier is a lie
• Full speed is “full speed” no matter what you do and speed changes the dynamic of movement, in a real fight, this is no different. Learn to appreciate the effects of speed on movement
• The way you train is the way you will fight, therefore train to fight for your life
• Train to the edge and not beyond it, so train as if your life depends on it because someday in may
• “Ruthlessness” trumps everything, learn to cultivate “Ruthless Intent” as best you can and “crush” your enemy
• Learn to summon all of the pain, hate, and discontent to strike without mercy, with righteous indignation, without joy, and destroy your attacker(s)
• What separates one man from another in battle is training and intent or “moral will”
• Regard your enemy as “prey” find a way around his strength, exploit his weakness and seek his head
• You must never hesitate, therefore no hesitation, no thought, no fear
• When everything is a target they are safe “nowhere”
• The enemy doesn’t want to die either it’s just a matter of who has the will to “go there”
• Learn to know what to fear and what not
• When you know what the right thing is to do be willing to do something about it
• Never take counsel of your fears but also never project them onto others who stand by your side
• Do my Masters exercises
• Make the exercises and the movements found in them, in all that you do, a part of your everyday activities
• Be adventurous, be curious, be playful, be scientific, be logical, but above all have fun
• Learn to see the science in the art of war and the art in the science of war
• Learn how to move within your own sphere and not beyond it
• Learn to always leave about 10% range of motion in your joints in all you do
• Learn to be “smooth:”, “graceful” in all you do
• Learn how to find space within “space”
• Learn how to track movement within “movement”
• Learn how to Isolate within “Isolation”
• Learn to recognize the impressions of others movements and get ahead of them and cut their movement off (e., don’t let it happen in the first place)
• Develop the body through the principles, train to fight for your life, do it until you can do it without thought
• Start slowly to train the muscles then gradually build up speed until you can do it without thought and control the over-travel in your movement
• Remember the person moving against you will close some of the distance for you as they enter. Learn to appreciate the “inverse relationships of movement” and make “their” movement “your” movement
• Focus on killing and nothing else. If you do this, you will not fall into the “trap” of only learning how to do things in order to win in class (don’t be a practice hero)
• The Fourth Dimensional aspect of Combat is known as “Time” learn to blend with it, use it, manipulate it to throw off their perspective of it
• The Fifth Dimensional aspect of Combat is the future. Learn how to get there and stay there
• By seeing the future, you get to the point of developing the ability to respond while thinking about what you want to do, as you do it, and before you do it
• In the future, every choice you make when you choose to strike is the right choice because “it” already happened
• Within the Sixth Dimensional aspect of combat, the ability to anticipate possibilities and probabilities creates the Seventh Dimensional aspect of Combat or what is known as “Creativity”. Where we can entertain multiple thoughts of what to do in a fraction of a second where each choice “is” a correct “option”
• Anticipation is a form of speed
• “Pre-Movement” is a form of anticipation and is the ability to do the thing you need to do before you do the thing you are going to do
• The Seventh Dimensional aspect of Combat is the state of “Creativity”. When you reach this state each choice is the right answer because they do not know why you made the choice you made when you made it
• At the Seventh Dimensional aspect stage, your opponent is just swinging”
• You must strive for 100% mastery over your movement
• Learn to “Stop Time” to buy yourself time, by stopping yourself
• “Slow Time” down to cause people to over-commit or miss
• Learn to “Speed Up Time” or change the tempo for the other person
• The slightest body realignment can cause people to freeze or stumble or totally miss you
• Develop the ability to root people to the ground from any angle
• Develop the ability to redirect people in an arching motion with little to no movement at any angle
• Learn to uproot people while barely touching them at any angle
• Learn to direct people with little to no contact to break their balance at any angle
• By taking the slack out of people’s body you can still move in multiple directions sometimes counter directions at the same time
• There is a paradoxical nature to Looseness which allows you to be hard and soft and all in between all at the same time (e., smoke, fire, steel, water, ice, wind, earth, vapor, shadow, etc.)
• Through the principles, you can learn to strike with equal power in multiple directions at the same time and then do it somewhere else
• The principles allow you to crush people where they stand with little to no movement
• You must learn to strike from any position through a person’s body with power even if they run
• The principles create the ability where we can strike multiple targets while moving exactly where we want to strike and when we want to strike them
• Disappearing while right in front of people or disappearing even when in direct contact with people is one of the ultimate skills within the art of Guided Chaos for it fixes them in place
• The principles allow the ability to appear to be everywhere and nowhere
• Through the principles, proper timing and a lot of nerve, you can stop larger stronger opponents with one hand
• Though the principles you can “out quick” faster people with but a touch
• Your ability to apply your Awareness you can feel a person’s intentions with or without contact before they can get their stuff off
• “Slight of Mind” allows you to isolate, tool replace, skim, slide, pulse, touch and go, redirect, uproot and strike all within a fraction of a second
• Through proper training even with a sudden fall, you can decide what to do, or not to do, as you fall to defeat the other person without getting hurt

Well, folks, that’s it for this. I want to thank you all for taking the time to read and respond to these Blog Posts over the past two years. I really hope you got something out of them and enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed writing about this stuff. If in the future I decide to add to this, then I will do so.

Thank you.

LtCol Al Ridenhour

Senior Master Instructor

GUIDED CHAOS

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